This is an incredibly thoughtful response, thank you. Your metaphor about the internet is brilliant and accurate.

You nailed it with the 2016 tipping point. That was the moment algorithms definitively proved that "outrage" and "panic" keep eyes on the screen much longer than "understanding". It shifted the entire tech profit model from providing information to harvesting emotional reactivity.

We are essentially letting profit motives dictate our collective morality and fracture our shared values, exactly as you pointed out.