Where even the wolf has better marketing… “The modern Little Red Riding Hood, reared on singing commercials, has no objection to being eaten by the wolf.”

Quote Without Illusions
Where even the wolf has better marketing…
The wolf rebranded. Little Red adapted. That, in essence, is modern culture.
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The Illusion of Freedom on Installments | Alex Buday Get more from Alex Buday on Patreon

Freedom once came with risk. Now it comes with fees. The comfort of the present is real. So is the bill.
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Leonardo — A Mirror of a Lost World In Praise of Knowledge Born in Silence

Today marks Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday anniversary — and a good moment to remember that true genius once sought truth, not visibility. The essay is also about what our age now confuses with greatness.
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Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) Autocracy really is corruption… only the lesson may be more uncomfortable than it first appears The central claim is strong: autocratic instinct and corruption are usually not two separate stories, b...

Autocracy and corruption usually travel together. The harder question is why voters still so often choose roles over facts.
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Where the price quote became a moral category… “The greatest power of manipulation is not that it changes the price, but that it persuades people that price always tells the truth.”

Quote Without Illusions
Where the price quote became a moral category…
The market no longer gives prices. It gives moral verdicts — and people confuse the two.
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Where Hubris Might Have Expected the Iceberg to Step Aside… 1912, April 14–15 — the Titanic, the conceit of the modern world, and the moment when the orchestra kept playing

The Titanic hit more than an iceberg. It hit the old illusion that wealth, prestige, and good manners can bargain with reality. The ship sank. The orchestra kept playing. Civilisation has been repeating that scene ever since.
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The Impeccable Manners of Indifference… “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

Quote Without Illusions
Indifference rarely makes a scene. It just sits politely by the window while history keeps moving. Today’s reflection is about that elegant form of moral laziness.
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Conscience Remains Sacred Until the Throne Is Vacant… April 13, 1598 — the Edict of Nantes, Henry IV, and the old, respectable craft of political conversion

Henry IV understood an old political truth: conscience is sacred, but crowns are tangible. A satire on the Edict of Nantes, elegant opportunism, and the rare moment when cynicism leaves something useful behind.
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When Public Opinion Comes Pre-Packaged… “He who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.”

Quote Without Illusions
The deeper power is often not writing the law, but shaping the mood around it first.
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Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) Writing from Budapest, one becomes inevitably more suspicious of historical moments than good manners — or Brussels etiquette — would normally allow. This is not a character flaw. It is a form of poli...

Orbán may have lost power, but that does not mean Orbánism has politely left the building. The real test begins with accountability — and with whether Brussels sends applause first, or conditions.
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The White House as Soap Opera… April 12 — When impeachment became a format, and scandal learned how to survive between seasons

America does not merely survive scandal. It formats it.
From Clinton to the age of endless files, impeachment became cliffhanger, shame became content, and the republic learned to keep smiling into the camera.
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Idi Amin and the Art of the Soft Landing… April 11 — Kampala falls, and a dictatorship suddenly discovers that “forever” is just a word on a poster.

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
Kampala fell. “Forever” became logistics.
A short note on dictatorship, fatigue, and the suspicious comfort of soft landings.
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Where casting matters more than competence… “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed.”

Quote Without Illusions
In public life, incompetence rarely arrives quietly. It points, accuses, performs — and calls the performance leadership.
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Illusions Not Included | Substack Independent essays and satire — reflections and sharp opinions on politics, society, culture, and illusion, without slogans, noise, or comforting lies. Click to read Illusions Not Included, a Substack publication. Launched 9 months ago.

Take a look at Illusions Not Included — essays and satire with a reflective, ironic voice. illusionsnotincluded.substack.com #IllusionsNotIncluded #AlexBuday #INI #substack

A Spring That Understands the World Better Than Panels Do… April 10, 1849 — Walter Hunt patents the modern safety pin.

