[dgreensp]

Lighten up. We're not living in a literal 1984-meets-The-Matrix world just yet. Your perspective seems as narrow as you criticize others' for being.

Silicon Valley may yet reshape the world, even if some of us take scenic bike rides. (That was one of the bad things, if I'm keeping your argument straight, while empathy with the natural world in general is good. The problem with bike rides is they take time that could be spent running for president.)

I understand the point that many sectors of society could use some new life breathed into them, but I think the oxygen needs to come from where it will, and it will come.

[gordianknot]

No, but it is a Brave New World. We're the ones out on that island with the artists and scientists. We make tools of change, but sell them off so that we can go on bike rides. It's hedonism; this is the New Gilded Age.