I work on software for government agencies. Some of the paperwork processes are absurd. There is a high number of people in leadership positions within government that push for processes and make software purchases that quite frankly have little to negative benefit. It is sad because I think government can be a force of good, but people are too busy spending effort on processes that don't matter. That leaves other work undone. An example is industry specific SAAS software that costs millions to pass documents around in the cloud, for a small group of users, which is no better than MS office solutions.

How about the AMA?

>Could you give a concrete example of what you're describing there?

Pick any pro-1984-esque smart city article that normal people would recoil in horror at the implications of yet HN generally endorses. The author is your example.

Now repeat for every industry and its own insane trends. Manufacturing people endorsing green regulation because they know it gives them a competitive advantage over their competition despite causing off shoring and making the world worse on the net. Lawyers, legislators and law people peddling inequality under the law but dressing it up as DEI. Lead people at regulatory agencies advocating for expansion of their own scope and mandate. Etc. etc. the list goes on.

It's like a stupid reverse gell-mann amnesia effect where people can spot stupidity outside their own industry but lack the ability to be a disciplined adult with self awareness and ability to see consequences when something benefits them.

But of course outsiders don't make decisions until things are so insane that the public weighs in so what happens is the tech industry peddles pervasive surveillance, manufacturing off-shores to countries that belch pollution, etc, etc, until it reaches a critical mass and a populist gets elected on promises to kill all of it no matter what it is.

If you want me to literally cite an example I'll do that but we all know that doesn't really matter because no example will satisfy everyone.