IMO the point is that we&#x27;re already there, and have been for a while. It&#x27;s only set in the future to trick the viewer into approaching the story as an outsider.<p>&quot;Oh wow, that sucks, I hope we never toil at pointless tasks to earn points to buy worthless junk that doesn&#x27;t make us happy&quot;<p><i>looks around house full of consumerist garbage, contemplates largely nihilistic career</i><p>&quot;Hm. Well... damn.&quot;<p>[EDIT] (SPOILERS!) I also take the vast wilderness outside the protagonist&#x27;s window at the end to be <i>real</i>, not some kind of illusion or projection. I do so because the episode is more effective that way, so I&#x27;d guess that&#x27;s what&#x27;s intended—the viewer thinks this must be some kind of overcrowded dystopic future world-city or something the whole time, or that the Earth&#x27;s surface is uninhabitable, or that this isn&#x27;t even Earth, and that everyone&#x27;s <i>forced</i> to live this way, but the reveal of the wilderness raises the possibility that in fact people <i>could</i> leave, but simply <i>do not</i>, and in retrospect one realizes that no pervasive, ultra-strict police force or anything similar is depicted. The closest they come are the drugged drinks, which are only given in some circumstances to some people (compare: anxiety meds, sleeping pills, <i>et c.</i>). We never see anyone try to resist the collection of &quot;detritus&quot;, for example. The protagonist damages what may well be public property in his private room, and no-one seems to care. People are demoted to janitor status, but, <i>crucially</i>, we don&#x27;t see them dragged away screaming or anything like that.<p>In fact the people of that world choose same option we see the protagonist choose on the gameshow, really, just less dramatically, <i>every single day</i>. Safety, comfort, and familiarity over freedom.