> And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when

> And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have. I remember reading this long before the Internet and thinking that it made sense. The world was literally going insane around the author but nobody noticed. It happened through an accumulation of no-crisis baby steps, year after year. The mass adoption of the Internet has caused me to reconsider. Every crackpot I've ever encountered thinks exactly the same thing, namely that we're all asleep while <major issue> continues unabated. How can we be so blind to it! This is not to dismiss the author, who clearly saw some shit, but rather to point out the very fine line between crackpot and prophet, at least when viewed on the surface.