I don’t simply “feel” like we are - I think it’s an undeniable fact that we are.

Virtually everyone lives under one or another hierarchical system of control.

There are two main avenues of control - wealth and political authority - and they’re inevitably interconnected, with individual systems set up broadly either so that wealth is rewarded with political authority or political authority is rewarded with wealth.

Individuals compete for positions in hierarchical systems of control, and those who constrain themselves - who have choices or courses of action they will not take due to morality, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like - are at a disadvantage to those who do not have such constraints - who will not alter their behavior to accord for morals, ethics, integrity, empathy or the like.

So effectively, hierarchical systems reward and thu,s select for sociopathy/psychopathy.

That becomes a self-reinforcing loop over time too, as individuals who gain power undermine the aspects of the system that might check sociopathy/psychopathy - government ethics laws, checks and balances, investigative journalism, the right to criticize, etc.

So hierarchical systems tend to sociopathy/psychopathy, and ever more so over time.

So Trump and Musk et al aren’t aberrations - they’re just the most extreme manifestations of a system that’s been heading inevitably toward them all along - a system that has been so warped by the actions of past sociopaths and psychopaths that it is, for all intents and purposes, insane.

So yes - we live in an insane asylum.