[tcbawo]

We now live in a courtier world where flattery and politics determine successful outcomes.

[Arubis]

That has been the case for a vast swathe of time across history. It hurts because we had a nice couple of decades where it seemed that, not only was this not the case, but that we were directionally accelerating away from it.

[quantummagic]

Yes we do. We always did, and we still do.