Policy simulations do not create solutions, but cement regimes of violence within debate.

Ideology ‘corresponds to a corruption of reality through signs’, argues Jean Baudrillard, and, therefore, ‘the goal of the ideological analysis [is] to restore the objective process’ (2008: 27). Simulation, on the other hand, ‘corresponds to a short circuit of reality and to its duplication through signs’ (Baudrillard 2008: 27). As such, Baudrillard claims, ‘it is always a false problem to wish to restore the truth beneath the simulacrum’ (2008: 27). Indeed, as I have demonstrated in previous chapters, simulation produces its own peculiar duty of truth, which re-anchors its functionaries in the coordinates of the former. In line with this, I would like to posit that post-truth, in and of itself, is not ideological; it is simulational. Post-truth, that is to say, is not so much a symptom of a corruption of our reality, but, rather, that of its progressive substitution with the order of simulacrum. Crucially in this context, simulation should not be conceived as an external force—one that swooped down upon us, as it were, violently snatching us up and unconsensually entrapping us in its forceful grip. Contrariwise, it would be far more accurate to consider simulation as something that we actively welcomed—and continue to do so, in an utter disregard for, and ongoing denial of, the reasons behind, and the consequences of, this act. Here, let us briefly return to the origins of the term ‘post-truth’. According to Oxford Languages, the contemporary definition of ‘post-truth’ can be traced back to a 1992 essay by Steve Tesich published in The Nation magazine (see 2016). In it, Tesich offers some reflections on the ‘Watergate symptom’, a term coined in reference to the Watergate scandal as a means of designating a wider shift in the North American mentality (1992). As Tesich expounds, [e]ither because the Watergate revelations were so wrenching and followed on the heels of the war in Vietnam, which was replete with crimes and revelations of its own, or because Nixon was so quickly pardoned, we began to shy away from the truth. We came to equate truth with bad news and we didn’t want bad news anymore, no matter how true or vital to our health as a nation. We looked to our government to protect us from the truth. […] We would see only what our government wanted us to see, and we saw nothing wrong with that. We liked it that way. Our government was looking after us. (1992: 12, 13) Both Tesich and Boorstin presented a damning diagnosis of the American culture, warning of the dangers of the denial of reality. ‘We are rapidly becoming prototypes of a people that totalitarian monsters could only drool about in their dreams’, proclaimed Tesich (1992: 13). All the dictators up to now have had to work hard at suppressing the truth. We, by our actions, are saying that this is no longer necessary, that we have acquired a spiritual mechanism that can denude truth of any significance. In a very fundamental way we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world. (1992: 13) As this shows, the problem of post-truth was never a question of epistemology. Contrariwise, the post-truth problematique is rooted in a desperate attempt to hold on to the capitalist ‘happy consciousness’—that is, ‘the belief that the real is rational and that the system delivers the goods’ (Marcuse 2007: 84)—by any means available. And by the late twentieth century, the only such means were those of the abandonment of reality. What Mark Fisher refers to as a ‘depressive hedonia’, namely, ‘an inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure’ (2009: 22) [author’s emphasis], is thus fundamentally co-extensive with our post-truth condition. It follows that our contemporary duty of truth is the expression of the imperative to constant, unimpeded flow of an unsublimated desire for gratification. Simulation enables us to eliminate the obstructions to this flow, as such, facilitating an increasing automatization of desire. Crucially, simulation does not shelter us from the physical world and our daily troubles. This, however, should come as no surprise. After all, the delusions that it affords us were, from the very onset, geared towards the preservation of the capitalist imaginary. In effect, by their very design, they are bent on the protection of the existence of the status quo, not us. By guaranteeing our entrapment within private subjective orbits (cf: Mills 2000), simulation operationalizes and sustains our deference to the logic of economicization; it does not have any purchase on the effects of the latter. So far this has largely translated itself into ‘reflexive impotence’ (Fisher 2009: 21). That is to say, we lived in the awareness that things were bad, but we believed that there was nothing that we could do about it (see Fisher 2009: 21). Nothing apart from, that is, attempting to obtain ‘at least some gratification through identification with the existent’ (Adorno 1991: 150). Today, however, the escalating libidinal frustrations are driving many to action. Temporary gratifications offered by the digital enactment of simulation-powered delusions, in short, are no longer enough. Indeed, it would appear that the days of reflexive impotence are numbered, soon to be replaced with widespread physical insurgencies of the impotent. As Luke Mogelson, the author of The Storm is Here, demonstrates, the 2021 attack on the US Capitol was but a sample of what is to come (see 2022). He argues that the Americans are in imminent danger of ‘more frequent and larger-scale eruptions of gun violence’ and, that with so many ‘people with considerable influence and power’ now calling for a civil war, its prospect is far from outlandish (quoted in Fox 2022; see also Orth 2022). Likewise, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi warned us that if a radical change does not take place, the future of Europe will be that of ‘mass violence’ and ‘inter-ethnic civil war’ (see 2011: 122). With inflation in the eurozone at an all-time high (see Liboreiro 2022) and an intensifying energy crisis (see Horowitz 2022), there is no question that many are now alarmingly close to the boiling point. It is becoming blatantly clear that our unsublimated desires cannot be contained by the digital. To be sure, simulation no longer constitutes just an assault on the real; now it leads to real assaults. Such are its ‘true pleasures’: by automatizing our desires, by making ourselves neglectful of ourselves, others, and the world, we traded off our ability to meaningfully intervene into the present—all for an economic dreamworld that could never deliver on its promises. The perpetually accelerated play of simulation hence came to accelerate the demise of not only truth and politics, but that of our very existence. Let us make no mistake here: what we are losing today is more than critical agency; it is humanity.