The quest for clicks has definitely aggravated the problem but, as Murray Gell-Man once noted, journalism and dumbing down are almost synonymous…

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

It's important to begin violently opposing, not just disagreeing with, the theory of engagement and revenue creation. It must become dangerous indeed for those who decide to pursue those goals.

If they pay your bills, it is very dangerous to say anything in fact.

Collaborators always have their excuses, and yet freedom fighters always seem to ignore those very excuses. What makes the difference in outlook?

The latter doesn't value human life, even their own.

You think the person building technologies that cause human suffering values human life? Come on now.

no human life means no suffering, which means your tech is not useful - so I'd say yes?

freedom fighters take calculated risks, they believe there's a prize that they can win.

collaborators think that they are helping minimise harm and using the leverage/finance to help a lot more people than they could otherwise help/contribute to. nobody ever woke up and said, today I will do evil things. Man does not err willingly.

That's what you think; I think plenty of people have shown that they wake up and prioritise themselves and only themselves. They don't think in terms of good or evil. They think "will this benefit me? Will this make me more money? Give me more status? More power?"

have they told you this, or are you saying you are able to hear their private thoughts?

My mistake for engaging with you; you have checkmated me. You are asking me for my sources now, whereas I should have asked you first what your source was for your claim about "nobody choosing to do evil". Alas, that now looks weak and desperate.

it's from Socrates, as channelled by Plato.

Many collaborators I've talked to have shown confusion about why they should do things to cause some far away revolutionary improvement to their own lives, or even less the lives of others, when it would involve putting themselves and loved ones at risk.

Like not only do they feel the risk is too great and the payoff too little. But they also can't comprehend what would motivate anyone to act that way. Sometimes they even insist that revolutionaries must be insane or mentally deficient.

But I don't know if it's the case that people make a decision to be this way. I think it's just the default way to be, given a relatively stable life.

People won't really be able to account for why they became this way, or think of a time when they weren't this way. To them it will just be common sense, while revolutionary thought will just seem dangerous, anathema, and basically unthinkable and wasteful.

I think it's like a mental block that evolved to let us form stable social groups. And I think that certain circumstances can unblock it.

In particular I think that a person can get so traumatized by the state of affairs and things that happen to them that they have a strong reaction that causes them to give up hope for getting rewarded by the current regime. Then a person begins investing significant portions of their effort not in just surviving the current regime, but in overthrowing and changing it in a positive way. They begin to live on the hope of justice they can bring for not only themselves, but also others. They see their own lives as irrevocably altered by the trauma, and become agents for the cause of breaking that cycle. To them, the dream of a future generation not having to experience that trauma can be more motivating than thoughts of their own survival.

I believe that just like the first mode evolved to keep societal groups stable, the revolutionary mode evolved to let groups compete with each other and achieve beneficial new power structures.

Do you realize that you're on the Ycombinator news site?

Do you realize that ycomb is an incubator of startups?

Ycomb actively engages in the 'engagement and revenue creation' as S.O.P.. It's kind of their whole schtick. It's most people's schtick because that's how we feed ourselves.

How else would one frame the 'information age' except through engagement and revenue creation? Engagement = data. Data = money. Money = stuff, fun, alimony, child support, back taxes, and a drinking habit. I'm just sayin'.

You're saying a bunch of nothing

Why bring that up? We all know it's BS, and the people who do it are expletive deleted morons. We're interested in what the smart people do .. and even better smart with a touch of class.

The older I get the less and less patience I have with people pushing the "it's all politics", "everybody lies and manages up/down and if you don't you're a fool", or it's all about image.

While there's smallish elements of truth to each in individual cases, this just cannot be the knee jerk reaction.

Know BS when you see it then say it. It's not tough.

The corruption is systematic and automated, so the struggle and response must be systematic and automated as well as forceful. Not knee jerk. But more organized than simple individuals doing the right thing. And much more forceful.

It must become very dangerous to be an exploiter of the human condition. Must become very dangerous for capitalists, executives, marketers, and so on.

Force and systematization/automation are required to gain power. And power is required to end capitalism.

Capitalism is the opposite of exploitation, it is a system in which every transaction is voluntary.

You've got too much time on your hands with all this jibber-jabber. Maybe you should find something to do me thinks...

Hey scrubs, I own my own company, mentor college kids in category theory and open source programming, and generally love life.

Have a nice day!

Haven’t considered that for reducing the number of support tickets, something to consider