[talkingtab]

I am beginning to think that advertising is the most toxic element of our environment. Click bait is a way to present something that makes it impossible not to ignore. "Biden and Trump Get Into Food Fight at Restaurant". Behind the click bait is so often lies, deception or garbage, that our brains now conclude that anything behind click bait is trash.

If advertising is your business model, then you can make more money with click-baitization. Here's looking at you WAPO and NYT.

If, with good reason, we cannot trust the supposed sources of good information, even HN, then our ability to build common understandings and actions is destroyed. Why, it is almost like our political system would be destroyed.

If you want to destroy an ant colony, the simplest method is just to prevent interfere with the mechanisms they use to collaborate. Single ants, even mobs of ants cannot survive. Of course we are not ants and we can survive even when our systems of collaboration are destroyed.

(fixed phrasing in edit)