Your original comment condemned superhero entertainment specifically for their content, but not "the formats themselves". Independent of this discussion, I've been thinking lately about how, especially in the most closed-off months of the pandemic quarantine, so many of our pastimes consist of indulging in simulations. Everything from the loftiest performance of a Shakespearean play to the most throwaway TikTok, from the most true-to-life non-fiction narrative account of a real event to the most escapist of comic books, they're all about bringing out minds to a different place.

And I wonder what it all means. As a species we've been at this since the first cave paintings, the earliest oral traditions. And what we're doing now with modern hyperstimulating computer-generated mediums is in that same tradition. But from a biological standpoint, what do these intellectual forms of recreation really mean for us? Is the final goal of our society to automate away all of the hard physical stuff, and then place our bodies in comfortable pods where our only stimulation is the simulated and safe? To play out stories and to experience emotions where we have minimized our vulnerability and maximized our enjoyment? "All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."

This isn't meant to be a condemnatory dystopian vision or anything. I just wonder if the ideal end state of luxury existence is to live in stories, so the mind and passions can work, but the body is satiated and at peace. So when people indulge in leisure now, is that truly "wasting their time"? Perhaps they are only capturing a fleeting glimpse of the final future of our species.