the Myth of the Cave

Discussion 
The biggest similarity I see between these two readings by Plato and Griggs, is "alternative facts". We are all getting our information from Facebook more and more than any other sources these days. Before the internet, it seemed like we had access to more credible news stories, and understood that anything in "The Enquire" was made up of conspiracy theories or outright lies.
   We live in a capitalist society, and so the thing we are taught to respect most, above compassion, decency, intelligence, and truth; is money. With money, you can buy the "truth", which will make you even more money. Advertisements are made to look like trusted articles, news networks are ruthlessly biased in politics, skewing everything to the left or far right and every truth has a spin.
   Politicians are the shadows, and the puppets are the lobbyists, put there by corporations to feed us our reality. We don't dig deeper into the articles to look for the source to see if it's credible or not. We don't dig deeper into understanding why a new law is being introduced, we simply go by the soundbites thrown into commercials to persuade us to vote in certain ways - even when it is against our own interests. The more we are exposed to the soundbites, the more we believe them, and whomever can afford the most airtime for their soundbites wins.   
   During our last  presidential election, propaganda was all over our news feeds and so were last minute diversions to swing votes in important states, possibly orchestrated by foreign countries. It worked because some of us like it in our safe warm cave. Even now that promises are broken, and true intentions are revealed, people choose to stay in their caves, completely dedicated to their reality. 
   These cave dwellers don't belong to a single group of people though, blind devotion happens everywhere. Looking into the light is painful, and no one likes pain. Our own shadows on the wall are our echo-chambers that reinforce our reality and our unbreakable devotion. 
   Taking a step back, however (I get carried away when it comes to politics), Facebook is also a cave, put in place by the users themselves. The selfies are there as their shadow, telling us what life is supposed to look like, though these are only snippets of our reality. They're props and advertisements to the life they want others to think they have; and we buy it. We want to be just like you, and with every courtesy "like", we fall deep into the darkness. We become intellectually, mentally and emotionally stumped. By seeing how "happy" everyone else is, we feel like we are falling behind. We skip going above, because then I won't be the first to know, when the cave tells me that Nik will "Be skipping this movie" [Actual status update].