The more people give over their rights to machines or a police state for "Security?" the less rights and choices people will have.
When I went to India and Nepal in 1985 and 1986 I found myself deep (along with my wife and 3 children) deep in culture shock especially in India. It was at first so overwhelming that I might as well have been on another planet. It was paradoxical because most places in India then I was actually safer than I would have been in a Ghetto in the U.S. at that time mostly because the people in India deeply believed in Karma. In other words they might try to talk you out of your cameras, or anything else you had like Money for really crazy services like wanting to clean your ears out with letters of recommendation from other westerners. (We didn't do this) or Chiropractic on the spot (when guy grabbed my arm and popped my back) I was sort of glad he wasn't killing me so I gave him some money. He also showed me a letter from the college he graduated from in Chiropractic.
Then there was the lady who grabbed my thigh who was in her 60s or 70s with all white hair who had once been very beautiful and now just needed some money to eat one more day. Rather than deal with the public strangeness I gave her a little money to leave me alone. Or the girl on the bus towards Dharamshala who was very beautiful about 16 or 18 in all white who stood up coming on the bus and grabbed my two seated thighs with her thighs for support while on the bus. My wife looked at me sitting next to me and said, "Go with it."
When you have no idea really what is going on you sort of have to wing it.
Likewise, we are in a new and different world than has ever been before here in the U.S. If you look at me and tell me everything is just the same as the 1950s I know you are clueless.
Living in the U.S. (if you open your eyes) is just as different as India and Nepal was from the U.S. in 1985 for all of us. There is nothing that is the same.
The internet both helps us and hurts us in unimaginable ways at present.
Does it hurt us more or harm us more?
I would say it is doing both equally. But, we are now addicted to the internet like people were addicted to alcohol, drugs and sex in the 1960s.
Instead because of AIDS and all the changes we hide in our apartments, cars, and inside ourselves while we communicate with strangers we will never meet. How strange is that?
It was the opposite experience for me in India and Nepal. They didn't have even TV mostly and no cellphones existed much then over there. Then it was all communication person to person, a look, a word, a way one dressed.
It was basically, "I could die any moment(most people then in India) so what do you have to tell me or teach me about my afterlife before I die?"
This was what the faces of the people said to me in India mostly in 1985 and 1986. Or they verbally said to me, "Take me out of here to the U.S. I have no hope or future here!" So, I literally had to say to hundreds of people, "You don't have a birth certificate. How could I even begin to take you to the U.S.?" or something like that.
So, here is the question, "How do you become Captain of your own Ship and Master of your own Destiny?"
Basically, unless you are born somewhere good, and educated you aren't likely to ever become Captain of your own ship and master of your own destiny unless you become a criminal or terrorist (which is the same thing).
So, 50% of the people in the world have no hope of ever being fully in control of their lives because of where they were born and so in some ways if they follow all the rules they will stay slaves there until they die.
I think this is something most people who don't travel worldwide don't fully get.
A person in the U.S. who has a public school education through high school might thing they are underprivileged but compare that to anyone in a country without compulsory education who isn't born rich there and able to attend a private school.
So, one needs to have a capacity for "Critical Thinking" in order to be free in the first place. Because even here in the U.S. most people are slaves whether they know it or not.
And if they just listen to what their Iphone's and computers and bosses and teacher's tell them they will just be slaves the rest of their lives.
Because in the end it is always, "Nothing ventured nothing gained!"
Which means unless you are willing to take enough calculated risks you will never be "Captain of your own ship and master of your own destiny ever."
In my path I discovered I was a natural entrepreneur like my father, grandfather and great grandfather so I found my calling by the time I was 28 and just kept buying businesses and running and developing them or starting them from scratch. This allowed me to set my own hours, days that I would work(but also might mean I worked 12 hours a day for weeks and months developing businesses too. But, eventually all that paid off so that when I almost died from a heart virus I could afford to retire at 50 instead of just dying.
So, become a "Captain of your own ship and Master of your own destiny" in your 20s and 30s so You might live to old age.
However, money is only a means to an end. So, without useful goals making money doesn't mean anything either.
For me always, Enlightenment (spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, physically in all ways) was always my goal so that I could help other people in whatever way would be the most efficient.
Everyone suffers through life in one way or another. We all suffer together here on earth as humans. Helping relieve one's own suffering and the suffering of others makes a person's life bearable enough to go on.
Compassion for oneself and all beings is a worthwhile and very efficient goal leading to one's enlightenment and the enlightenment of all life eventually in the universe.
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