I think we have fallen into a black hole.
When the Event Horizon Telescope publish the pictures of M87's central black hole
I was motivated to scan some science publications about these beasts. I studied
meteorology seriously as a kid in college, so I'm familiar with high level math and physics, certainly not in a quantitative way anymore...but I still have a real geeky interest in astronomy and cosmology.
My main beef with a lot of the descriptions of black hole in physics is the idea of a singularity - I just can't believe it can exist. That led me to read a little about loop quantum gravity, a potential theory that combines quantum mechanics (the physics of the VERY small) with Einstein's General Relativity. Heady stuff, but in a nutshell, loop theory proposes there is "Plank" density where matter cannot be compressed any further.
One thing that I learned/realized from all this reading is that the relativistic effects of the strong gravity on time just out side the event horizon continue on the other side as well, and it will only get worse and worse as the journey to the central "object" continues. If loop theory is to be believed, there is a limit to how far the material can get squeezed, and eventually gets to a most possibly dense state. Then the black hole slowly evaporates away due to Hawking radiation, eventually liberating the "lost" material.
But I have also realized that the "singularity" I so abhor is also a possible solution, in a Bill Barr, nihilistic way. Since the extreme time dilation will constantly be increasing, this would be an asymptotic state, never truly achievable in all the available time allotted to creation. It's kind of an unnerving concept - it leads me to think if it were possible, then this is the ultimate fate of the entire universe. That's a pretty big "We All Die" moment.
Due to the extreme time dilation of the material falling inwards, in any case this would be a very long process to observe from an outsider's perspective. Like age of the universe long for the smallest of possible black holes formed in the earliest times of the universe. Maybe a little longer. For a monster like M87's black hole, probably trillions or even 100's of trillions of years.
So politically I don't know if we've crossed the "event horizon" - the gravitational gradient approaching a large black hole is actually small, so you could likely pass through the point of no return and not notice much of a difference (unless the "firewall" idea is true - you might notice a burst of "infinite" radiation). But the gravity starts increasing faster, the time dilation gets more intense.
Supposedly you wouldn't notice this if you were a proton falling in to a real black hole, so the political analogy starts to fall apart here. We notice things. Lots of things. And these things are happening with more startling frequencies and amplitudes, and the trend continues to be down, down, down. Even for someone totally committed to the idea that "there is no bottom" with Trump, I'm even getting shocked at how low the things he and his maladministration are doing.
And I'm rooting for loop theory - which offers a chance to bounce back and be released from this Hell we're in. Because being crushed for eternity in the crap we are currently seeing is truly terrifying.
Just don’t expect it to happen overnight if we can stop it. We’re in the twilight zone.