Similar problems are arising in Egypt too. The question is whether the military will release its grip which has been extremely strong for the past 60 years. So this is happening all over the region and particularly strikingly in Pakistan.

Look, the United States doesn't have political parties. In other countries, take say Europe, you can be an active member of the political party. Here, the only thing in a political party is gearing to elections, not the other things you do. So it's basically, a way of making people passive, submissive objects.

I'm pretty much out of popular culture altogether.

There is a social responsibility to take care of vulnerable people. It seems that a sensible social responsibility is obligatory education, but also decent education, and that is not happening.

Our current prison state has the dual effect of getting rid of a superfluous population of basically unskilled workers (with a close race-class correlation), and also demonizing them... The drug war is basically for this - It has nothing to do with drugs, but it has plenty to do with criminalizing an unwanted population and scaring everybody else.

Let's take Adam Smith, the patron-saint of capitalism, what did he think? He thought the main human instinct was sympathy. In fact, take a look at the word "invisible hand." Which, of course, you learned about, or you think you've learned about. Take a look at the actual way in which he used the phrase. There is almost no relation to what is claimed.

Small changes can magnifiy. The possibility of interpersonal communication has increased substantially with contemporary technology. But as compared with the major changes, which were long ago, these are not huge.