Hi Dustfinger, On a somewhat tangential subject, I'm familiar with both Canada and US. My general assessment is that authoritarian tyranny (censorship, taxes,

Hi Dustfinger, On a somewhat tangential subject, I'm familiar with both Canada and US. My general assessment is that authoritarian tyranny (censorship, taxes, conformism etc. ) is probably significantly higher in Canada than in US . It just does not make headlines because Canadians are a relatively docile lot. A significantly higher proportion of the American population cares about free speech etc. and are vocal about it, so it makes it to the headlines (Snowden, RMS etc.). Case in point ( details are sketchy because I read it in the news several years back, it could even be inaccurate news): the Canadian govt was tapping Skype way before the US govt. It was doing it as far back as in 2008. Canadians are also more likely to be self-censoring kind of people so this blocking of text message could be some zealous ethics department in a telecom provider also, not necessarily the govt. ( side note: looking at your past posts I was pleasantly noticed that you are probably interested in life extension and related topics. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20640480 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19515169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19515169 - I assume that was a reference to the website by David Pearce that I read almost a decade back) Read my very unpopular posts and get in touch with me if you wish.