It is an interesting article. What it seems to be getting at is that there is an elaborate dance of power between individuals and the state. This dance of pow

It is an interesting article. What it seems to be getting at is that there is an elaborate dance of power between individuals and the state. This dance of power exists everywhere and in all ages. It isn't clear to me that was is different in kind in Stalinist Russia, though, so part of this article seems to me to be a half-full vs half-empty glass problem. Moreover the present is always being rewritten by government and the media. This is something that's been apparent to a lot of people for some time. Not only did Noam Chomsky write extensively on this subject but Hilaire Belloc wrote more or less the same thing about newspapers in 1918 in "The Free Press".[1] One of the key things Belloc pointed to was the necessity of non-corporate, decentralized, topical, and outright propagandist press to counteract the effects of corporate newspapers. I think he'd be very pleased to see the current blogosphere. So the author's points about the necessity of decentralized technology actually go quite a bit further than the points he makes. On the other hand though, it seems to me that what this shows is that there is no bright line between dystopia and normal life. By some measures, of course, we are already in a surveillance state dystopia. So I am not sure the question is meaningful. The major problem that makes the dystopian elements of the present hard to dislodge however are the twin facts that: 1. American culture is very much focused on impersonal institutions of scale (central government, big corporations), and individualism, and this isolates individuals, denying them support break free from the impersonal institutional bonds that we have created in substitute for the bonds of family, neighborhood, and community (which were stronger when I was growing up and are stronger where I am living right now, Indonesia). 2. We place our primary protections of the individual not in social ties (common everywhere else) but in documents which purport to restrain the central government (namely the Bill of Rights). My view is that until we can start focusing on building stronger communities, decentralizing government and bringing the power closer to the people, and decentralizing the economy (disfavoring large businesses in favor of small ones) the dystopia will in fact deepen. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18018 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18018