Comment by aeon_ai

Moloch devours breakthrough potential not through conspiracy but through everyone rationally optimizing for their individual/local situation while collectively producing suboptimal outcomes.

Individual insight doesn't map to institutional action. Systems can't integrate experiences they can't measure or systematize.

I do think that there are some truths to government desire for narrative management, too. It is unwise to be a hugger in a knife fight, and you don't want the populace to get high, see God, and deteriorate national security.

All in all though, it all boils down to life being complicated. The resistance isn't adversarial - it's structural. Which makes it both less intentionally evil and harder to overcome.