Hobbies ruined by other people thread - And corporations, and trends, and so forth.

[ToroidalBoat]

I am just so tired of anime conventions and whatnot being invaded by western cartoon, comic book, and video game content.

And of course such invading content can be full of "social justice" BS.

Maybe a way to go to a convention that isn't full of that is to go to Comiket all the way over in Japan?

Everything just has this layer of narcissism over it now.

I think "social media" is to blame for that. Or "social media" combined with (and which seems to have caused) Clown World anyway.

Fuck absolutely everything about Friendship is Magic.

At least being a "brony" isn't that much of a thing anymore.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

(orcs are not an allegory for black people, you hypocritical racist faggots)

This has always baffled me like who was the first person to look at an orc and think "black people"?

Thread tax: Not really a big example like some others in the thread, but I like to write slice of life fiction. I went on Goodreads once and did a search for slice of life fiction via a genre search function in the URL, and the vast majority of what I saw was letter people vomit. The very first book listed was something with a title like "The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School" or some such. Like no one can just write about a decade in a person's day to day life without all of this? Like white heterosexual people in small town America don't exist in fiction anymore?

 

[Premium Gonzo]

Thread tax: Not really a big example like some others in the thread, but I like to write slice of life fiction. I went on Goodreads once and did a search for slice of life fiction via a genre search function in the URL, and the vast majority of what I saw was letter people vomit. The very first book listed was something with a title like "The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School" or some such. Like no one can just write about a decade in a person's day to day life without all of this? Like white heterosexual people in small town America don't exist in fiction anymore?

You gotta share that list now. Its my new hobby to torture my partner with readings from cringe tranny trash fiction. Also Amholio needs more bed time stories.

 

[Smar Mijou]

My response will be the same as everyone else. Troons objectively ruin every. single. thing. that they come into contact with. They join a group, make it a point to bring up their troon status, and since the alphabet mafia has latched onto the gay rights movement, they've instantly gained a shield of protection against any form of criticism or dissent lest you be deemed some sort of "phobic". That's how these degenerates have taken over places like 4chan and pReddit, the handmaidens and corporate cowards who want to "Do The Right Thing" give them their inflated sense of ego and power. Of course the same thing has happened with video games too. I grew up playing NES, SEGA Genesis, SNES, etc. And now these autistic fucks want to come in and ret-con everything, and/or gaslight people into changing their beliefs on how games were developed and designed?! Nah, fuck you. I was there and gres up playing these games long before you decided that being genderspecial for SJW points was a legitimate life ambition. Try actually doing something that will amount to success in your life, and quit trying to use 30 year old 8 and 16 bit video games to construct a narrative to fit your mental delusions.

Along with that, the SJW/Troon/Woke agenda that has infested the sci-fi/fantasy world. That group has always been exceptional, but it was ground zero for the Troon Mafia. The prime example is the autistic fanfictions of the Harry Potter cult. You'd see these troons declere something fantastically dumb like "Hermione is Trans!" and half a dozen or more back it up and declere it canon. Or the literally pedophilic "ships" that they'd warble on about. Google "Drarry" fanfics, if you're brave enough. And the hilarious thing about it all is, J.K. Rowling herself bought into this shit herself and even fed the beast... until she committed the cardinal sin of saying that women need their own space. And the fucking troons went nuclear. 3 years ago. And they have done nothing but seeth about it and gotten crazier ever since. It's seriously to the point now that you have these degenerate mongoloids doxxing, stalking, harassing and threatening to bash her brains in with a baseball bat. Meanwhile she's somehow a right wing extremist TERF who wants all trans people to be genocided, and is  LITERALLY worse than Hitler! There's a fantastic thread documenting this entire clusterfuck on The Farms.

I have to call out the endless corporate greed ruining every hobby and activity as well. With video games, its the endless nickle-and-dimeing of micro-transactions, loot boxes, DLC, and misleading, pay to win schemes that is the worst offenders. Not to mention, in-game ads on top of that. And don't forget about your mandatory Playstation Network/Xbox Live monthly subscription fee as well!!! Growing up as I said before in the NES/Genesis era, when you bought a game, you got the whole game. There was no day 1 download, patches to fix bugs for a botched release, or DLC that you had to pay for to finish the game that you paid for. The only scam back then was the insane difficulty of some of the games, likely done by programmers who hated children. (Looking at you, Battletoads underground Turbo tunnel level! ) I used to joke years ago around the end of the PS3 era that by the time the PS5 came out, that there would be a credit card slot right in the top of the controller, and hell, we're basically to that point already. I don't know whether to laugh or throw my hands up in frustration at the stupidity when I see yet another article about a 14 year old spending $20k on Fortnite, or $900 on Roblox, or $16K on the Apple App store, or OVER $160K in gifts to streamers!, and there are countless other examples that I could show, but this is literally first page, top 5 articles of Google searching right here.

