I don't see a 'we' here. By your own admission you didn't spend years thinking about complicated math topics. So maybe you simply don't see the "purpose". Or maybe no one sees the purpose yet because for some math practical applications take years to discover.

But when people sense that the ballot box isn't listening; that the government is both in bed, and emboldened, by the very thing that violates their sensibilities, they often step outside their part in the social contract and do things that speak louder than simply voting, like destroying property. If you are a US citizen like I am, you will know very well that this method of "discourse" is a foundational and often celebrated act in American history.

These people destroying a few cameras here and there aren't solving the problem of invasive and unaccountable government surveillance. But they are speaking their passion about it, not just to the company or the government but to their fellow citizens. And it looks like some people are starting to listen.

Or... the Department of Warmongers (nee DoD) addresses on the device are evidence of a supply-side attack targeting the DoW and carried out using the aforementioned github admin token.

... I mean, while we're in here speculating about truffles and all.

When I see a lot of the responses, even cliche ones, it tells me people are passionate about the issue. Right now I think that's an interesting piece of information.

I suppose my tendency to collect and organize documents is a coping mechanism for my notoriously insufficient memory. I retain far less than my peers, and will often vaguely remember having read something on a topic but have no recollection of the details or where I read it. Even topics that I go deep on and write about extensively in notes or communication will be largely gone from my mind in months to a year. So my document collection forms a kind of artificial replacement for the memory I never had.

I've worked at Google. These weren't promises, they were deceptions.

Google, like many companies, maintains the focus and motivation of their workforce via a stream of carefully orchestrated disinformation and half-truths. One of those half-truths is "We listen to our employees". They listen when it has no business consequence and they can tout themselves as being "good" or on the side of the workers. They don't whenever the politics or economics of the situation presents even the slightest resistance.

Kudos to the author for fighting for change. But the dark patterns in Google run too deep for them to be uprooted by a polite exchange of white papers and emails.

Or that the gains are in niche applications (like the GP's) that don't translate at scale.

People who don't get this display a lot of ageism.

*- "Microsoft" telling her her computer's been infected and she needs to call this number asap! Luckily a bank teller stopped her before she completed the transaction.

Please explain why my 82 year-old mother-in-law needs to use AI. Is it just so you won't consider her arrogant?

Indeed, my impression was that people within the core Ad business were more adept at maintaining an air of integrity while doing substantively the opposite for the goal of optimizing revenue. I suspect that the closer you got to Google's "center of gravity" the more distorted your reality and motivations became.