Most of what I know about the Coliseum comes from entertainment – yes Gladiator, I’m talking about you. I haven’t seen it in person yet. I did read about ancient Rome recently. My takeaway after my admittedly cursory review of articles I followed down the Google rabbit hole is this: the games were a clever idea. They gave the government a place to torture slaves and criminals, they helped promote Rome’s leaders, and they distracted the population from the problems of daily life. Knowing that those were the goals, can we really say that reality shows and social media platforms (a different kind of reality show) are that much different?… Continue reading Our own Coliseum.