With proper design, the dragon can be awakened or put to sleep. Personally, I'm shocked to learn that our beloved corporations would do such a thing!

Not really. This was the part of your post that I agreed with most Did you happen to catch my conversation with Lindy on why our brains like circles?

Included in the beautiful Mrs. P's many talents is quite the space planning knowledge, advanced degrees and what not, and she has instructed me for years in how design can be used for good or evil. We've checked out of hotels and left resturants before ordering because she found the design uncomfortable. There's a resturant in town who's food I really like, but now only get as takeout because the decor always gets us to bickering.

This has been done for thousands of years. What are the Great Pyramids but symbols of power and domination? Or the palaces of Europe. Every one I've been in made me feel like an intruder. I've always found Cathedrals, while beautiful from the outside, oppressive from the inside. Meditating in a garden is far more rewarding than inside any church I've ever been in.

And it is not just buildings and spaces: the art on the walls has also been used to intimidate. So much of modern art is crap because it is designed to make you feel just slightly uncomfortable. Most public sculpture is painful to be near. That shaky camera in Cloverfield or District 9: same thing. Hell, Musak was developed to keep shoppers mellow, or callers on hold to not hang up.

But thanks for lifting the curtain, you are correct in stating that people don't typically understand how they can be controlled by their enviroment.