Why does it matter what his wife thinks? And if she truly did suspect he is crazy, wouldn't he divorced right about now and caring a lot less about the chip in his arm?

Voluntary, yes, but not at all ethical. Currently you have to pick one or the other, can't have both.

That is certainly a significant part of it, an aspect I have observed and described in the past. There's more to it than just that. Socialism gets a bad rap because humans aren't yet evolved to make it naturally work voluntarily on a massive scale; it works well enough at an intimate village scale, but not for an entire nation. That it is voluntary is critical, because what's the point of an ethical economy if unethical force is required to establish and maintain it? That is why Communism fails miserably.

You don't say overtly that it's a bad thing that the United States has socialistic constraints on its capitalistic economy... and it's not. Socialism - NOT Communism - done well is a far better economic system for advanced societies than capitalism. Better to call it mutualism or voluntary socialism. In the context of any advanced society pure capitalism can never be done well; it reaches a peak benefit - the United States has passed that point - and then begins to cause irreparable harm that leads to eventual economic and social collapse. It's a cyclic process that repeats as long as capitalism is the economic law of the jungle. We must evolve our species to more naturally cooperate rather than compete and combat.

That's pretty thin logic ya got there, buddy. You'd best be praying those environments never gain measurable market share, because that is the only thing keeping you from being dragged squarely into the same drama.

I'm well aware that we're discussing silicon compounds. I didn't claim that silicon was being vaporized by tire friction; that's silly. However, is it possible that silicon compounds in the road surface that get pulverized finely enough might then become "aerosolized" and disperse in the atmosphere? That is the question I posed.

... is whether "piracy" is actually stealing much less criminal.

You know what also contains silicon? The material in roads. Cars drive over this material, breaking it up and wearing it down. Perhaps not all of it winds in topsoil and the water system?

Nowadays they just sell mysterious liquid engine/fuel system "treatments" that cost nothing to make but they can sell at a huge markup.

Nope, not thin film. There were no wires, no leads, no solder pads nor terminals. Unless there's wireless solar cells now in that form factor, it was a fake.

... from whose perspective? At least one perspective holds that the perfect solar cell is one that doesn't even work, a thin strip of plastic made to look like a solar cell that costs a helluva lot less than the real thing:

Today I was walking home from an errand to a store.I saw the remains of a “Dual Power Calculator” in the gutter; it had an intact solar cell in the top.“Cool!”, I thought; “I’m going to rescue that solar cell for some DIY thing.”I grabbed the top part and tossed it in my bag.

When I got home, I dismantled it to remove the “solar cell”.I discovered that it was a fake, a thin strip of plastic separate from the body made to look like a solar cell.

WTF....

Calling Captain Ahab....

So did they send in the new Scorpion team to save the day?

... like the Russian populace becoming too educated to put up with him any more.

Indeed. The newfound ability to do very bad things always relates to operational capability.