I was quite impressed by this:

In all the years of recorded history, societies snap into totalitarian/authoritiarian forms like oxygen and hydrogen snap into water at the slightest provocation.
...
I wrote in some other post how it was beginning to look like everyone's ideal form of government, deep down below the conscious level, is a totalitarian dictator who thinks exactly like they do.

Impressed, because I think back to all the arguments we've had in which you deny the existence of authoritarian conservatism. Now you're presenting the very same idea, albeit without the unfortunately provocative name. Gives the lie to all those who are certain you can never change your mind, doesn't it?

The "jones" you're referring to is just A.C., which is wired into all us primates, waiting for the right kind of situation to trigger it. I know you'd agree that the situation makes all the difference, that instinct is not inevitable, because of the observable effect the American system has on its members, and compared to the effect other systems have on their members. But A.C. is still there, waiting for demagogues to tickle it out with the classic one-two punch of fearmongering and an offer of protection in exchange for subservience. Mental attitudes change when the environment changes, as we've seen to our sorrow over the last six-or-so years.

I think that this reveals a blind spot:

What's bizarre is how people can divide their perception to the point where they will get incensed about one encroachment on their right to do as they please, but accept without a second thought a dozen ways in which they are rendered subordinate to a collective.

You're conflating the A.C. impulse with other, very different, desires and impulses to cooperate with other people for mutual benefit. There's no mystery: People make nuanced judgments to distinguish government oppression from beneficial cooperation. Not everybody is driven by a theological certainty that anything to do with government is automatically evil.

We're not yet discussing the theory that I advanced in my (much) earlier post, and I'd rather do that than go through the Pro Forma Clarification of Principles and Positions That Hardly Require Clarification At This Late Date.

Wadda ya think? Do communication capabilities strongly influence the form of human social and governmental structures? Or not? And why, in either case, and in either case, what are the ramifications?