There's a scene in the first of the "Matrix" movies — the only decent one, IMHO — where one of the resistance fighters, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), betrays the cause in order to get reinstated in the simulated reality of the Matrix. His reasoning is sympathetic enough: Life in the "real world" is a miserable slog, with crap food, bad clothes and uncomfortable lodgings. Inside the Matrix, however, life is far more comfortable — even if it's all an illusion. "I know this steak doesn't exist," Cypher explains, but he is willing to give up his compatriots in order to experience it.
It's a compelling scene that helps explain that kind of existential tradeoff. Viewers are meant to ask themselves if they would really give up freedom — which, let's face it, can sometimes seem like an abstract ideal — in exchange for a really good steak. Most of us, no doubt, believe we wouldn't take that trade. But if you spend even 15 minutes on Twitter, you realize how many people are willing to be sucked into an evil alternate reality created by computer algorithms that appear to hate the human beings they feed upon — even without offering a delicious cut of meat steak as bait. All it takes is endless, asinine conversation, driven and dictated by the worst people in our society.
