[jimbokun]

And you think centralizing power even more will solve this problem?

People need to be empowered to individually make the choice to opt out of this system on their own. Persuasion to take that course is fine and noble.

But do you honestly think putting some group of people in charge of "protecting" people from all these bad influences, will truly lead to that small number of people acting completely altruistically in the best interests of society? Or they will be sorely tempted to use that power to manipulate society to the ends they personally deem most important?

One of the biggest problems I see with current discourse, is all memory of 20th century history seems to have been completely forgotten. There were large parts of the world that did away with all the consumerism and capitalism. They ended up killing 10s of millions of their own people, through starvation and enforcing their control by killing dissenters.

[quacked]

I don't know if you're still checking this comment chain, but I don't think from my other comments that I mentioned bringing a central authority into the equation. I realize that the concept of a central moral authority "protecting" the populace has gone poorly in the past, but that is not what I am advocating for. I am advocating for a heavily armed, heavily informed populace that knows where everything it uses comes from and is capable of building each component part of its society.

You and I are the authority; we can do the educating and the protection. People are being taken advantage of every day by various agents that wish to exploit them for various purposes. Those need clear, consistent messaging from people they respect that explains and illuminates the many pitfalls of modern society and offers a path through which to learn society-building skills and self-reliance. Leaving them to their own devices does not create a healthy, unified community; it merely leaves them ripe for the harvest by the banks, the insurance companies, advertisers, fast food corporations, car companies, etc.

It is uninteresting to me to be compared to the communists and the Nazis. It will turn out better for us all if you allow yourself to think more creatively than that. Contemporary society does not need to choose between absolute individualistic chaos or absolute control, although the fact that society is populated by many people who think exactly as you do makes that duality seem like the only outcome possible.