The worst was when the cryptocurrency subreddit started literally paying everyone for their karma. Over the course of a couple years, the useful criticism of bad ideas dried up, and so the people promoting bad ideas for profit took over.

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

— Isaac Asimov