My post yesterday about the encroaching expose of the entertainment industry generated some very interesting comments and discussions, in particular, the question, is this the end for Hollywood? How can it be, when it has been such a central tool for such a long time in achieving social engineering and controlling the minds of the masses?

My thoughts on that are that it has done its job (as have schools). The overlords don't need it anymore, as they have something 'better' (worse. So much ineffably worse...) in store.

Have a think about actors and rock stars. People who are renowned for being pathologically egotistical, diva-like, difficult to work with - and, of course, ludicrously expensive. There's also the irritating little fact that actors, as human beings, have the most unbankable tendency to age, get sick, and die.

Guess what doesn't? Guess what never gets old, never turns up to work late or drunk, never demands exorbitant wages or drops out due to 'creative differences'? AI - artificial intelligence. Computer-generated imagery.

It was most revealing that this year's alternative Christmas message on Channel 4 featured the "deepfake" Queen. An entirely artificial construct generated by a computer that looks, speaks, and acts, just like the Queen. Would we have been able to tell the difference if it was also the deepfake Queen delivering the conventional message on BBC 1?

This kind of technology is so advanced now that anyone producing televisual entertainment does not need to rely on flawed, difficult, costly human beings to star in it. They can use the perfectly predictable, formulaic and flawless AI. And they will.

It won't stop there, though. It won't just be you watching some flickering images on a screen, generated by computer but otherwise indistinguishable from "normal" TV and movies. No. The visual entertainment of the future will be interactive.

Conventional TV and movies are over, because these reflect life, and life has been cancelled. We can't have big blockbusters about action heroes saving the world from external threats, when everyone is required to be inside at all times. We can't have romcoms and chick-flicks about dating, when we all must remain two metres apart, eschewing the company of anyone not from our household. We can't have tense psychological dramas in the age of the filthy face rag, where nobody can see anyone else's facial expressions.

And we can't have cinemas, because these cannot be made "Covid secure" - it's not viable for cinemas to enact "social distancing" and make a profit, so they will go out of business, as many already have. Hollywood movies make their money through theatre releases - "straight to video" is the kiss of death for any major production, hence, major productions and conventional films will cease.

So instead of sitting in a cinema watching a movie, you will sit in your front room and be in the movie. Virtual reality is the next frontier. When you can't go out, see anyone, travel, or have any form of meaningful leisure or human interaction, the only way of keeping you (comparatively) sane, as well as being an epically effective way of controlling you, is virtual reality. Why watch the movie, when you can be in it? (Besides, all conventional and classical Hollywood offerings will be cancelled and deleted - just like books and historical figures are being - once their stars' transgressions have been fully exposed. Society will be restored to factory settings - a blank slate for the 'elite' to scrawl upon.)

People will be able to select exciting action thrillers, passionate love stories, suspense-filled whodunnits, where THEY have a starring role, interacting with brilliant and beautiful AI "stars" - all courtesy of visors and body suits mimicking real sensations.

Nothing about this is far-fetched or sci-fi fantasy, the Mark Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of the world have long since confirmed this is the goal, and so has the eerily prophetic, Black Mirror, which I intend to watch again (in the day, with the lights on - !). Creator of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker - much like Aldous Huxley - isn't just "a clever guy with a good imagination". He's an insider who knows. He knows what's in store and he's been tasked with telling us, as letting us know what the plans are is part of the overlords' "code". Incidentally, Charlie Brooker named his son Huxley.

And once people are used to the 'perfection' of virtual reality, real reality - with its innumerable flaws, difficulties, upsets and (of course) nasty viruses - will seem a tawdry, pale, dangerous alternative. Why risk it?

This then leaves the overlords with a whole world to themselves to re-imagine as they see fit, whilst all the pesky useless eaters become computer-controlled, addicted, ineffective shells of anything that might previously have been recognised as human.

(But, hey. At least they never caught a cold.)

I think we need to really realise just how much human beings have already melded with screens, and how virtual reality *already is* more real, authentic, and plausible to many people than actual reality is. The Guardian reported this week that Matt Hancock is 'obsessed' with the move Contagion, on which he based his pandemic response, 'in order to inject some reality into it', whilst multiple virus enthusiasts have instructed us sceptics to "watch Casualty if you want to see how bad it really is!". Meanwhile, the person who is sitting next to me right now was in a recent Zoom meeting where several colleagues agreed they preferred Zoom to meeting in real life, as it was "more personal".

It will not be any sort of great psychological leap for people to replace actual reality with virtual reality - because they already have.

To return to the opening sentiments and the fall of celebrity culture - I'm all for this being exposed and torn down, but just like the dismantling of the world's governments that we will gradually see unfolding around us, this is no time for celebration. It's time - perhaps more urgently now than at any other previous point in human history - for eternal vigilance. That is, if we want a human future.