Digital information may be our first post-scarce resource. It's interesting, and sad, to see so many attempt to fit it within scarcity-based economic models.
Plus, there's the disproportionate ratio of posters:commenters:lurkers. The tendency to comment over keeping ones thoughts to themself is a selection bias inofitself.
Great insight, didn't thing about it even anecdotally. I was lurking on Reddit since 2008 and finally created an account in 2012 when someone was really 'wrong on the internet' and had to step in.
The habitual espousal of protocol in place of humanistic discretion is the problem the author was trying to call out, and that you're actively partaking in.
Fun fact, traditionally, police officers are called upon to use their discretion over blind enforcement. The mechanized enforcement of law, historically, has never done any favors for society.
It seems Arendt's notion of "the banality of evil" has culturally diminished over time. The sentiment you're pushing is the very basis for Sergeant Shultz's character in Hogan's Heroes[1]. It also doesn't change the lack of any route towards a higher-up, so the tired "they're just an employee" defense really doesn't matter when, for all intents and purposes, that employee is the only way for the author to interact with the bureaucracy they're (very obviously) being ushered through with zero concern for the high-stakes outcome.
In short, the answer to complacency isn't "more complacency".
The topic at hand seems to shift the quality of the discussion greatly these days. Many people have thoughts on coding agents because they are aimed at the lower quartiles of coders. Far less have detailed opinions on other ways they could wield a Markov model.
Any proof-of-work cryptocurrency is literally a system that incentivizes runaway, self-reinforcing energy consumption like no other product in human history. Bringing it into the world is the dumbest idea that any human has ever had. I hope Satoshi is ashamed of his mental lapse.
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