I think "glee" is a misattribution. For one thing, companies aren't people, and don't have emotions. Many of the publications look for ANYTHING that's the right degree of shocking or unbelievable...not because of glee, but simply to earn a few bucks. Where they differ is that amount of plausibility they require. (There are legal reasons why they want something to not be easily disprovable, but Fox went to court to defend their right to intentionally lie to viewers during a news program. And they won.)

Well, I do object to the word. Gender is a grammatical category, not a biological one. Consider that German rivers are masculine (der Fluss), and French rivers are (I believe) feminine.

The explanation makes sense. It doesn't preclude the GPs scenario, since the app is on a cell phone.

Well, I do go along with that, but it caused me to stop buying computer games a few decades ago. (Alpha Centauri is getting rather old.)

I don't believe you. I think you'll just move the goal posts.

Think of it as a generalized version of Poe's law.

FWIW, I think of Poe's law more as a statement about the asymmetry between an experience and the desire to comment about it than about something inherent in an individual. When people dislike something, they're more likely to comment about it than when they don't care or are pleased by it. And more emotionally intense messages are more likely to be promulgated as memes because they cause a greater fraction of people to react to them.

Well, Kiss did that, but It always struck me as repulsive and conspicuous consumption. I can't say it made me angry, but it seemed a clear message that they did not respect their tools.

Try "a mechanism". That only explains about 20% of the cases.

Actually, I think the gp intended his comment as humor.

I basically agree that we incarcerate people too long, but I also think we allow them too much communication with outside entities. I think the confinement should be solitary that's really solitary. No talking with anybody, including the jailers. No view of anybody, even the jailers. A nice, comfortable, cell suitable for a monk on retreat. Include an exercise machine. No phone. No video. No speakers. No monitoring. Think of it as a modern day equivalent to marooning alone on a desert island. And have the sentences be half what they are now, or less.

Of course, this would put most prison guards out of a job, and bankrupt the prison industries.

FWIW, I have known people addicted to weed. It's unusual, but it does happen. (But it's much more common to be addicted to sugar or excessive salt.)

You mean like the one that died at an early age recently.

Perhaps it was natural causes. But I wonder.

Unions *CAN* call management. But if they're run by MBAs, they won't do it for the right reasons.

Profit, as a motivational force, is ethically neutral. It can be either good or bad. Boeing has made it chaotic evil.

For and example of "good profit motivation" look at HP in the 1960's-70's.

The problem is that something that is ethically neutral AND is a motivational force is quite easy to corrupt. And we've seen that happen repeatedly.

You left out paying off blackmail.