[logicallee]

It wasn't a hard routine to master. You showed up. You read the article. Then you clicked on the text box, and you write one of a few thoughts: "I love how this exposes the vacuousness of the fine dining experience". Or: "The story about the Chinese businessman confirms something I have long suspected, that paying more for a meal is no an evidence of a soul." With a little practice, you can almost pass it off as original. You act surprised. You act indignant. You act informed.

Then you click add comment. That's it. Simple. Mechanical. Of course, beneath the mechanical gestures lurks an ugly truth. It was something you didn't talk about. You just did your job - occasionally, you would get some karma for it. That soon wore off. I wondered: is this what it feels like to be one of the liberated intelligentsia? Would Engels have strained his relationship with his mother so that he could defend my right to "take it easy"? Is this what we have fought for?

To be sure, I was a glorious member of a liberated proletariat: nobody got "surplus value" from my comment. The karma was mine.

But sometimes, for just a glimmer of a moment, in those seconds after I clicked "add comment" I was left facing the ugly truth, there in black and white. It was because there was no value there at all.

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(I am satirizing this awful article)