I think it's largely irrelevant. Do the kings of today have a harder or easier time maintaining the status quo? I think most changes and fluctuations there are

I think it's largely irrelevant. Do the kings of today have a harder or easier time maintaining the status quo? I think most changes and fluctuations there are more attributable to chance (i.e. mechanisms we don't understand) than our conscious efforts. The same devices that surveil can also empower, in the end it could be a wash. We change the world around us but I'm convinced there's a certain homeostasis to our social and cultural experience, at core we're having the same conversations and dealing with issues analogous to the ones they had 3000 years ago.