There is an inevitability about it. The desire for people to people connection and a global consciousness was there but most idealists would have realized it's

There is an inevitability about it. The desire for people to people connection and a global consciousness was there but most idealists would have realized it's a fantasy and parochialism and nations states are not going away. It's easy for us to be blase about it but if it were Russian and Chinese companies vacuuming up our data and not afraid to share it with their governments, there would be end of the world hysteria by media, academics and commentators about 'our freedom', the american way, and how awful these totalitarian countries were. Now since its us caught with our pants down with draconian surveillance, secret courts, secret orders and collaboration with little to no pushback from the loudest defenders of freedom more interested in posturing and feeling smug than defending any values they articulate, other countries need to wisen up and protect their citizens and their interests. Anything is better than leaving it to US based companies with an insatiable appetite for user data and vested in spying on everyone all over the internet with zero constraints or sense of either corporate and individual ethics for the thousands of engineers involved in this, supported by an of control unrestrained surveillance culture in government.