Propaganda, censorship, and surveillance are all attributes of monopoly
I am pretty certain, if our society manages to survive the current times, our attitude to centralization and globalization will change.<p>On the surface, it increases efficiency through central management and automation, lowering the prices and making products more affordable.<p>One layer deeper, it commoditizes people's time, making them more replaceable and lowering what one's salary can buy even longer.<p>If you look even deeper, you see that when people are not spending their passion trading, making deals, and creating things others would want to buy, they instead turn on each other. If your work doesn't keep your mind busy, it finds a different outlet, that seems to be driven by some primal tribal instincts. Team up with the ones of your kind and go against the neighboring tribe.<p>Call me paranoid, but we might see another Fall of Rome in our lifetimes.