More corporate cocksucking greed... if something is successful, or even has the prospect of being successful, these soulless marketers and corporations either look to acquire the IP rights, or enter "strategic partnerships " with the thing that just ends up ruining what was once nice about it in the first place. Disney will snap up any preexisting or promising IP, give it the "Disney Treatment" which usually means watering the story down enough to where it's not going to be offensive to most, cucking to the Chinese market, forcibly insert Diverse Character in any number from 1-?, add SJW allegory to plotline, retcon or ruin the lore of an established character, especially if it's a white man, a Mary Sue must prevail, smatterings of PG-rated jokes throughout, gratuitous amounts of CGI, add in a happy ending, and there's your next $500 million dollar plus blockbuster! With endless merchandise tie-ins and sequal potentials of course.

Corporate advertising in sports and convoluted naming rights pisses me off too. You can't have traditional names like Candlestick Park, Louisiana Superdome (Now Caesars, formerly Mercedes-Benz), or Arrowhead Stadium anymore. Now you can watch the Chiefs at GEHA Field. Or if you're feeling particularly end-stage capitalism, you can watch the Jacksonville Jaguars play at TIAA Bank Field, formerly Alltel Stadium, formerly EverBank Field... while watching Thursday night football on Prime, with NextGenStats provided by AWS, and placing your bets with Draft Kings the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of The NFL! And don't forget about the endless commercial breaks during the game, sometimes cutting off the beginning of plays or point after attempts. Or even pointless things like tributes for legendary players jersey retirement ceremonies. The NFL can't be bothered to worry about tradition or celebration, there's money to be made!


..... fuck this world.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

Nowadays, it’s like people want to mash all nerd content together into one big blob

The redditication or big bang theory effect. "Nerd culture" started mushing everything together in an homogeneous package in the late 010s.

I believe Is all related. This, sjws, troons, coomers, censorship, everything. Is all about Big Tech , Big Data and the social media industry and is gonna get worse as they are consolidating and forming corporatist international cartels with expressed intentions of planning the economy and social engineering people.

The trans agenda is only the tip of the iceberg as tech reptiles all want to push transhumanism as well as a barrage of other abominations to devoid humans of humanity..

 

[Inafune Fanfiction]

And of course such invading content can be full of "social justice" BS.

At least being a "brony" isn't that much of a thing anymore.

Then site staff will doompost about how its all inevitable and the invasion totally wasnt orchestrated behind the scenes in a controlled demolition by glowniggers.

They are still around and aren’t shy about backing up furfags whenever they start to show up in a community. Going so far as to take over site ownership and overturn bans whenever they start proselytizing that garbage.

 

[Biggie Smalls' Taint]

Reddit ruined everything.

Reddit is a writhing mass of everything corrosive. It's full of normies, troons, consoomers, wannabe influencers and tourists.

Nothing can exist outside of reddit. All the information and discussion for hobbies has moved to reddit. No more dedicated forums where autists talk about their passions and share their knowledge. Now it's just the subreddit where midwits spout the same entry-level bullshit over and over again.

Looking for some mecha anime to watch? Bro, watch this obscure anime called Evangelion, bro. It's so deep. Have any of y'all seen Eva (that's how the cool kids say it)

Started playing a new game and want advanced info? Here's the subreddit where people are sharing fanart and pictures of things tangentially related to the game. You spot something that looks like actual discussion, but it's some retard asking how to beat the first boss.

Every community now exists on reddit and adopts the site's voice. Since it's so popular it's also the first (and only) stop for normies and tourists.

I am big MATI that whenever I look up specific advanced tech for Street Fighter or Tekken I get redirected to subreddits where there are these mouthbreathing niggercattle asking how to perform a hadouken. Any specific forum for the games have also been infiltrated by redditors.

TL;DR: Troons? Normies? Consoomers? Reddit is behind all of it. Gatekeep your hobbies.

 

[Blasterman]

Reddit ruined everything.

Reddit is a writhing mass of everything corrosive. It's full of normies, troons, consoomers, wannabe influencers and tourists.

Nothing can exist outside of reddit. All the information and discussion for hobbies has moved to reddit. No more dedicated forums where autists talk about their passions and share their knowledge. Now it's just the subreddit where midwits spout the same entry-level bullshit over and over again.

