Hi, I’d like to present an idea:
“Mediate between thought-suppression and cognitive-reappraisal with expression.”                     
 
You can’t distinguish popularity from lowest-common-denominators. That’s prima facie obvious, common agreement is situated within what’s most commonly agreed upon—and it’s why the Comfort War will only ever be overcome by individuals.
Crowd-sourcing anything, be it opinions, governments, economies or otherwise—will cater, always, to the most base notions the mob can corral upon. Supernormal stimuli will—systemically—entrench itself into every facet of a popularized environment simply by virtue of its thoughtless, deceitful appeal.
Only few outliers, employing choice and personal responsibility, pursuing meaning and clarity will overcome the challenge it presents. By associating freely, in an environment in which personal actions carry personal consequence, the individual thrives.
 
 
The Comfort Warrior seeks that, an environment that culturally selects. He/she has been eviscerated by supernormal stimulus. They’re stuck, depleted, frustrated. They find themselves time and time again at rock-bottom—woefully unsuccessful despite their very best efforts. But it isn’t the case, as they may feel, that they lack passion. No, they have ambition in abundance—raging within them. But they’ve been consumed by it. They’ve used comfort to dull its incessant demands.
And so to succeed, they must overcome themselves, sustaining a life ungratified by cheap stimuli, enlisting in self-discovery, in confronting their fears—rising up to live life in all the glory and beauty it has to offer.
 
 
Here, I’ll discuss a simple thing: that we never needed to understand superstimulus to be incentivized to perpetuate it.
Think about it this way: Does a news company need to understand why puppy-stories and click-bait generate more clicks? Does a marketing company need to recognize why focus-groups favor the smell of one product over another? Irrespective of rhyme or reason, voilà! Fluff pieces overtake the industry and consumer products are impregnated[1] with odors that fetuses gain preference to via vicarious maternal exposure[2][3][4].
 
When statesmen and religious leaders call the shots they use repression to control the masses. As of May 2015[5], 92{d0939f169729a67927ea5cd6f72c4436d4d03a1d6e30c1db7ef52ac4db655cdd} of married women in Egypt have undergone genital mutilation. During the Cultural Revolution in China, women were forced to wear a unisex uniform with short hair and the enjoyment of sex, as well as spontaneous un-centrally planned engagement in it was disallowed[6]. During the 1970s millions were tortured and killed in Cambodia, many for being academics or merely wearing eyeglasses[7]. During the White Terror campaign of the Spanish Civil War, an estimated 200,000 civilians were killed, targeting heavily writers, artists, teachers and professors[8].
Yet when the mass calls the shots, different tactics are employed. Edward Bernays—nephew of Sigmund Frued and father of public relations—boasted of this in his 1928 book titled Propaganda[9].
He claimed responsibility for playing on people irrational, subconscious emotions and having directly caused by use of this method the popularization of smoking among women, the bacon and eggs American breakfast, adding fluoride to the water, framing WWI as “bringing democracy to Europe”, overthrowing the democratically elected president of Guatemala in the service...