I do wonder though if we will look back on this period in history and regret the economic and cultural incentives which have co-opted so many smart people into the service of ... advertising.
Ubiquitous surveillance is what pays most of the VerySmart gathered here.
Advertising is just the part of the market we can talk about in stand ups.
Do you really think that the usefulness of knowledge is limited to trying to sell you stuff?
If so, you’ve never thought about it very deeply.
This is more than capitalism, it's freedom. If you are suggesting that we spend more money on Ebola or public transport, that's tyranny.
Yikes. It’s actually exactly capitalism. We spent more money than god on COVID research basically from 0. That research didn’t restrict freedoms. We decided to co-opt capitalism and pump money directly where we needed it. This incentives people to research Covid within the capitalist market. We could do the same for Ebola or Public transportation but we chose not to.
Anything can be whatever if you define your terms in obtuse or unusual ways.
Launder it by burying the questionable definitions a couple layers down from the garbage you’ve set out to “prove”, and you can fool even some smart folks.