This is really great (and by great I mean terrifying to see it all laid out plainly). The only nitpick is the idea that the model “is coming to europe next” … as if this whole thing wasn’t kicked off by Brexit and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Europe was the testing bed for this a decade or more ago.

Excellent, insightful comment and I very much appreciate and resonate with this response.

I do think the protest serves to raise awareness, even if it’s a bit extreme. The desired effect is not really to encourage the complete rejection of tech, but bring attention to the issues and get the average person to think a little more about their usage of it. I’m actually kind of proud of these young folks for being able to snap themselves out of the social media-induced hypnotic state their generation seems to be stuck in.

He goes on to say

[Americans] were born into democracy and have no appreciation of what life is like without it. Chinese people, on the other hand, “have been bullied by rulers for thousands of years. We’re very familiar with these situations.”

Buddy that looks worse for you. The Chinese have been dealing with it for thousands of years but haven’t managed to do anything about it? If this was some kind of flex, it’s a weird one.