Human nature hasn't really changed in the last hundred years. My great grandfather was imprisoned as an enemy of the people and my father was tracked by the Sec

Human nature hasn't really changed in the last hundred years. My great grandfather was imprisoned as an enemy of the people and my father was tracked by the Securitate political police - it's not such a distant dystopia for me so I empathize with Soros. The danger here is that we might be lulling ourselves in a complacent state "it can't happen to us", because of our values, democracy, political system, etc. while at the same time putting in place massive infrastructure ripe for totalitarian abuse. At a moment's notice, the situation can transition radically with the monsters lurking in the shadows taking full control of an unstoppable surveillance machine, indeed of a capacity not even Orwell could imagine - now capable of autonomous decision and self enforcement for absolute compliance. The trigger could be something as banale as a military conflict - our capacity to chose freedom as opposed to complete physical security has steadily gotten worse. Once in place totalitarian rule is strongly self enforcing and very very hard to shake, it corrodes all social cohesion and institutions, turning individuals into survival or full denial mode.