As odd as this sounds, I tend to believe everything works itself out naturally over time. IOW, if you ran a simulation of the earth over and over again, the ti

As odd as this sounds, I tend to believe everything works itself out naturally over time. IOW, if you ran a simulation of the earth over and over again, the timelines might be skewed, but we would eventually end up in the same place. Every advancement, whether it be inventions or discoveries about the physical universe, push the human race forward. But it always has to happen in such a way that it's two steps forward, one step back. If there's a hole or weakness in a system there is an opportunity to exploit it and you better believe it will be done. That's a good thing as it makes the system stronger; the sooner the better. As was mentioned before on HN the wonderful BBC documentary "The Century of The Self" delves into how the 20th century US democracy began controlling by pandering to consumerism/irrationalism (ie. the tie between big business/media and government), while our communist adversaries began governing by increasingly abject force. They're like two sides of the same coin. Is it bad/evil or did this need to happen? Think about what's happened in that timeframe... the automobile, airplane, radio, the depression, nuclear energy/weapons, two world wars, the computer, television, the personal computer, the internet, and everything the internet is beginning to mobilize. The change to the world in one century is absolutely mesmerizing. I believe through globalisation these two sides are both merging and dissolving at the same time - that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's the world trying to work out inefficiencies in these respective systems; inefficiencies which could be seen as bugs in a system that invite corruption. When bugs are exposed and fixes begin to emerge, the pockets of corruption are going to fight back - as they should, because that's their livelihood at stake. Information is more free than ever, and that is what truly sets us free. So they made this mistake. And it's been exposed, quickly. Think about all the nefarious things that happened in the cold war that took decades to come to light. Think about what happened in the Middle East last year; governments toppled, quickly. They tried to sneak SOPA under the public radar and look what happened.