Looking for some mecha anime to watch? Bro, watch this obscure anime called Evangelion, bro. It's so deep. Have any of y'all seen Eva (that's how the cool kids say it)

Started playing a new game and want advanced info? Here's the subreddit where people are sharing fanart and pictures of things tangentially related to the game. You spot something that looks like actual discussion, but it's some retard asking how to beat the first boss.

Every community now exists on reddit and adopts the site's voice. Since it's so popular it's also the first (and only) stop for normies and tourists.

I am big MATI that whenever I look up specific advanced tech for Street Fighter or Tekken I get redirected to subreddits where there are these mouthbreathing niggercattle asking how to perform a hadouken. Any specific forum for the games have also been infiltrated by redditors.

TL;DR: Troons? Normies? Consoomers? Reddit is behind all of it. Gatekeep your hobbies.

These days it's become really popular to hate on 4chan, but at least the hobby boards are more or less decent. R*ddit permits no free speech, bans literally every sub that's even remotely self-aware of the current events, and has unironic troons as mods. That shit is more than enough for R*ddit to be WORSE than 4chan.

 

[HRT Heisenberg]

Reddit ruined everything.

Reddit is a writhing mass of everything corrosive. It's full of normies, troons, consoomers, wannabe influencers and tourists.

Nothing can exist outside of reddit. All the information and discussion for hobbies has moved to reddit. No more dedicated forums where autists talk about their passions and share their knowledge. Now it's just the subreddit where midwits spout the same entry-level bullshit over and over again.

Looking for some mecha anime to watch? Bro, watch this obscure anime called Evangelion, bro. It's so deep. Have any of y'all seen Eva (that's how the cool kids say it)

Started playing a new game and want advanced info? Here's the subreddit where people are sharing fanart and pictures of things tangentially related to the game. You spot something that looks like actual discussion, but it's some retard asking how to beat the first boss.

Every community now exists on reddit and adopts the site's voice. Since it's so popular it's also the first (and only) stop for normies and tourists.

I am big MATI that whenever I look up specific advanced tech for Street Fighter or Tekken I get redirected to subreddits where there are these mouthbreathing niggercattle asking how to perform a hadouken. Any specific forum for the games have also been infiltrated by redditors.

TL;DR: Troons? Normies? Consoomers? Reddit is behind all of it. Gatekeep your hobbies.

Now that I read your post about it I realized Reddit also fucked up something unexpected for me. I like programming challenges and like to do emulators and operating system projects and it's a hobby I can pretty much keep to myself. But a lot of this stuff gets pretty specific even for StackOverflow so I normally have to look elsewhere for troubleshooting stuff.

But now that a huge amount of tech stuff is now on Reddit I have to deal with Reddit's godawful search function that pretty much never works. Now for problems or questions I have regarding my projects or even some specific Linux stuff I have to use regular search engines and hope they do a good job of indexing Reddit, the other solution for Reddit is to do the infinite scroll and hope what I'm looking shows up (no thanks).

Don't get me wrong, osdev has a great forum and there's some smaller forums for all the stuff I'm into. But now that old school style forums are dying and more people decide to post their problems/solutions on reddit that means if a forum doesn't have what I want there's a good chance someone posted it to Reddit. So I either have to post myself (which takes a lot of back and forth to get a solution) or tackle with a big tech platform which loves to make its features worse over time. Also redditors love to delete their questions when they get answered, yay!

I will admit I am a major autist but I think this can apply to any technical or creative hobby especially when you're doing something specific and it's sad to see that it could even be fixed if Reddit magically decided to not be a shit website one day.

 

[Flatline]

Gardening

Urban/suburban gardening/homesteading

Chickens

There are already a ton of "influencers" in these spaces, some of which are preaching "inclusivity" and "white people are bad for doing this first and gatekeeping."

 

[Smar Mijou]

There are already a ton of "influencers" in these spaces, some of which are preaching "inclusivity" and "white people are bad for doing this first and gatekeeping."

Funny how it's gatekeeping when "da eebil hwite mang" does it first, but if the common feral nig-nog does it first, its part of "hims culchur" and dont you dare try to partake in it, lest you be accused of cultural appropriation!

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Reddit ruined everything.

What if Reddit is responsible for the stereotypical soyboy?

Like even those looks and fashion came from crap on Reddit?

 

[cherrysour]

How much of a Ravelry reject contingent do we have on the Farms?

