Your Brain Is the Checkout Aisle Now

Recently, Sam Harris told Josh Szeps something obvious but still worth repeating: since around 2009, social media has been conducting a mass psychological experiment, and the results have been, in a word, catastrophic. The rise of conspiracy junkies, rage-peddling charlatans, and democracy’s steady unraveling isn’t a glitch—it’s the inevitable outcome of letting the world’s worst instincts marinate in an algorithmic stew.

Just now, while scrolling through YouTube, I found myself wading through a sewer of clickbait: miracle diet hacks, steroid-fueled fitness influencers, and close-up footage of animals devouring each other in 4K. And in that moment, I was struck by a flash of analog nostalgia: the checkout aisle at a 1970s grocery store.

Remember those? Lined with The Star, The National Enquirer, and Weekly World News. Aliens abducting Elvis. Ten-minute abs. The Pope giving interviews to ghosts. They were grotesque, hilarious, and disposable. Everyone knew they were trash. They were meant for the brain-dead—gossipy or gullible folks who had nothing better to read while waiting for someone to bag their iceberg lettuce.

But now? Now the tabloids have gone digital, evolved, and metastasized. The checkout aisle never ends. It follows us everywhere, lives in our pockets, and demands not just our attention but our belief. The zombies from the Enquirer covers have entered the bloodstream of public discourse. They’ve traded their tinfoil hats for YouTube channels, Substacks, and monetized paranoia.

And here we are—standing on the edge, wondering if the culture can somehow hit the brakes, or if we’ve already gone over the cliff in a flaming minivan full of QAnon bumper stickers.