The government is among the worst of the culprits. “We’re being accused of doing a bad thing? I know! Arrest the speaker and erase it from our version of the Internet!”

> I wonder if the government is doing anything social engineering-y to try to reduce it?

I know Xi Jinping launching an anti-corruption program was considered a pretty big deal, because it meant admitting that corruption exists in the CPC.

That isn’t true though. All presidents launch anti corruption campaigns to solidify their power when they start. Xi did it, Hu did it, Jiang did it, I bet Deng did it (although the office was merged yet, he was at least supreme leader). When they are all corrupt, it is easy to (a) clean house of people you don’t like (b) protect and promote your supporters and (c) scare lots of monkeys by killing lots of chickens.

The CPC always admitted there was corruption, to do otherwise would simply lose credibility with people. Given that Xi is now president for life, the corruption should simply be accumulating now since the 10 year house cleaning cycle has been broken.

seriously. Look at the Kardashians. They turned every embarrassing event into a money making opportunity.

You think the Kardashians are a good model for government?

Of course not. I meant it as an extreme counter-example.