Cats are apex predators within their weight class. They kill anything and everything, by day and night. It's amazing and shocking how much a cat can kill.

We take these creatures, put them in our homes and apartments, and expect them not to destroy things. When that (predictably) fails, we get them cat toys that they can chase, pounce on, claw, wrestle with, and in the end destroy, so that hopefully they don't destroy other things. (Plus, they can't kill the cat toys, but they look so cute while trying to do so.) Cat toys are a distraction for dangerous creatures.

Question: How much of modern society is "cat toys for humans"? Getting us to chase worthless things to fritter away our time and energy, so we don't do anything real?

How much of that is deliberate ("bread and circuses"), and how much is just the way things worked out? (When you want distraction, an amazing number of things can be used to distract yourself.)

I would guess that almost all video games are "cat toys for humans". So is most mass media. But how far does this go? Is politics "cat toys for humans"?

Or did I just wake up on the cynical side of the bed this morning?