>>747
>if reality is an illusion
That seems like an unnecessary assumption.
I realise this is an old post but I watched Rollerball recently and I've been thinking on some of the themes.
I think the people of that world are diminished as human beings. They don't feel the full range of emotions, their lives fit inside a 'cosy' little box of consumerism, but their lives are so regimented they are like drones and they're sort of mentally sterilised. Then there are the people at the top who get everything they want, who control everyone's lives and choose what is acceptable and not-acceptable; for them life is a playground and people are like dolls for them. They themselves are like demigods yet their blessing is in their sneakiness, cynicism and keen intuition of how to manipulate minds and hearts.
Like Rollerball, Thus Spake Zarasthustra touches on the same themes. He describes humanity falling into the trappings of comfort and the struggle of 'higher men' who live for something else and how they'll fall by the many attempting to find it.
Charles Darwin's 'The Next Million Years' (from what I've heard of it) describes people falling into a two-class system of governors and governed, and that eventually the higher-ups of this system (being the last wild element) could end up destroying it by their excesses.
Is it hopeless to change? It's a depressing and bleak outlook. The internet is the best weapon but is occupied by the enemy. They own the most popular sites, have shills to spread their disinfo 24/7 and do their best to stupefy and splinter everyone with bad and demoralising content. Then it seems the heroes everyone had growing up were all manufactured fictions and no true guide to action. Westerners are certain to live the consumer life or drop out completely and eke by -- a whimpering life in either case. The way to break out of it may be to become more than the easy life, end the inertia and the passivity of the wageslave or claimant, stop being tied to what we own, stop waiting for death to come over the horizon, but I don't know...