...and no one knows what to do to fix it.

In 2010 the new Web was all about "user generated content". Today, the modern mantra is: "Don't read the comments"

Reviews and review sites have almost exactly the same problems as comment sections: there is no way to filter the ignorant and/or malicious from the informed and sincere. Case in point: there are currently exactly two reviews of my book on Amazon. One from a reasonably thoughtful reader (3 stars) and one from a troll who apparently has given Charles Dickens the same rating as me (2 stars).

There was a five-star review which was from someone who had read the book and genuinely liked it, but Amazon determined it was from someone I knew (likely because I bought her a book on the site a few years ago) and removed the review. This is a ridiculous practice--it would invalidate a huge number of reviews in traditional publications--but is made necessary by authors who try to game the review system in the stupidest possible way.

If there is a solution to these problems it's likely some kind of reputation system, but as near as I can tell no one--not Amazon, not GoodReads, not TripAdvisor, not Yelp, not anyone--is even thinking along those lines, which suggests there is no money in building a site that provides honest peer-to-peer feedback. This is a shame, because the Web should be enabling us to help each other, not increasing our distrust of each other (we're plenty good enough at that already).

/. has had a basically functional reputation system for well over a decade, so it's not like there's any real mystery as to how to do this. I wonder if there might be some b2b model where users sign up with a third party reputation system that then sells reputation information (which would exist across all sites that use it, like discus does for comments) to review sites. Without something like that there seems to be very little hope of getting much long-term value from online reviews of any kind.

What I find ironic is that supposedly one big reason for Obama's electoral success was due to his team's deep understanding of technology, the internet, and social media compared to Republicans

No, it's due to him not being a Republican. Personal qualifications might matter in party elections, but after that people are voting for a party, not a person.

Count your blessings. My boss always wants all my fixes to be retroactive.

Let's get off oil, then they will have no power, no funding, and thus, no threat.

I'd love to, especially since that would also force Russia to ditch dictatorship and start developing or become irrelevant. However, it's easier said than done, as oil happens to be near-ideal power source. The only technologically realistic alternative is nuclear, but that has political problems.

ItÃ(TM)s hard to imagine even the most ardent Democrats supporting the literal deification of Barack Obama or erecting small shrines in his honor throughout Washington DC. By contrast, after Julius Caesar was posthumously declared a god, Augustus, as his adopted son, became known as the son of god. Along with the other gods, he received dedications at small crossroads shrines throughout Rome.

What are flagpoles but shrines?

It's important to remember that our concept of divine is very different from a Roman's concept. Any fool could all but feel the omnipresent might of Rome, a pattern behind all the roads and aqueducts and legions and whatever. The Emperor was an easily identifiable focus point, giving name and face to something indescribable. But make no mistake, while we don't call them as such we too treat our nations the same way, waving flags, swearing allegiance and if called for, killing or dying for our gods.

So no, people don't deify Barack Obama personally. They deify his position. Power rests in the system itself, and Obama is simply the human currently most closely associated with it, hence any problems in said system get blamed on him. It's actually quite fascinating, the way our institutions take on lives of their own, escape from their founder's control, and all too often display a very human tendency towards megalomania and petty cruelty. And unless we learn to keep them focused on human good, rather than their own self-aggrandizement, and fast, I fear we'll meet the Great Filter.

Dirt is without purpose.

There are good reasons to criticize the ACA, but the number of people who have gotten coverage for the first time because of the law is not one of them.

Unless, of course, your very ideology is to make the gap between rich and poor as wide as possible. Then it makes perfect sense that you'd be upset that everyone can afford medical care. And you can always explain away any attacks of conscience by claiming you simply want everyone to be personally responsible for themselves, even as your policies take away the means to do so from the majority of people.

Oh just get stuffed. You can't argue hyper-materialism here, then "little mysteries" there. Oh, wait: in crapflood mode, such contradictions are a requirement.

If it makes no difference at all, because you are Dirt, then the illusion of "how you want to live" also dissolves into nihilistic dirt, Dirt. You can slam your fingers in your Overton Window, but it was all variations on dirt, Dirt. At least, that seems the conclusion of your course. With which I don't fully agree. Sure, the flesh is dirt, but our very conversation itself negates the assertion that dirt is all there is.