The Lowest Common Denominator
Summary: The lowest common denominator is not accident but policy. Profit killed excellence because it could not extract value fast enough. Mediocrity scales; quality does not. We mock education publicly while hoarding it privately. By the time people notice what was lost, excellence has been priced out of reach.
Excellence is gone. Not misplaced. Not resting. Gone—pushed out the door in the pursuit of profit. What replaced it is the lowest common denominator. Not as drift. Not as accident. As policy.
The lowest common denominator is the simplest version of a thing that offends the fewest people, costs the least to produce, scales the fastest, and requires the least intelligence to consume. It is not designed to be good. It is designed to be safe. Safe for shareholders. Safe for advertisers. Safe for executives who need predictable outcomes and quarterly growth without surprises.
Mediocrity scales. Excellence does not. Excellence is slow. It argues back. It requires skilled labor, institutional memory, judgment, and time. It produces uneven results because real quality always does. That variability terrifies systems built on financial modeling and risk avoidance. So excellence is treated as a liability.
