This is a mix of you growing up with a hint of nostalgia, and the death of the TV.

Excitement for the world cup is waning, just like it’s waning for any other event/show that collected the family in front of the small screen.

The quality of game itself has always been not good at the international level. And that probably increased with players playing in many different leagues, not just teams. While decades ago, you had some cores of teams playing for the same club.

The game itself changed of course. No more no.10 artists giving you a good show.

In my extended family, most people who care about the world cup are people who don’t watch the sport much during the regular season. So it’s not really primarily a sporting event for them.

I would love it if it was a moral awakening, or increased awareness of the hubris that is the modern nation state identity, that is driving this. But I genuinely doubt it. And if you think it is now, or was in Qatar (the biggest moral posturing maxxing event in internet history) or Russia, I’m afraid you’re probably over-influenced by your echo chamber of choice.

The word “acknowledged” seems to have been dropped from the title.

Real power doesn’t exchange hands at the ballot box. And to think it does is the most laughable a notion. But much investment goes into conditioning (a nicer word than brainwashing) people to subscribe to it.

Some contrarians take this too far and use the framing “Democracy is a lie”. But the reality is, it’s not necessarily a lie, but rather, it’s just largely inconsequential when the brokenness exists at a higher level (the modern nation state itself, its establishment, and both their interconnections with inter and extra national powers). In that reality, the voting process is not a tool for the masses, but rather a tool to distract and contain them.

Consulting people, via voting or any other method, is still desirable of course, but only after that brokenness is taken care of.

it’s not about robocalls.

Nothing was ever really about “le evil pedophiles” or “protecting children” either. Yet, using that excuse seems to work wonders with the gullible masses, including many people here, I would imagine.