While it’s true that most politicians are by no means techno-savvy themselves, they hold the reigns of a system of power which compartmentalizes and controls most aspects of society on the whole, and though their understanding of a particular widget or doodad (technical terms) likely amounts to somewhere between jack and squat, they’ve long since mastered the meta, so to speak, as a tool for directing consciousness. The powers-that(shouldn’t)-be hold the strings of many technological gatekeepers who do a fine job of managing the innovative social trends of both today and tomorrow on their masters’ behalf. Indeed, their recent campaign of blatant censorship is proof enough of a power to block out the sun. It may indeed be the impetus of a new wave of online “Alt” communities, like Steamit for instance, but, as with Cryptos, the adoption rate is key. They know that a certain percentage of—let’s just call us what we are—chattel are going to notice we’re not living in Kansas anymore, but the majority will tend to follow the yellow brick road as directed because, after all, there’s lions and tigers and bears out there, allahu akbar.
Speaking of cryptos, I think the jury’s still out on whether they might be able to undermine our modern central currency model or, perhaps, simply offer the so called “banksters” and their political lackeys a new avenue for bolstering criminal activity under the radar. Reports already circulate among the fringes, of certain dark web assassination contracts taken out against, shall we say, politically inconvenient individuals, payed for in Bitcoin. So long as crypto currencies are exchangeable for fiat, they can likely control them as they do everything else: through volatility, aided by cycles of inflation and deflation. After all, the claim about them only working peer to peer holds true only for so long as their majority remains aggregated among a diverse base, regardless of fungibility. Times of chaos always lead us to believe that a new paradigm is on the rise, and it’s typically true by and large, only the basic rules of power remain intractable by our faults. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
All I can say it that I completely agree :-) I think politicians get their power from their personality types (Dark Triad)...in short, they are sociopathic manipulators. They will always be around because people are always people. And most people, frankly, want to be told what to do. They want order, control, safety, while pretending to be free. And powerful people will always be around to offer that....for a price. There are various aspects this new paradigm that have me worried. You've touched on many of them. The biggest problems relate to vulnerabilities around human nature, not the tech. On the bright side, in terms of cycles of history (Fourth Turning) and massive payable debt attached to the current fiat currencies, the time is right for this paradigm shift.