AoI: How to Be Free in an Unfree World

"In our era of statism, a crisis is a dangerous time for those who value liberty. For with a society myopically focused on the nominal threat of a crisis, draconian bills that limit freedom are easily passed. What makes matters worse is that a population consumed by fear will often voluntarily hand over their freedoms for the promise of a bit more safety. We merely need to look back to the crisis of 2001 to see this playbook in action. The falling of the towers marked the symbolic rise of the modern surveillance state and with it a death blow to many of our civil liberties. But the crisis that is playing out today has the potential to be far more damaging to our freedom. For governments across the globe have reacted in a way that has revealed a truth that many have long suspected: we live in turn-key tyrannies. The technical and socio-bureaucratic apparatus of most modern states is totalitarian ready. Restrictions of movement, limitations on social interaction, heavy-handed control of businesses, neighbors encouraged to snitch on each other, incessant paternalistic propaganda and all of this heaped on top of an already intrusive surveillance state and what we have is a form of totalitarianism in action."