https://ramurrio.medium.com/games-without-frontiers-980abb60b1e7

The roach motel sign flickered, neon casting long, skeletal shadows across the state line. Governor Slick, a chrome grin stretched tight across his face, hawked his wares: “Deregulate your dreams! Lowest taxes this side of the Styx! We got chemical soup rivers and skies the color of a bad trip, but hey, the bottom line’s beautiful, baby!”

Across the border, Mayor Maw, a three-eyed weasel of a man, cackled back. “Deregulation ain’t got nothin’ on ME! We got sweatshops that make Kafka look like a cheerleader’s pep rally! Minimum wage? Minimum respect, more likely!”

This, chums, was the Race to the Bottom, a black tar pit competition where politicians weren’t selling widgets, they were selling your soul in exchange for a smog-choked sunset. Regulations became shackles to be tossed, worker rights were chewed up and spat out like yesterday’s news, and the environment? Let’s just say the Lovecraftian horror movies were starting to look like documentaries.

It was a nervous system scramble for the bottom rung, a race fueled by greed and a complete disregard for the writhing, irradiated masses these slick suits called “constituents.” The air hung heavy with the stench of despair and the toxic fumes of industry gone wild.

But hold on, pilgrim. There’s a glimmer in the distance, faint as a flickering firefly. Maybe, just maybe, a higher power, a federal big brother with a taste for regulation, can step in and slap some handcuffs on this runaway train to oblivion. Maybe. Just maybe. Otherwise, we’re all headed for a one-way ticket to a dystopian nightmare, courtesy of the Race to the Bottom. Buckle up, because this ride’s about to get real interesting, real fast.

Ah, but the serpent hides in the rose, my friend. This iron-fisted savior, this Leviathan you speak of, is it not just another head of the same Hydra? Power, absolute and unchecked, is a seductive mistress, whispering promises of order in her honeyed tones. But her embrace is a death grip, and soon the “benevolent” dictator becomes just another tyrant, another leech sucking the lifeblood from the land.

Regulations become instruments of control, not protection. Punishment a tool for silencing dissent, not justice. The very entity designed to be our salvation becomes the new oppressor, a towering behemoth crushing the roach motels beneath its iron heel.

Is there no escape from this ouroboros, this endless cycle of exploitation? Perhaps the answer lies not in strongmen, but in a writhing, chaotic mass – the people themselves. A decentralized network, a million buzzing insects rising up to challenge the crushing weight.

But this path too is fraught with peril. Can the unwashed masses, divided and manipulated, ever achieve true unity? Will their righteous anger curdle into mob violence, or can they channel it into a collective consciousness, a hive mind capable of enacting real change?

The Burroughs-ian landscape offers no easy solutions, only a stark choice between the frying pan and the fire. The Race to the Bottom continues, a grotesque ballet of greed and desperation, and the audience, we the people, are left to watch, trapped in the cheap seats, clutching our greasy popcorn, unsure of the encore.