Simulacra and Simulation

Is the philosophical treatise discussing interactions between reality, symbols, and society by Jean Baudrillard.
It was very difficult to read and understand but I think I kind of got the concept. At first he gives all his knowledge and how he thinks about simulacra and simulation. That it is a discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to the present day. Claiming that modern society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs.
So I think he is saying that with all that society has done and will do, will only turn life into a never ending debate about whats this and that. That the experiences we encounter are simulations of reality than that of reality itself. He thinks that signs of culture and media create a perceived reality and that society has become hocked on beliefs that they are lost in the real world and what are beliefs really based on.
He has three types of identifications for simulacra and simulation; pre-modern, industrial, and post modern age. Pre-modern is an placemaker for a real item. Industrial Revolution is the thought of reality breaking down because of mass-produced copies. It threatens to replace the original version by imitating reality. Postmodern age where simulacrum precedes the original and distinction between reality and representation break down. He has a thoery that contemporary media (TV, film, paint, and the Internet), exchange value, multinational capitalism, urbanization, language and ideology are the down fall of what we believe is true.
Talking about how he came up with this idea he talks about a fable called," On Exactitude in Science" by Jorge Luis Borges. It talks about an empire so great it created a map that was just as great. It showed the whole empire and as time went on the empire was lost but not the map. He gives a rendition, it is the map that the people live in, the simulation of reality, and it is reality that is crumbling away from disuse. So, the people live in the map but are just letting it come to an end. He says that there are things that imply the truth to which ideology still belongs and that there is no longer a God to recognize truth from false. Than he moves on to war saying that the image of war, precedes real war.
Childhood to him is no longer in existence because he argues that the real no longer exist. He than questions "why is there nothing, rather than something" to "why is there something, rather than nothing". He puts it in a different view, such that there are so much going on why can't it stop. What if there was nothing? What would happen to us?