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Notes -
Correct. That the percentage is increasing is a cause for concern due to what it augurs for the future.
It's my contention that the structures and mores of society in the past allowed for a not-insignificant portion of men to flourish and otherwise achieve when they would not in the absence of those structures. We've destroyed those structures and actively stamp out any effort to replace them, which means that a bunch of men who could have grown and developed into productive, useful members of society simply have not.
The modern west is far closer to the USSR or Imperial China than a random awful African country. When your society is an empire there is a qualitative difference between it and smaller, less complex states. The same government that you see putting down prole revolts is increasingly fragile and failing, and I do not think that it will maintain that grip forever. What cannot be sustained will not be - and western imperial governments are currently unsustainable.
That has never been my contention - the system will actually strike back and with less subtlety and more force as it begins to fail. That's another one of those reliable indicators of imperial decline.
I agree that the government is going to crack down on things like this, but I don't think they're actually going to succeed at it. The actors in the system don't understand the position they're in and repeatedly act in ways that strengthen and bolster their opposition. A strong, secure government doesn't need to do this - but that's not what we have. Your metaphor for a scared cop is actually pretty good in my opinion, and I think that's an accurate perception... but at the same time this scared cop has a legitimate reason to be scared, even if he can't quite understand why.
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