I think you may have disapproved your own point.
To rephrase your second list:
-
People are unhappy with the lives they have built themselves and the world we have collectively built together.
-
A conman shows up and tells them it's not their own fault, it's others, and the leaders that were chosen.
-
They believe the conman, because he blames others they don't like, and make them feel good about themselves.
-
They make up shit to help square that with reality, and wall themselves off from other people or sources that could shatter that.
I don't think that shows them to be smart. Don't think it would make them not stupid either.
I agree with the well-written other commenter who argues it makes them irrational, and with another comment that argues they are following emotions rather than logic.
But for sure I'm sick of being told to placate and empathize with the irrational deplorables yet again.
Never see an argument that the irrational or uninformed should try to empathize with the rational at any point.
I would recommend you look into Saltbox, which seems to align with what you are looking to do and should take considerable heavy lifting off your plate.
The solution to the rclone issues you discuss is to use a union mount, and cloudplow or similar to automatically shift files to the long term storage location, while Jellyfin will continue to see content files spread around servers in one mount location.