Nothing can divert the "for your convenience" consolidation train unless we accidentally trigger some really unexpected economic / instinctual landmines along t

Nothing can divert the "for your convenience" consolidation train unless we accidentally trigger some really unexpected economic / instinctual landmines along the way. So, it's up to us on an individual level to preserve our own humanity. It plucks some discomfort cords in me to see the same trajectory you do. It hurts even more to see society roll over for it. We're corralled and herded to their nearest wedge issue that resonates so we can focus all our discomfort and unhappiness at marketeer sanctioned foci. A few people say things like "huh automation, where's that going to go when there's no unskilled jobs?" "Nah that's not a problem, job retraining and economics and stuff but HEY check out this buffet of exaggerated wedge issues. Don't the guys on the other side really piss you off? Haha yeah." Millions of people divided into black vs. white issues where both sides are mostly reasonable people pissed off at the other side's crazies. Crazy is distributed evenly enough to support this system. The ebb and flow of the number of crazies on either side of the issue is balanced with media magnification and non-reporting. Keep the fight going, never come to any conclusions at all costs. The psychographics industry mastered provoking conspicuous consumption in the 80s and 90s. Household debt peaked in the early 2000's partially because of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_debt#/media/File:U.S._Household_Debt_Relative_to_Disposable_Income_and_GDP.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_debt#/media/File:U.S... I think that over time, so much has wealth and.. potential has been sucked away that it's somehow more profitable for the industry to move on to influencing and directing outrage. "The attention economy" is the new state of things. Too much production for humans to consume it all. We have articles talking about "peak attention". How dehumanizing is that? Your attention and your thoughts have been commoditized. Companies pump it like oil and sell it back to you. We live on a mountain of abstractions that dehumanize us as individuals and stir us all together into a slurry of hardly dissimilar demographic chunks. It'll be interesting to see what's next.