Are the pillars of the state falling?

[Kasz216]

Mr Khan said:

SamuelRSmith said:

insomniac17 said:

It sure would be nice, but I don't think the state is done yet. Who knows what will come in the future, but near term, I see governments really tightening control in many areas. They certainly won't give up their power quietly.

It's trying to extend and build itself up, yes, but its very foundations are cracking, that's what is important.

Of course they won't give up power quietly, they're psychopaths and tyrants. They NEVER give up their power quietly. But, really, before the decade's out, the very ideas behind what the state is, where it gets its power from, and why it is needed, will all be significantly challenged. Hell, within 5 years, complying with the state will be optional, so long as you keep your head down. You'll be able to buy everything you need to survive (and more), with untraceable currencies, you'll be able to communicate without being spied on, your very existance could happen under their nose, and they wouldn't know.

Another case in point, back to drones. Domestic drones are not even fully deployed in the US, yet... and there's already a company selling a device that will make it impossible for a drone to operate over your property. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/company-to-make-antidrone-tech-available-to-the-masses

You've really become more vitriolic in the last half-year, haven't you?

Ultimately, the government's lack of control over the internet is only because A: the old guys that run the government still don't quite "get" the internet, and B: The profits of the internet's current relative freedom outweigh the costs (at the end of the day, even the big government guys know that piracy really isn't that huge of a deal).

The question of using the internet to "fight the power" is much like the question of using guns to fight the power. In both cases, if the state really cared, they'd fuck your shit up six ways from sunday.

Iran is actually a decent case study in this. They've blocked VPN access and are in the process of cutting the entire country off from the world-wide-web (having an Iran Wide Web as a replacement). How well the Iranian people will be able to circumvent these changes will demonstrate how the balance of power will tip vis-a-vis the internet when a state really decides that the freedoms of the net are too much of a burden.

Eh, your half right.  The Internet can be shut off pretty eaisly.  (Though not without quite the backlash in a western country.  Well until CYBER HACKERS! gets blown up to such a panic countries convince people each nation needs it's own private interent.

 

However guns actually does provide a pretty huge threat to the government, at least in the "dictator control" scenario.  As has been shown time and time agan, guerilla warfare when less equiped can be a hell of a pain for a government and even bring it down....

and few guerillia armies would be as well armed as a US one.   They'd be missing some of the heavier stuff like RPG's, but chances are such things would be aquired fairly quickly in the chaos and raids on various armories. 

Considering your political science background you really should know better in this regard.