That's how plants do it. For a billion years. Must be the best strategy.
infinite_ass
The lead paint and the asbestos both served a need. For colored toys and insulation, specifically. And then we found a better way to serve that need. It isn't a dumb need.
Don't assume that everybody who sees things differently is an idiot.
Given its vast popularity, I expect that some would argue otherwise.
Call it "stories that people are taking way too seriously". I'm sure that you can think of other stories that people take way too seriously too, that have nothing to do with religion.
I think that we might be seeing the power of propaganda there. Consider that the science of propaganda is very old. Thousands of years old. There's population-control psychology there. It's got hooks.
(On the flipside, imposing a set of rules for moral behavior is a good thing. People can be animals. And if you need to cite an old story about gods and wizards to give those rules some oomph then so be it.)
It serves a need. Get rid of the need and you'll get rid of the religious bullshit. But if you get rid of the religious bullshit without getting rid of the need, some other kind of bullshit will crop up.
The center of the bell curve. The most popular of popular media. The true fast food. Probably not.
Because being rich frees you from many of the stresses and concerns that define the populace. Your tastes are different then.
The edger case? Sure. Good art is good art, no matter how rich you are.
But he runs a spaceship company. How many of those have we got?
Most of the information isn't filtered that way, for various reasons. Maybe we could but we generally don't.
We could make information that's easier to filter. For example, tags telling us how many steps-removed from the original source.
Yeah, solipsism.
Consider that when you read, there are 2 sources of information, the arrangement of the words and the meaning of the words. The arrangement comes from the screen the meaning comes from you. Which is the bigger hunk of information?
It means yr all sucked up into yr head. Talking to yrself. Playing games you created.