Personal agency is dying, and Silicon Valley is, sadly, complicit.
It seems you can replace the first word in that sentence with many others and still accurately describe much of modern society.
I wonder if it was always so? Perhaps the same technology that brings offence to them allows the offended to shout loudly their displeasure with it.
Religious and “moral majority” types still dictate to a less vocal majority. That this only seems to have occurred to some people when the people complaining include some on the Left speaks volumes. For me, I’d like neither political pole to dictate to the rest of us, but I wasn’t born yesterday so I’m not holding my breath. I’m also not acting like this is somehow new. The only thing that’s changed is that the vocal types with clout aren’t just the religious Right. On the bright side that means more people are empowered, on the downside it now means that two extremes are fighting for power over us instead of just one.
Because SV has had a holier than thou attitude. SV has promised us it is beyond tradition.
Those previous enemies are obvious. But SV said it would be __less__ of the same.
Where are the jet packs we were promised?? Or was that (empthy) promise just a press release?
Fortunately jet packs aren’t one of them, because I can’t think of anything more likely to get people killed on a regular basis, while being terminally noisy and polluting. Of course what serious person believed they were getting jet packs? The same people who still think that flying cars will be in every driveway? Some promises are made just because there are people with money who are stupid enough to believe them, and predatory people can’t resist parting fools and their money.
Don’t take it all so personally, and don’t invest in things like Juicero or jet packs and you’ll be a lot happier and wealthier.
I was simply trying to answer the quoted question in that context.
Whether you like and/or agree with the answer is further discussion.
The 10th amendment of the Bill of Rights says to the effect: ~"The Feds can only do what the Constitution says they can, states have rights to create their own rules, and all other liberties are given to citizens."
If you're imagining the power dynamic between the federal, state, and citizen level, the Constitution was written to give citizens a framework of higher government, while the Bill of Rights was written to explicitly restrict that government's power. (i.e. "government shall make no law" vs. "citizen has rights xyz")
Somewhere along the way people started seeing the federal government as the top of the pyramid rather than a caged beast. Somewhere the beast escaped the cage.