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I don't think you're disagreeing with me, I'm talking about human nature and you're talking about technology. The fundamental tensions I'm talking about map onto these technological, social and political issues and innovations in unpredictable ways.
Politics may have defeated Christianity, but that wasn't a fundamental tension, politics and religion coexisted for millenia before, and will again. The tension there would be between the moralistic and materialistic human urges. So politics defeats a religion, but it becomes a religion in the process, thereby maintaining the duality. Even atheists need a god and a heaven, even if god is the president and heaven is "gay luxury space communism". This is the tension that destroys materialistic politics, it's why communism never worked and became a cult. It just couldn't get over the god-shaped hole. Politically, this tension gets generalized as "church and state", and it is generally understood today that separating the two is better for both. Render unto the one pole the things that are Caesar's and to the other, the things that are God's.
At sufficient levels of abstraction, some good advice.
Many more than this, I think. My point, somewhat garbled perhaps, is not that any group has some eternal essence, much the opposite. We all have the same conflicts within us, these are so numerous and interact in such complex ways that there's no predicting how they'll map onto the future. But if one digs into an issue long enough and defines the terms carefully enough, the basic tensions usually present themselves quickly.
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