I think I see what he means, but upvoting etc isn't necessarily mechanical. The mechanical conformity he's talking about sounds like social conformity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

That warehousing system sounds like GPS car navigation systems - but this is still amplification (so far), and I doubt it can or will be extended.

I saw a reddit post about how army life can be very appealing, because of the "clear purpose in life": the matter at hand is urgent, so you don't worry about any other problems in your life, and the bigger picture is taken care of by the higher-ups.

aside: I think the ideal life, as organized by a super-brain/demigod (or, from a different point of view, what heaven would be like), would be still have ups an downs (as in the earlier matrixes/ices, people rejecting utopia), but these ups and downs would be more clearly meaningful to the person, like a composed heroic journey, without the meaningless clutter. For people who had grown more, it would include the meaningless clutter, so that part of the "ups and downs" would be to discern the meaning. ie. living in heaven would be indistinguishable from on earth.