> I'm asserting that progress will be them becoming more like us, You know, having been thinking about this very extensively over the past few months, I disagr

> I'm asserting that progress will be them becoming more like us, You know, having been thinking about this very extensively over the past few months, I disagree. The American populace, with its great freedoms, is now becoming a prisoner to the corporate worlds -- interestingly , the corporate and governmental parts so often increasingly seem intertwined that it would be fine calling them one (certainly at least in the limitations of this context). The subjugation of large amounts of people in a BNW-fasion I think should be just as actively recognized as a very bad thing as classical authoritarian oppression is. Make no mistakes, that we are being screwed in a massively pernicious way -- when Facebook exploits the cognitive weaknesses of a fat woman by showing her an ad for a fat-loss pill which will probably hurt her more than help her, that's very bad. It's not action being performed by the US gov't, but so far as I'm concerned it certainly is being enabled and arguably abetted by it. Progress for HK, Singapore, etc. should not be them becoming more like us -- the thought of that is terrifying. Since spending a lot of time with my Chinese co-workers, I've come to deeply respect their diligence in work and in being committed to providing for their family in a wholesome manner -- I think Facebook et al. has the potential to bring this to ruin, I hope that never happens. Sorry, all of this is a very weak and sloppy defense of what I'm arguing and thinking right now -- I'll write more when I get done with work. Basically, I'm very concerned with eroding values in America - as this erosion is permitted and encouraged by the US gov't, but I don't know how to express this without being relegated as some "think of the children" Helen Lovejoy personality.