A bent piece of wire, a little spring, and more integrity than most modern systems. On April 10, 1849, Walter Hunt patented the safety pin — an invention that still feels more honest than much of what now passes for innovation.
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The Great Gatsby (April 10, 1925) still sells the same elegant illusion: that glamour equals meaning, and money equals redemption. West Egg is a feed now, the party is a lifestyle, and the green light is basically a notification.
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When happiness begins to resemble an internal audit… “The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.”

When happiness begins to resemble an internal audit…
Modern life gives us leisure — then teaches us to use it for monitoring our own happiness. A fine way to ruin an evening…
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The Argument Between Speed and Capacity… — April 9: the 737 and the Concorde, two takeoffs, two worldviews

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
The Argument Between Speed and Capacity…
737 or Concorde? Scale or splendour? April 9 gave us both. The modern world chose one — and we have been boarding that decision ever since.
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When culture becomes expensive lighting… “Truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.”

When culture becomes expensive lighting…
When culture stops revealing and starts decorating, truth becomes an awkward guest. This piece is about that discomfort — and the hunger that survives it.
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Before Mystery Came with an Explainer Video… April 8, 1990 — Twin Peaks premieres on ABC.

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
Mystery once had the decency to remain unresolved. Twin Peaks came from that older world — before every silence required a tutorial and every ending a refund request.
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The Memory We Always Sell Off Too Early… “As protection against financial illusion or insanity, memory is far better than laws.”

Quote Without Illusions
The Memory We Always Sell Off Too Early…
Finance can survive regulation. What it fears is memory. By the next frenzy, yesterday’s ruin is already back as innovation.
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One of the Revolution’s most durable inventions was not political at all… April 7, 1795 — France officially introduces the metric system: one of the Revolution’s most enduring exports

One of the Revolution’s most durable inventions was not political at all…
France gave the world the metric system — and with it the modern fantasy that everything measurable can also be governed.
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Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) I understand this piece completely. For those who do not experience war directly, destruction often appears in the form of a computer game: maps, icons, moving units, expert commentary, as if some st...

From a safe distance, war looks like strategy. Up close, it is rubble, panic, and people turned into statistics.
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When the Fairy Tale Arrives as the Official Version… “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

Quote Without Illusions
When the Fairy Tale Arrives as the Official Version…
Some men don’t want to make history. They want to edit it first.
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Before and After Waterloo… April 6, 1974 — ABBA, “Waterloo,” and the slow transformation of a cultural event into a mass-produced spectacle

ABBA’s Waterloo did not just win Eurovision. It survived it. Much of what came after was louder, brighter, and far easier to forget. A song contest slowly became a spectacle factory. #
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When the rabbit sells better with a ribbon round its neck… “Easter is a time for dressing up, looking your best, and hunting for candy.

Quote Without Illusions
When the rabbit sells better with a ribbon round its neck…
Easter: tradition, ribbon, chocolate, and consumption dressed as innocence.
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Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) When the empire no longer even bothers to pretend it is civilised… This is how the president of the country that still likes to imagine itself as the world’s number one power speaks. Not some barroo...

The obscenity is not the shock anymore. The applause is.
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🎩 Münchhausen 2.0 | Alex Buday Get more from Alex Buday on Patreon

Münchhausen 2.0 is a literary satire about the modern art of making reality sound easier than it is.
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Illusions Not Included (@illusionsnotincluded) In this, I find myself in agreement with the argument. It is hard not to agree. I am a liberal too — not out of fashion, not out of club loyalty, and certainly not because the word carries any special...

Liberalism is often not defeated — only exploited, then denounced by those who climbed in through its open door. That may be the darkest joke of the age.
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When Legend Freezes Over History… April 5, 1242 — The Battle on the Ice at Lake Peipus: Alexander Nevsky and the clash with the Livonian Order

📜 On This Day — Without Illusions
When Legend Freezes Over History…
Lake Peipus was a battle. Memory turned it into theatre. And once legend takes the stage, even the ice knows when to break.
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