So the new project has us counting lost man-years due to the pandemic (We're just past 19,000,000 man-years of knowledge/production, and we've really only done the simple stuff), but the really NEAT part is that between that and working with <gubmint org>, I am ALSO developing a real idea of how much actual communication occurs.
The answer, you may have guessed, is "Jack Shit."
This has sort of split me and my group off onto a tangent, and we have proven there was more information moved between government and NGO departments prior to email than there is today...When measured as "useful, actionable information." And just like all the plebs, the decision-makers have to sort out the non-information/disinformation before they can make a decision, and that sorting is impossible in practice.
Nobody run Bartertown. Bartertown functions in the same way a SCADA-operated system does if the front end crashes; it just keeps doing the same thing regardless of any changes to the situation. Errors begin to multiply, and since nobody can do anything about those errors, everyone just pretends that the situation is normal and has always been like this; where "this" means "the current buggy situation with today's error values added".
Think of it as an anthill with a disabled queen, except ants don't bitch as much. They just mindlessly keep doing whatever they were last instructed to do.
The best part of this is when I fuck off and visit debatepolitics.com and listen to fucking waterheads explain that some large, shadowy cabal controls society.
No, you fucking morons, nobody controls society. Some people THINK they do, but even they can't get anything done.
Nobody is driving the train, everyone's drunk in the club car.
