I think a post that's attracted a total of three comments a week after it was made is not at any serious risk of having a lively conversation on the original topic derailed :-)

While I'm commenting anyway, another example I realised too late that I ought to have put in the original post is the way credit ratings work: you earn trust from money-lending organisations by incurring debts that you then pay off on time, and the strictly better behaviour (in all other respects) of avoiding getting into debt in the first place doesn't score nearly so highly.