A public square is not only a place where people speak. It is also a routing system. A post may exist without becoming eligible for recommendation. It may become eligible without entering a candidate set. It may enter a candidate set without being placed. It may be placed without rendering. It may render without being noticed. It may be noticed without being understood. A later event may follow without having been caused by any of it. This sequence is ordinary enough to be invisible. It is also where a serious defensive question begins.

The uncanny sentence

It begins, as so many soft delusions do now, not with thunder or incense, but with a line of text floating in the lit chapel of a phone screen:

If this video found you, it was meant for you.