I'm not going to make anyone here to change his mind. People have their own right to decide. Moreover, I think that's the only way we can reasonably coexist with each other.
What I don't like and I won't accept is people acting-out their negative emotions when challenged with a point of view that they don't like. We aren't children anymore. Either something is a fact or a logical extension of thereof, or it's a BS. I refuse to pay attention to inappropriately configured emotional "processors" in case of some individuals. Consider that the book offers only unpleasant kind of information. The one that makes you think that maybe you should change your approach toward matters you've been associating yourself with. It derails you. The one that says: ups, shit hits the fan, and there's going to be a lot of work regarding making it right again. I'm also a psychologist and the mentioned phenomena is well know to me. I expected nothing else. But I'll keep my expectations regarding maturity and logical integrity if one wants to get into a discussion with me. But I also guarantee that the book does all of that for a good reason and not without one.
I would never recommend someone a piece of knowledge not in line with the truth, or one that hasn't been well checked by myself. It's a matter of honor to me. What I'd like to ask people to do is to assess an importance of a given advice / recommendation by the actual importance of the topic itself first, even before one is going to move to fact checking. In other words: we should be vigilant when confronted with something of utmost importance and we should inspect the topic in that spirit. This is how one makes proper risk assessment BTW. For people who can't transcendent themselves when challenged with reality - there's no hope. Would anyone be interested what position a hopeless person takes regarding anything? I guess that's a rhetorical question.
OK, whining mode off ;) Thank you for your encouragement and you're welcome.
PS: I completely agree on your "I'd rather see it as a complex interplay between groups with shared interests". We might be differently approaching the conclusions / predictions, though. That's not a big issue. But I must say I'm rather on the be prepared side and I consider the potential technocratic future to be a very real scenario at this point. One thing is sure: the phenomena discussed can't be ignored by a thoughtful individual. That would be against facts.