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Notes -
I struggle to intuit the tone of this comment, but even if it is facetious, I see it as a pithy portal to profundity. I believe in long term social dynamics and think that the world works something like this parable:
One day there is a religious revival and the Church of Universal Love grows big. Young people flock to its message of unconditional kindness and charity. They marry and have children. Thirty years on those children are the new crop of adults. They are unconditionally kind and full of charity; it was how they were brought up. And thirty years on a new grift culture emerges to take advantage of them.
Sixty years on from the religious revival sees another new crop of adults. They look at their parents with dismay: how can intelligent people so lack street smarts? Why do they fall for every scam and grift? I picture @RococoBasilica as one of this second generation, looking back on sixty years of history and noticing the earlier parts of the causal chain leading to the rise of grift culture.
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