Home is where they scroll on their feeds, which reinforces everything they did that day because they don’t show the same things as mine or yours. They don’t have a minute to think.

That’s my entire point.

They’re not people making the conscious decision to be good or evil, they’re cogs who’re constantly given positive feedback by everything around them. Asking yourself “why don’t they just…?” is a non-sequitur until you break the machine they’re in.

Ah, you’re right. Don’t know how I missed that part but it at least means my statements were a bit myopic compared to the point he was trying to make.

Garbage in, garbage out. COVID and screens were just accelerators that could’ve been managed and incorporated if we hadn’t been cutting the education budget to the bone for the last half dozen decades.

Teachers are worse quality, infrastructure is worse, and now the products of that steady decline are sending their kids (or their kids) back into a degraded system to show its “value” once again.

But that’s not how it goes. That’s just the summary, and most anyone would balk at it being put like that. Just like most of Nazi Germany would’ve balked at gassing 6mil Jews if that’s what Hitler would’ve ran his campaign on.

First they say, “Ok boys, today we’re on crowd control. It’s going to be a little crazy out there today because of the officer involved shooting but we’re just going to try and keep it professional and hope for the best.”

Of course that’s coded to hell and passive voice for “the people are agitated and we gotta show force” but there’s a reason they don’t say it like that. It’s too direct. It might cause the more liberal minded to ask uncomfortable questions where everyone else can hear, and start to doubt the mission too.

Then they’re out there. Shoulder to shoulder. Dressed the same, on the same team, with all the (justifiable) anger of a mob directed right at them. Tribalism kicks in and it’s off to the escalation races. By the time they get to the tear gas stage they’re practically congratulating each other that they haven’t shot anyone else today.

Anyone with sense saw this coming when they did the same thing in Australia and the UK but I otherwise agree with your point. I think this is a very calculated move.

When the deadline gets here in a month, 80% of the group that would’ve migrated out of disgust won’t be affected because they just use Discord for group voice chats anyway, and the competition isn’t ready. The rest have been trained to put their personal info out there to anyone who asks for it. And, when (not if) they eventually roll out “IDs for Everyone”, the outrage won’t be nearly as detrimental to their bottom line because it’s already happened before.