Once a generation starts to accept that everything they do is getting tracked, things may never go back, it may even lead autocracy.
People forget, autocracies don’t just show up one day and announce “ok, we’re going to do autocracy now and I’m your dictator. Ok? Good?” They are conditions that have a long tail setup and preparation and then an accelerating escalation (where it seems we are now) and then, if not adequately countered, it bursts into place almost overnight.
That has resulted in the state of, in the EU, unelected (popularly) Commission Presidents dictating and dominating all of Europe, and the Presidency using powers it wasn’t supposed to have to tariff and threaten countries with destruction, conferred upon the office by a Congress that has also failed its core function.
Shallow thinkers tend to think in terms of the past archetypes, but it is unlikely that we will ever see anything like one of the middle eastern or Latin American autocrats with a clownish amount of metals on their chests ruling the West. It is a small cabal of people that manage a new kind of patronage system where everyone gets a piece of the plunder of the peasants. Call it neo-aristocracy if you like, until a better term emerges. Remember, the new tricks and lies tend to not be the same as the old tricks and lies.
What are you talking about?