omg2k

MathWorks (Natick, MA).

My Birth Certificate, friends, family, and employers identify me as "Blah".

People in academia are absolutely driven by money: they need funding to purchase equipment, hire grad students, and pay their salary. Also, whether or not to grant tenure is judged (in part) by how much grant money an assistant professor has brought into the university.

Is the graph cumulative or showing the number of people who are currently being treated for Ebola?

Fine, I'll bite. I have no idea what the hell the author's talking about. S/he keeps it deliberately vague because failing to do so would mean "the Thing gets in and it is less about The Thing than what The Thing happens to be finding in the weakness in human beings". Then s/he lists some troubling trends with the things enables (i.e. by "pointing at the thing" rather than naming it explicitly).

I don't really see any point to this writing style though (unless the only point is so the author can feel clever). I'm going to guess though that anyone who understands what the author is getting at already has the same interpretation of "the thing" as the author and thus already agrees, that anyone who would disagree with the author (if the post were less vague) will continue to disagree, and that anyone who could be swayed is left in bamboozlement.