Egypt *is* the Establishment. The way things always have been and therefore never need change. Tradition. It's a complete comfort zone. Grousing is a comfort zone.
The people called it manna (מן) because they didn't know what (מה) it was.
Yet it could have kept their minds focused on the spiritual if they started by looking at something simple, like the word, the meaning... because it just keeps on going and going. The information flow never shuts off. Then they would have learned what it was. A long, circuitous route, but whatever works to eventually get from point A to point B.
What was it? Something that anyone would have gotten tired of after a few days. The bland trail mix wasn't the problem, but rather that the hike shouldn't have taken forty years.
Or 1984 years thus far, for that matter.
dystopia
an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
Excellent point!