=== Article === "Worst of all, we snarl at anyone who tries to help us out of the mire, and we decry attempts at pulling anyone else out. We make excuses for wr

=== Article === "Worst of all, we snarl at anyone who tries to help us out of the mire, and we decry attempts at pulling anyone else out. We make excuses for writing errors instead of correcting them, we overlook factual mistakes if addressing them would be inconvenient, and we sneer at the alleged pretension of so-called elitists who haven’t yet been ground into the dirt. The only thing that we ever really accomplish is a gradual yet consistent lowering of standards… because even a reasonable excuse is still an excuse, and it represents an opportunity for improvement that’s being cast aside." ==== We do? I don't recall anyone ever yelling at me for opening my Kindle at lunch and reading a chapter or two of Rules of Civility for 45 minutes as I scarf down the meatballs leftovers I prepped last night for me and my partner? The article is cathartic in nailing the Ennui Engine's downsides of cheap content. The lack of fact checking, or care put into basic literature. But most people aren't mindless zombies only surfing Tik Tok. You do a little of that. And a little of the other things you like. Cable Access TV was full of Better Call Saul quacks in the 90s, you know. How many people genuinely read the newspaper in 1950 versus the funnies or the sports page? Wasn't that a staple joke in every sitcom? Yokels gonna yokel. New economies spin up. But NYTimes is still making a killing. The straggler media outlets adapt? And of course some terrifically fine middle sized agents unfortunately got pinched in the spinning of the universe at this juncture of Space–Time.