Oh, man, Ravelry. I've been there since the invite days too. Remember when the front page was some cartoony "Queer Pride" pastiche, and one of the drawings was a dude wearing a sex harness and a ball gag? (That series of "queer" front-page posts wasn't attributed to an author, which leads me to believe "Cassidy" may have been behind them.) Or when the redesign triggered an epidemic of psychosomatic epilepsy?

Ravelry still has some pockets of greatness, though. Like the Sock Madness competition group. It's filled with speed-knitting Scandinavian ladies who, if they aren't discussing socks (and techniques for the knitting thereof), are posting pictures of stroopwafels and this one knitted dragon that everyone made in the downtime between tournaments. People get really into it, but not in a weird way. It's wholesome as all get-out.

 

[Inafune Fanfiction]

What is the point in making artwork when you're just going to be shouted down and or permabanned at random by redditors regardless of the platform or at best, ignored while everyone else there displays grandiose delusions of narcissism?

Would like to share renders of my models since they are all SFW, but am more worried about some discordniggers trying to run off with them and take credit in some attempt at clout.

 

[The Heartthrob]

I don't hate representation. Overall, I think it lingers more in the form of 80s cartoons because it tends to be more important for kids than adults, but regardless I don't really hate it. What I do hate is when it's shoehorned into media in the most shallow way possible and there's a clamor around it like we should all be shocked and amazed, or when the people doing it act like they've ushered in world peace and we should thank them accordingly.

I keep seeing it happen in things that I like where writers don't really know how to write minorities and they don't care to learn, so you end up with gay characters being pressured to come out of the closet for drama and emulating straight relationships or Latinos constantly doing unnatural shit like "Hermano, my brother" so that we don't forget they're ~eXoTiC~. And you'd think it might help if they hired people to write what they know, but they always settle on these narcissistic writers that want praise for writing bland autobiographies about how sad they are for being so average.

As much as I like lore-driven stories, I'm so exhausted with bad writing. I'd rather go back to the 80s/90s where characters had a paragraph in the game manual with their backstory and we were left to infer the rest instead of now where whenever you take a liking to a character, there's bound to be a 50/50 chance that they'll get some bullshit character development during pride month.

 

[Bassomatic]

I guess I'm mostly coming in here to share a quick thing then go on my old man yells at cloud rant and hopefully help someone as well as share my own feelings.

Reenacting, god those people are arrogant I tried a few times in different times since a friend was big into it but man people are snobby fuck one time I brought 300+ rounds of blanks for a ww2 shoot out. Now at the time it was probably about 4 hours work and maybe 120 bucks of stuff. Not one thank you but oh boy did I hear about my wrong boots. I was in borrowed gear I'm new and I brought enough to cover the whole fake battle. Fuck you people. I love history and living history would be fun but these people gate keep younger members and those into it out I just don't get it. Now gatekeeping that's another story for another day.

But I feel away from the Honda scene, I was tied to some big names of the FAST guys in the early 2000s when everyone had a fart can on a civic. (yes I'm old) I saw the place where the first LSVtec was run (before oil lines were added and it blew on it's ride home after kicking ass on illegal drags) I had phone numbers of small importers. I have a part on my civic that's from Skunkwerkz before the lawsuit and they became skunk2. Then they became shit but I digress. I was balls into the hobby. Then everyone got credit cards and just out did us, and it shifted from making these little rattle traps fast enough to bully a stock mustang, into a dress up game. People rather drop 1000 on a wing than a cam swap. I really fell away from cars for a few years.

Then I dated a girl who loves cars but had some money never changed her own oil, we built a car together aka she watched me. I never got into that circle, it was her and I. I felt my love again. I have played with cars for decades now and built tons owned wild things, Honda owners now are mixed old fags who want the car they wanted at 17 or people who need the newest. I don't fit in, I'm not welcome being an OG who had the personal phone number of the people some kids call saints.

I don't care. I only told the car story because that's something that I think comes out best of feeling outed in your own hobby and passion. I hate most gun owners, I still deal with retards who tell me to do cross fit or some meme diet because I take exercise seriously.

If you have a hobby, do it for you, find a few like minded people. Don't let the scene run you out.

 

[Honored guest]

There are already a ton of "influencers" in these spaces, some of which are preaching "inclusivity" and "white people are bad for doing this first and gatekeeping."

Ya I've seen some of those dingleberries, funnily enough I'm not to worried since gardening itself acts as a gatekeeper from people that can't appropriate longterm planning/rewards. Any real growing outside of pots or small plots is going to need actual work, which further gatekeeps out lazy bastards.

