So what do you guys think about acting??

[Mister Obvious]

I think it's possible to be a little of both.

Seems logical and most likely...

The truth is always somewhere "in between" so they say.

I'm not well informed on how far back it all goes but ancient Greece had its theaters and plays.
It traveled forward from there to every other country. I'm guessing the further back you go the more
"pure" it was; being for entertainment.

Also makes a lot of sense.

I could start Googling "how did acting start" and similar lines of questioning re: history, but...

I wanted to hear it from others who I trust before I went that route.

Certainly in more modern times [the last 100 years?] it's slowly become more and more of a mindfuck
and quite possibly also used for extremely subversive purposes. Hollywood and the American intelligence
community have probably always been secret lovers. Hell, Hollywood was probably created JUST FOR
that kind of thing.

Exactly... this was the reason I started this thread. The connection between the agencies who want to mold the minds of the masses, and industrialized acting.

You guys know that I believe all actors are agents... they literally work for these agencies, and they do what they are told. They don't have individual thoughts of their own, they're not allowed. They are just tools.

And I don't really believe there are exceptions...

Not in acting at least. Perhaps in the music industry, there may be a handful of exceptions. But only a handful, and even them I am not sure about.

The "crossroads agreement" seems to suggest that either they are blackmailed in order to enter into the realm of fame, or there was preexisting blackmail on them which they were made aware of during that crossroads encounter. So either way, they are compromised.

It IS an art for which some people have a lot of talent but it'd be too easy and even foolish to say it stopped
there. Just because you take fruit to a picnic to eat yourself doesn't mean the ants won't try to muscle in.

Well said.