You’re right. We do agree on far more than we disagree on— and your point about the problem being about the tendency to fold under the pressure of online campaigns is very resonant. I think that there will come a tipping point where a business takes a stand but at the moment it’s much easier for businesses to toe the line. Without going Hitler ad reductio, it was also beneficial for German companies to toe the line across the 1930s as more and more draconian measures unfolded before them. We cannot rely on business to be a moral compass — as you’ve said, it places profit over virtue.

Perhaps I’m just a pessimist, but I see the tendency of human beings to jump on a bandwagon, I give little credence to the ability of most people to stop and reason through their arguments. Human history is full of people attacking first and then explaining their actions in retrospect.

I have read articles by intelligent writers laden with KafkaTraps, full of vitriol against people who simply have the temerity to disagree or question. This is ultimately what happened with JK Rowling and probably a big part of the reason she’s on the list. Often a situation turns out to be more complicated than it initially appeared, but the damage has often been done, this is the case with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

Humans are impulsive, suffer with huge amounts of confirmation bias, prefer to think in the safety of groups. Our brains are not mature enough to handle the danger social media presents and I think future generations will view it the way we view pictures of small children in the 1930s enjoying a cigarette. I don’t think we have the maturity to support reason and debate when it matters —and that human beings have trod this path many times before. Never in the digital age though — and that makes it both interesting and terrifying in equal measure.

Great to debate and look forward to more articles! :o)