In turn, my parents are gradually escaping.

My dad was a Never Trumper who we gently led out. And Jan 6th made him an “independent” (he votes for Democrats now). My mom is a loyal Republican (somehow)… but agrees Trump is an arrogant piece of garbage and not the horse to bet on.

Allegorical Christianity

In that, yeah, western pluralism is derived from a “Rhode Island” interpretation of tolerance from Jesus Christ’s teachings in the New Testament. But waa the guy diety? Nah.

Was raised LDS/Mormon for the first three decades of my life. But gradually burned out of it as the church became more demanding and greedy – and slowly evolved away from “Rhode Island” tolerance Christianity into a near- LGBTQ hate group. The church decided to die on that hill, and I left. I believe Jesus teaches me to be kind, understanding, and tolerant.

The LDS/Mormon church is basically obsessed over anti-LGBTQ acceptance and tithing (money). If it were on the Nasdaq, the church would rival Lockheed Martin in market cap. Yet they are hella stingy helping the poor and still demand even the church’s poorest members to pay their “widow’s mite” of 10 percent. It’s downright immoral.

I was a “Fox News”-viewing turd in high school, too.

Conservativism mirrored what my parents viewed at the time. Seemed edgy. And offered simple solutions to all of life’s problems.

Then I grew up. Five years later, I was voting for Barack Obama and terrified of Sarah Palin.

More adults are alive now than adults who died.

Most of humanity didn’t survive to adulthood.

Counterlogic: Act WAY too interested. Like a crazy person. Unbreakable eye contact. And start asking them very personal questions about themselves with a huge smile on their face.

I tend to lean toward OP’s original scenario never happening.

Back when signal jammers first came out, people used doom and gloom to say that autoritarian powers would jam our phones so we couldnt use them. It never happened.

Not because there weren’t people who didn’t try. But because the United States doesn’t have one “government.” We have governments. So if an out of control state legislature tries to do something, the FCC fights back. And if Congress gets too crazy, courts will strike it on Tenth Amendment grounds.

In the end, people are going to find a way to record cops. So we will. And – despite internet pessimism – most of the people in our governments will actually back us on it.

Not coalesce. But could there be a way communites could create federated communities?