Humanity is approaching a silent failure mode. Not collapse by fire or plague, but by something far more dangerous: cognitive entrapment.
A slow decay that begins when a society becomes so technologically advanced it stops interacting with the real world altogether.
We build simulations so convincing we forget the physical world ever mattered. We fall in love with the mirror and forget to look at the sky.
Exploration ceases. Creation slows. Innovation becomes maintenance. We no longer build new systems. We simply preserve the old ones.
This is the simulacrum phase: a time when people can use tools they no longer understand.