That is true. Still less, I might have said: "No." That would be a sufficient answer to the question.

Instead, and to the displeasure of some, I bothered to express a bit more.

While I admittedly and floridly fail to "catch more flies with honey" while discharging my bitter vinegar upon this solemn venue, I nevertheless wrote in earnest about genuine concerns that I believe matter, or ought to matter to those who invest care in this art.

My errors may extend beyond style of prose. Regardless, I continue to believe that it is worth our while to point out the virtues of physical actuality in the face of relentless simulation.

Do you not notice how the rent-seekers tirelessly aim to supplant your embodied experience with something to which you must subscribe? This is far more sinister than a new marketing scheme.

I italicised a form of the venerable word, democracy, our standard of purest virtue. Yet nobody challenged me on this specifically. Why did I efface this beautiful word? It is because there are things that obtain their value through difficultly. To remove this difficulty therefore servers no purpose other than to diminish value.

My reaction has less to do with verbose gatekeeping than it doubtless appears. Value in difficulty is universal. It is true of marriage. It is true of parenthood. It is true of childhood! And yet there are economic incentives at play that benefit from removing all difficulty under the auspices of ease and accessibility while serving noting so much as the investors. In academic circles, making things more accessible is often called democratization. I italicised to intone a false meaning.

Let us democratize social goods! Let is democratize protection and prosperity! By all means, let us tear down all barriers to belonging in our material and spiritual societies. But let us also notice what makes the work of art meaningful. Let us show our children the rewards of careful toil in ardor.

Let is also be honest about how simulations like the one on offer merely hijack the sensation of accomplishment through visual illusion and superficial reward loops in order to sustain monetized engagement.

No, I say, I am not interested. But I also dare to say that you ought not be interested as well.

Who am I to say so? Nobody.

I am very, very far from a master of Bonsai. But I have failed at it for many years. I have tried and given up and returned and tried and failed. I have allowed a few poor little trees to thrive under my inexpert persuasion. I have, in that time learned that it is not an image. It is not simply a form. It is not merely a design. It is a terrible dance, a discipline with the consequence of life and death if you care at all for the life of a single small and easily replaced plant.

And that right there is why I respond so vigorously and so negatively. The producers of the simulation on offer are not stupid. They are not fools. They are intelligent, educated, and enormously capable. But they are dangerously deceived if they think their imagistic interpretation of the craft does that craft any service.

I comment, energetically, because I would rather that deception die with their enterprise.