We are all playing with fire now. Every story becomes ammunition, every insight a potential weapon, every observation we make is data for the next demagogue. We think ourselves objective observers, but we are simply accelerants—the pathology learns from us, the manipulators study our narratives, fire consumes subject and object. There is no safe distance from which to examine a burning world; we illuminate the darkness only to discover we’ve been throwing gasoline on flames. The greater the precision of our insights, the greater the danger, yet silence is also complicity when the house is already burning. We examine the fire because we are already inside it, already breathing smoke, already choosing between different kinds of destruction. The question isn’t whether to play with fire—the fire is everywhere. The question is whether our burning will light the way toward something better, or simply add to the inferno that consumes us all.