No snark, this is a chance for the libertarians to be vindicated in a big way. Let's see if the geniuses of the software/IT world can design and build a world-w

No snark, this is a chance for the libertarians to be vindicated in a big way. Let's see if the geniuses of the software/IT world can design and build a world-wide infrastructure that replaces the DARPA internet, without government help? It would put paid to a lot of tropes propagated in the last 20 years about the decreasing importance of the state, the evil of the state (which is in clear evidence here). Are we capable of allocating capital and human resources at the scale required? Facebook has a billion users, so the network effects should be easy to harness, no? Or does it only work for capturing ad dollars and spying on activists? I am sincerely asking - if there is to be any hope, we have to advance past the internet as it is technically constituted, while preserving the huge social gains it has brought. edit - maybe I should clarify - anonymity is not possible now, and it is at odds with the values of the police state and, unfortunately, the ad-driven media economy. I am agreeing that anonymity is important, and asserting that to reclaim it, we will have to come up with some revolutionary social constructs on a scale of the space program, that exclude the possibility of government involvement.