I didn't really imply any sort of teleological character to what I was saying. I do think that there's a tendency for this kind of thing to happen at a much la

I didn't really imply any sort of teleological character to what I was saying. I do think that there's a tendency for this kind of thing to happen at a much larger scale in capitalist economies, but I don't think that's intentional. It's just an inevitable consequence of actual humans operating in such a system. That also doesn't mean that any one person consciously believes what they're doing is garbage - I'm sure they're all confident in their idea. But it's really, really difficult for me to perceive a practical distinction between millions of people all operating under widely varying and often mutually contradictory beliefs, and simple randomness. Maybe that's my statistical training affecting how I view the world, though.