The problem is, another company, perhaps named "Floke", rolls in with the same surveillance, and everyone smugly assumes because they blocked flock it's A-OK.

People ranted about the Epstein files during the Biden administration, now politically opposite people are ranting about the Epstein files during the trump administration.
The Epstein files are a combination of Hitler, Bigfoot, the Moon Landing conspiracy theory and Pedophilia all wrapped up into one giant excuse for everything someone currently thinks is wrong. It's like cooties for adults.
"Hey, you, you've got [epstein files]! Ewwwww"

I would argue this stems for an innate distrust of overriding authority in the US versus absolutely required trust in authority in China. Doesn't matter if it's a president, a boss, or an AI avatar: American's are always hesitant to automatically trust the intentions of them. I believe this is a good instinct. You need to question these things, and not simply allow those in charge to dictate. Dictating ideas ( dictator has to come from somewhere, right?) works amazingly well and is incredibly efficient. Until it suddenly isn't and it crashes spectacularly. Then you have everyone is standing around asking "what happened???"
We've seen this occur countless times across history.

Books had middlemen, in the sense that publishers printed and acted as gatekeepers for what reached the public. With both the good ( I don't have to read through piles of nonsense to find a decent story!) and bad ( Pushing an agenda, only care about heavy sales) that implies.

This is a mistake. Go see the "Wolf Warrior" films. They're constantly referenced as the basis for China's forceful resurgence.
And then when you see them, they are bad. so so so bad. Silly stereotype characters, unreal things, characters in odd places acting unlike any human being would act, ever. All served with a giant heaping bowl of propoganda.
In fact, so terribly awful that they bleed into good. There's a scene where African warlords ( wolf warrior 2?) allows a large convoy of troops to drive past them because...they are proudly flying a Chinese flag. My friend actually fell off his chair laughing.

Nah, they become internet influencers.

I'm gonna pirate your Pion, by changing it to Prion, (for the ARRRRR). ;-)

Everybody's mad at PG&E or DWP or Edison, but they're all caught in a tough place.
They have so many above ground lines, and they've had multiple settlements. Which need to be paid, and generally are paid by raising rates-- though they're limited by law in their rates.
Paying these leaves them with less money to fund the line refurbs which would stop the fires that they're settling on.
 

"prevent automation"

Buggy Whip Makers would like a word with you.

While your post has some interesting tidbits, some even worthy, the conclusions are incorrect. You're blaming government intervention while proposing government intervention as a solution.

The more government is involved in economic matters, the more screwed up things get, because that's the nature of regulations. We just need ONE MORE regulation, and that will solve all the problems (and somehow creates additional problems).

Supply Demand curves exist in all markets. Pushing them around artificially is a recipe to inefficiencies.

Good: no rolling power outages since 2020 due to lack of capacity.
Bad: Large increase in geographic power outages due to windy fire danger.

With Passkeys, they have access to your stuff without any oversight by courts and discovery. There are ZERO 4 and 5th Amendment rights to stuff protected by passkeys. They can compel you to unlock your phone, and put your finger on the print reader, and facial scan you .... all without your permission or CONSENT. As much stuff behind that initial Passkey on your phone (ApplePay/GoogleWallet, Banks, everything).

Legally it is untenable how much access they have with Passkeys.

Passcodes cannot be compelled (XKCD hammer notwithstanding). 4th and 5th Amendments apply.

Um, that's "seriously", not "serious". Also, you don't need that comma between "methodology" and "and".

What you may find, should you revisit them, is that many required books are actually quite good, but were introduced to you when you unable, or incapable, of understanding them properly. Rereading some of these things years later often makes me say to myself "wow, that's actually pretty damn good", when I despised them as a teen.

If passkeys are movable, then they can be duplicated and reused by nefarious actors as easy as this seems to indicate here.

I have not, and do not, and never will trust passkeys as primary security for anything.

Passkeys can be compelled legally, with and sometimes without a warrant. Passwords cannot be compelled at all. SCOTUS has already set the rules.

I don't think they do it anymore, but my school used to have the MS read-a-thon, you'd get people to sponsor you money per book you read, and there were prizes for most money earned, most books read, etc. I was constantly getting beat out of first place in numbers by this guy who'd read comic compilations ( Peanuts!) while I was reading the Hobbit. It felt unfair to me at the time, but I ended up finding a lot of authors and books I loved.