[digitaltrees]

That’s a reasonable perspective. I would ask though, whether the fear of muddying the discussion is weaponized to create the impression of complexity, a broad range of intractable causes that lead to the conclusion that any solution is futile. The forces that benefit from the status quo deploy this quite effectively

[mishellaneous]

i agree with you that this is a technique that is used to make people give up. not only in the context of this discussion ("how is the economy doing"), but in many discussions. i see it being effective often enough for it to be worrying. i guess it's as they say, this is why you need a population that is indeed educated (on which these techniques would supposedly be less effective) for democracy to work.