[mercer]

Surely we can do much better as a society than to defend a system where people are treated as 'cogs', especially when it concerns an industry that is particularly known for abuse of young people?

I've had plenty of jobs where I wasn't just a 'cog', and where my boss treated me like a proper human. I also try to do the same when others work for me. And as far as I can tell this is a perfectly workable approach.

And while I do understand it's easy to adjust to whatever system you find yourself part of, however complicit it makes you, actively defending it as 'just the way it is' and calling its critics 'cruel' just baffles me.

(err, not 'you' as in you. Just people. It's happened to me, so I'm no saint.)