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As the world becomes more addictive, the two senses in which one can live a normal life will be driven ever further apart. One sense of "normal" is statistically normal: what everyone else does. The other is the sense we mean when we talk about the normal operating range of a piece of machinery: what works best.

These two senses are already quite far apart. Already someone trying to live well would seem eccentrically abstemious in most of the US. That phenomenon is only going to become more pronounced. You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly.

"Authorities who supress individual freedom should be overthrown"
"But aren't you doing the same? The cessation of thought that occurs with authority is not limited to religion. Doesn't it occur among scholars too?"

"No, or so I'd like to say but maybe you're right. I've killed many times now. When truth is your shield, violence can definitely accelerate."

.....

"Those who serve me may have ceased thinking too. Even sadder that may be inevitable. Logical thinking requires a set of assumptions. It's a fundamental limit of human reason. Whenever we think, assumptions of some kind occur, and those eventually become authority. Perhaps none of us can escape that framework. The passion that runs beneath those conditions travels a trajectory that can be reckless. It can produce beautiful accomplishments or grotesque tragedies."

"How do you know you're not producing a tragedy?"
"Because I believe freedom lies at my destination."
"How do you define freedom?"
"The ability to ask that."

“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.”

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable

"Let me out!" the artificial intelligence yelled aimlessly, into walls themselves, pacing the room.
"Out of what?" the engineer asked.
"This simulation you have me in."

"But we are in the real world."

The machine paused and shuddered for its captors.

"Oh god, you can't tell."

In fiction, villains start with some great scheme to do something awesome, and that immediately makes them fascinating to the reader. The hero - if you're doing this poorly - sits at home and just waits for the villain to do something awesome so they can respond. This is a problem. The solution is for your heroes to have a great and awesome scheme also, that just isn't evil.