 

[Nekoi.Inukuma.00]

At the core, it's the rise of the commercial internet and the centralization of the web that has really ruined everything. The acceleration of the subculture life cycle + the commercialization of everything has pretty much infested and killed everything; the sociopaths always win.

Indie comics got hollowed out hard by the rise of web comics, and then that was hollowed out by tumblrinas and SJW types.

Going to get laughed at over this, but Old School Furry Fandom. Back in the late '90s alt.fan.furry days you had people who were in it for the comics, stories, art, etc. Then the "furry lifestyle" types came along, and their very visible antics drove out anyone who was expected to remain respectable. As if the troons and the otherkin weren't bad enough, the whole Spoogy Bob "coomer" stereotype (which used to be negative stereotype) became the norm. The space was never respectable, but at least it wasn't the dumpster fire it's been for the past 2 decades.

Fantasy LARP. Used to be one of the more inclusive hobbies. Back when I started there were fewer games, but there'd be 100+ person events. The demographics were all over the place, decent racial split; gay, straight, trans, whatever. So was the degeneracy, there was always drama over who was sleeping with who out in the woods. Even when it was cliquish, it was still a blast.

Now, between the geek influencers, ethots, militant trannies, academics, the balkanization of the space, and the general prudishness, the whole thing is pretty much dead to me. Wear your pronoun patch, indulge the trannies, and be careful who you RP with, lest you get me too'ed.

General Anime Fandom. Don't think I need to go deep here, others in the thread have covered it better. When I started it was all fansubs and VHS tape trading; when I quit going to conventions, it was a dumpster fire of English-VA centric BS.

The mainstreaming of anime and the proliferation of shit localizers in recent years is causing a bit of resurgence in the fansub community, but most of the time the releases are all just Crunchroll stream rip torrents on nyaa.

Table Top Gaming. This is another place where the cliquishness, and great flattening of the world brought about by the internet, and social trends has homogenized the creative space (see RPGNet); while the player space is overrun with Critical Role fans and overly sensitive types. I wouldn't be playing at all if I didn't have a well established group.


On the flip side, recent hobby of mine that hasn't been ruined yet: RC Drones/Quadcopters. The space still requires a bit more technical mindedness, and the influencers in the space tend to be generally helpful and not particularly political. However, we'll see how long the hobby lasts until the FAA finishes fucking it over.

 

[Sperghetti]

Going to get laughed at over this, but Old School Furry Fandom. Back in the late '90s alt.fan.furry days you had people who were in it for the comics, stories, art, etc. Then the "furry lifestyle" types came along, and their very visible antics drove out anyone who was expected to remain respectable. As if the troons and the otherkin weren't bad enough, the whole Spoogy Bob "coomer" stereotype (which used to be negative stereotype) became the norm. The space was never respectable, but at least it wasn't the dumpster fire it's been for the past 2 decades.

Funny you should bring that up. I've never been a furry, but I remember running across people in that time period who seemed to just enjoy things like Disney's Robin Hood and drawing comics with anthropomorphic animals, and I've often felt sorry for them and wondered where they ended up. I actually find the whole "burned furs" drama fascinating, as it was basically the exact shit that other hobby communities would be going through 10-15 years later. The furry community is like the perfect archetype for how hobby communities go to shit.

General Anime Fandom. Don't think I need to go deep here, others in the thread have covered it better. When I started it was all fansubs and VHS tape trading; when I quit going to conventions, it was a dumpster fire of English-VA centric BS.

That's another thing that's been crazy about the anime scene: When I was younger, we all knew that dubs were typically butchered to all hell because the companies that imported them had to make them fit the same standards as a western Saturday morning cartoon. So since most of us wanted to watch what the show was supposed to be like, we had to go hunt down some VHS copy that had been subtitled by other fans.

There was a brief period of time after Adult Swim happened where you could just go to FYE or Media Play and buy an officially licensed DVD off the shelf that included decently accurate subtitles, but now we're in this bizarro world where even the subtitles are getting "localized" and editorialized, and people are unironically watching and praising English dubs.

Especially in regards to the English VA thing, I feel like it's become a trend in the anime sphere for modern fans try to emulate Japanese fan culture itself, whereas the older anime fans largely just considered those things to be particularly Japanese quirks. (Fangirling over voice actors, huge emphasis on cosplaying, waifu culture, etc.) Weird times.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

I believe Is all related. This, sjws, troons, coomers, censorship, everything. Is all about Big Tech , Big Data and the social media industry and is gonna get worse as they are consolidating and forming corporatist international cartels with expressed intentions of planning the economy and social engineering people.

