> "Are we doing things that align with what we know makes humans happy, healthy, and prosperous, or are we being {driven, influenced, manipulated} to do that w

> "Are we doing things that align with what we know makes humans happy, healthy, and prosperous, or are we being {driven, influenced, manipulated} to do that which is the most profitable to various well funded corporate entities?" I'll argue we're doing the second It seems like people on both the left and the right (as well as the middle) are coming to this conclusion. There's widespread agreement about the diagnosis, but a huge amount of disagreement about the treatment. > are people staring at social media feeds endlessly because they want to, or because well paid people have made it their career to find ways to exploit the human brain to keep us doing it, because it's profitable to their companies? I'd argue it's very much the second, and that's an example of "man bending to the whims of the economy," in my (admittedly short) phrase. Exactly. The billionaire calling himself "a free speech absolutist" just wants to be able to do the manipulating more directly (as well as his competitors in that space).