Fire kills and LEOs use real bullets, folks. Wake up. Life isn't a video game.

I’m often stunned by the sheer disconnect in our so-called modern society.

It’s bad enough that people wander down the halls and streets with their noses buried in their cell phones.

But even worse, people wander through life as if the whole world is just pixels on a screen, an endless LARP where consequences are optional and reloads are guaranteed.

Why else would someone scream in utter disbelief at the permanence of a bullet? Or cheer on flames devouring a crowded room like it’s the latest viral stunt?

This madness isn’t new, but it’s accelerating, and we need to call it out before we all glitch into oblivion.

Take the recent shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. As the victim lay dying, Good’s wife Rebecca blamed herself, but also cried out to the officers in heartbreaking confusion, “Why were you using real bullets?”

It’s a line that freezes you. Here’s a woman confronting the raw, irreversible finality of death, yet her brain defaults to questioning if this was some kind of drill or role-play. Are we so numbed by fake “screen” violence that real violence feels like a glitch in the matrix?

This isn’t one isolated data point; it’s a symptom of a broader problem. We’re living in an era where the line between the tangible and the virtual has been erased by endless screens, social media echo chambers, and augmented realities that promise a safe escape with no real consequences.

It’s tempting to think that this is a video game problem, but I doubt it — not completely anyway. Kids have been playing games where their character dies and respawns over and over since at least the 1980s.

No, this problem is new.

I blame social media, mostly. Kids and adults alike doom-scroll mindlessly through the dopamine delivery system that is the short-form video feed, then reflexively film atrocities for likes and shares instead of reacting to, (and acting in) the real world.

It’s all performance, all spectacle. I suspect this sick detachment is largely fueled by the fact that we are all bombarded with hyper-realistic images that desensitize us to actual peril.

We all got numbed to it as news cycles turned tragedies into entertainment, complete with slow-mo replays and expert commentary. Now, social platforms reward outrage over action, turning bystanders into zombified content creators.

Reflect on all the viral clips you’ve seen of street fights or disasters. People pull out phones first, help second — if at all. We’ve turned into never-ending LARPers. Everyone’s the hero of their own feed, but it’s all digital and fake.

Nobody’s saving the day — or even themselves.

Then there’s the tech overlords peddling VR headsets and metaverses, convincing many of us that digital realms are just as valid as the physical one — and may soon replace it.

Why face disappointing real life with its messy risks and relationships when you can curate a perfect avatar simulacrum? This gaslighting from Silicon Valley elites — pushing “immersive experiences” while the world burns — creates a cognitive surrender that’s turning us into zombies.

And there’s another big problem: the cultural shift toward infantilism. It’s not just the disastrous “helicopter mom” fad. Governments and institutions treat us like children, with safety nets and pernicious incentives that breed complacency. Bailouts for the reckless, no-bail for the violent — it’s all upside, no downside.

Stoics like Marcus Aurelius warned against this: Detach from reality, and you invite chaos. Yet here we are, with libertarian ideals twisted into “do whatever, no harm no foul,” forgetting the Non-Aggression Principle demands accountability.

I say all this to try to explain something absolutely horrific that happened a couple weeks ago.

On New Year’s Eve, in a packed nightclub in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, sparklers on champagne bottles ignited the ceiling foam, sparking a blaze that turned celebration into inferno. Forty people dead, over a hundred injured—many with life-altering burns.

But as the flames licked the walls, what did the party-goers do? They whooped it up, danced, and filmed the spectacle like it was part of the show. Witnesses described disbelief: “We thought it was a joke.”

I guess it is a joke. Ever hear the one about a species forgetting how to exist in the real world?

These poor fools. instead of bolting for the exits, they captured content, desensitized to the very real danger by a lifetime of scripted thrills. By the time the flashover hit — everything igniting in seconds—it was far too late.

How many lives could have been saved in that club if their instincts screamed “run” instead of “record”?

This is the madness: A collective delusion that life is a game and that consequences are optional. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. LARPing is delusional. Cops use real bullets. Fire isn’t “awesome content, man!” No. Fire kills.

All this insanity isn’t just tragic — it’s preventable. We need to wake up from this digital programming, folks. Demand better from the elites engineering this unreality.

Or better yet, learn to unplug. Reconnect with the tangible: Touch grass, face fears, hold yourself accountable for your existence right here in the real world.

If you don’t, the next “glitch” might be your last.

Naturally,

Adam