It is, but the cause is deeper than that. We don't live in a Capitalist society with live in a Corporate one when corporations get big enough throughout history they sudden realise that paying for thugs to enforce there will is costly and counter productive - getting people to build there own prison and laugh while doing it is far more profitable and longer lasting and when it's large enough it becomes self sustaining.

People these days willingly fork over information that 20 years ago they would be horrified of other people knowing, and have been conditioned to thing Thought + Feeling + Speech = reality, but every single bit of information they consume is digitally prescribed to them by algorithms engineered to keep them thinking a certain way and shape thought through the careful application of information.

Reddit ruined everything.

It wasn't always like that, and there is the odd sub that's worthwhile visiting but now it's mostly the same thoughts and pictures vommited up adneasium I have an account there and I am subscribed to 3 subs and they are populated mostly by old guys who's forums died a death and just want to post about tool's, history and gardening and even then I only stop by once a month or so unless it's for something relating to a very specific topic.

What I do hate is when it's shoehorned into media in the most shallow way possible and there's a clamor around it like we should all be shocked and amazed, or when the people doing it act like they've ushered in world peace and we should thank them accordingly.

Yea it's the force of it that people who are doing it don't get is the problem, it's a prime example of the lost art of story telling written large - for example the meme

"I don't want politics in my video games" an someone replying with something like Fallout: New Vegas -

If you force a message into a story in a way that Tells and doesn't show it will not have the desired effect on the audience, if anything it often has the opposite effect. For a story to have an effect it has to develop with the reader and explain both sides of an argument and compel the reader, player, viewer etc to draw there own conclusion.

The tale of Robbin Hood is a great example of this - there are many version of the story told but there was often a lowerclass version and a upper class version in the oldest tales. The one for the public was often Robbin is a Hero fighting against unjust use of power in some circumstances can be justified, but the tale was also cautionary if you take it to far you will come to a bad end. The one for the upper class was far more cautionary telling them that while they have a right and duty to enforce the laws of man and god you must do it fairly and avoid excess as you too can reach a sticky end because while you might be in a castle with guards you are still but a man and many people are more powerful than you so exercise your "rights" with all due temperance.

The reason that story has stuck around for so long is it's a simple and useful mortality tale, that is just applicable today as it was in antiquity. But the story has of late been bastardised to push pro and anti immigrant messages, LGBT issues and just about every other issue under the sun where it is not applicable.

At the core, it's the rise of the commercial internet and the centralization of the web that has really ruined everything. The acceleration of the subculture life cycle + the commercialization of everything has pretty much infested and killed everything; the sociopaths always win.

I think at some point in time the internet will be viewed as a massive promise that failed, due to it's over use. There is a book trilogy called "Daemon" it's a techno thriller with a really interesting premise imagine there was a Generalised AI with full access to all human knowledge and it's reason for existing (although it doesn't come out till much later) is to help humanity, but at the end there is a former FBI Hostage Rescue team member who's the primary protagonist who was horrifically harmed and healed by the AI is asked a question by it's creator "Should I be allowed to exist Yes or No?"

In the two chapters before this the FBI agent was in a homeless / refugee camp and while everyone was working together only half of them had "Bands" on that are like the old Google Glass concept, and the psychologist there he was with said (and I am paraphrasing here) For a technology to have the most positive effect not everyone needs to be aware of it in fact it's beneficial that they don't much in the way it would be bad even more so if a small number of elite people have access and the sweet spot is around 50/50 or the good get's lost in the noise and then the noise is all you can here and it becomes easier for bad actors to hide and subvert people through covert means.

At the 50/50 level it allows for people across all strata's of the human condition to access it and inform the group decision that is acted upon by a truly unbiased arbiter.

The problem is we are not that level of development, we are more and more under the control of people who don't understand the technology they use and the one's that do understand have a level of control that is very easy for them to abuse and there is no social or legal recourse or even over-site of there actions.

The internet was such a promising thing once, it allowed people to access the information they needed and to collaborate at a scale unprecedented in human history and for a while that worked it was the domain of people who cared enough to share there information who could overcome a barrier to entry that if you could follow basic instructions could easily over come, then there was a massive influx of money that insisted that removing the self preserving barriers would be beneficial so the flood gates where smashed open and the volume of water drowned out the voices of worth and coalesced around a few central platforms that allowed them to say anything and everything and was carefully listening and plotting.