I'm surprised that this is surprising. That said, there's a difference between malicious "holding out" and being reserved with political information. I'm not g

I'm surprised that this is surprising. That said, there's a difference between malicious "holding out" and being reserved with political information. I'm not going to hide something that's purely technical, but political information is (a) dangerous to share, and (b) often incomplete, meaning you could unduly bias someone with your own half-knowledge. Besides, while everyone will "listen to" a gossip, no one will ever defend one. However, there's a certain room for reciprocity. If I trust that someone will look out for me, I'll look out for him or her. Your odds aren't good, in the long run, if you try to walk through this world alone. I think of modern corporate life as post-apocalyptic, like in The Walking Dead. The HR drones who implement stack-ranking, the mindless backstabbers, and the self-destructively sadistic middle managers out there are the zombies. In numbers, inferior but ravenous beings like zombies can overwhelm the living and strong, and they do so, so often, that they're a primary landscape feature of this new world. (One place where this metaphor breaks down is that it's not clear, in the real world, who are the living and who are the zombies. But bear with me.) For those who haven't figured it out, zombie horror is really about "tyranny of the majority", which is a formidable enemy within an organization. You have to know who your friends and your enemies are, and sometimes you have to make decisions quickly. While you "fight" the zombies (except, you do it by making them click on ads and mindlessly support brands you invent, not killing them) you also have to fear the living. If our parents and grandparents knew what little politicians and fire-starters we are, as a generation, they'd be horrified. We're not actually morally any worse. In fact, we're probably better in many ways (less racist, less sexist, and unlike the Boomers we didn't cause widespread organizational failure because we were still children during the Reagan Era). We're just post-apocalyptic (and OK with that). We know that the people in power aren't looking out for us, so we don't give a shit about them. Compared to our elders, we care more about people who we actually know and can (sometimes) trust, but less about organizations and society.