“We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning.” – French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard in his book Simulacra and Simulation.
Baudrillard points to contemporary media and the mechanisms of Late Capitalism as driving forces in this apparently unstoppable collapse of meaning. He warns that we will enter into a crisis of “information overload,” in which simulacra—images and symbols—begin to take precedence over reality itself.
In his book Baudrillard observes how post-modern society replaces facts with cultural symbols. These symbols now saturate discourse to the point of eclipsing meaning. In other words, we are living in a simulation.
This interesting article breaks it down more: The French Philosopher Who Predicted Trump’s America