The real demons are the friends Epstein made along the way…

Well… the threat of a good example / the domino effect threat / the threat of hurting profits and hurting the easy exploitative access to resources

Adding some quotes from the book from the book “The Untold History Of The United States” by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick

“In February 1901, while U.S. troops were, in McKinley’s words, uplifting, civilizing, and Christianizing the Filipinos, the U.S. Congress dispelled any lingering illusions regarding Cuban independence. It passed the Platt Amendment, which asserted the United States’ right to intervene in future Cuban affairs, limited the amount of debt Cuba could accumulate, restricted Cuba’s power to sign treaties, and gave the United States a naval base at Guantánamo Bay, which would secure the eastern approach to the Isthmus of Panama. The United States made clear that the army would not leave until the amendment was incorporated into the Cuban Constitution. After the war, American businessmen swooped in, grabbing all the assets they could seize. United Fruit Company gobbled up 1.9 million acres of land for sugar production at 20 cents per acre. By 1901, Bethlehem Steel and other U.S. businesses may have owned over 80 percent of Cuban minerals.”

“U.S. interests and prestige were dealt another devastating blow when revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, toppled Cuba’s U.S.-friendly dictator, Fulgencio Batista, on New Year’s Day 1959. American corporations had dominated the island since 1898. In 1959, they controlled more than 80 percent of Cuba’s mines, cattle ranches, utilities, and oil refineries, 50 percent of the railroads, and 40 percent of the sugar industry. The United States still retained its naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Castro quickly set about reforming the education system and redistributing land. The government seized more than a million acres from United Fruit and two other American companies. When the United States tried to strangle the new regime economically, Castro turned to the Soviet Union for aid. On March 17, 1960, Eisenhower instructed the CIA to organize a “paramilitary force” of Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro.”

And more generally, in the context of Vietnam:

"In April 1954, Ho Chi Minh’s peasant liberation army, commanded by General Vo Nguyen Giap, and peasant supporters hauled extremely heavy antiaircraft guns, mortars, and howitzers through seemingly impassable jungle and mountain terrain to lay siege to desperate French forces at Dien Bien Phu. Incredibly, the United States was then paying 80 percent of the French costs to keep the colonialists in power. Eisenhower explained in August 1953, “when the United States votes $400,000,000 to help that war, we are not voting a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the United States of America, our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesia territory and from Southeast Asia.” He envisioned countries in the region falling like dominoes, ultimately leading to the loss of Japan. Nixon agreed: “If Indochina falls, Thailand is put in an almost impossible position. The same is true of Malaya with its rubber and tin. The same is true of Indonesia. If this whole part of Southeast Asia goes under Communist domination or Communist influence, Japan, who trades and must trade with this area in order to exist, must inevitably be oriented towards the Communist regime.” And U.S. News & World Report cut entirely through any rhetoric about fighting for the freedom of oppressed peoples and admitted, “One of the world’s richest areas is open to the winner in Indochina. That’s behind growing U.S. concern . . . tin, rubber, rice, key strategic raw materials are what the war is really about. The U.S. sees it as a place to hold— at any cost.” "

Not humanity. It’s capitalism and its inherent incentive and demand for more and more profits/growth/consumption regardless of consequences (“externalities”). It’s the rich and their extravagant lifestyles and the industries that they’ve forced upon us.

• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/10/world-richest-used-fair-share-emissions-2026-oxfam
• https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-emit-more-carbon-pollution-90-minutes-average-person-does-lifetime
• https://studyfinds.org/worlds-richest-destroying-the-planet/
• https://shunwaste.com/article/how-much-do-the-rich-pollute
• http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/whose-consumption-is-killing-the-planet
• http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/07/08/forget-shorter-showers-why-personal-change-does-not-equal-political-change
• http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change

“Much of the response to the global climate catastrophe, in part caused by processes like clear cutting [of forests] and the overproduction of meat, has been individualized through a moralizing of consumer choice. At the grocery store, we are encouraged to bring reusable bags. We are shamed for plastic water bottles. None of these considerations hit at the point of production or social organization at large. It shies away from demanding why water might be bottled and sold, rather than made freely accessible in healthy ways. All of this moralizing operates under the false assumption that our individual choices have the power to shift the tide towards a greener future, without indicting the corporations and the states that support them for their massive projects of resource extraction and production of waste. Our individual buying habits don’t cause the desertification of the planet. Likewise, it is a fallacious argument to say that consumer demand creates these markets, since we are actually limited in our options of what we can buy, not only based on what we can afford but on the corporations’ ever-present interest of increasing profits to the detriment of any other consideration. We can make whatever choices we want at the supermarket without really making any significant change in the overall scheme of things. The effectiveness of boycotts relies on a mass demonstration of refusal, and that massive movement doesn’t currently exist.” (from the book “Practical Anarchism: A Guide For Daily Life” by Shuli Branson)

“Many environmental groups argue for restrictions on population, air travel or general consumption, and a change in personal lifestyles. […] Many proposals […] involve encouraging ordinary people—who are already facing cuts in their living standards—to further tighten their belts or to spend time and money most of us don’t have to make a series of changes in our lifestyles while the life-destroying chaos of the market system rages around us unabated. An oft-repeated mantra is that the developing world cannot have the same standard of living as the developed if we are to make any progress in slowing down environmental degradation. […] It is true that less developed countries of the South cannot emulate the consumer lifestyles and type of development of the North to which everyone, without a hint of irony, North and South, is nevertheless constantly taught to aspire. Further capitalist development of the North is quite enough to wreck the planet on its own; were the people of the southern hemisphere to join in and catch up, we would need the equivalent of five planets. The problem […] is not economic growth per se or population growth, but profit-driven, unplanned growth that in many cases is either socially useless or actively detrimental to humans and the biosphere—the kind of growth that has brought us to the brink of social and ecological disaster. Development and growth must be fundamentally redefined to prioritize real human and ecological needs rather than the priorities of profit and the market.” (from the book “Ecology And Socialism: Solutions To Capitalist Ecological Crisis” by Chris Williams:)

Because you want real/empathic/joyful/understanding/supportive human connection, but you’re afraid that you will get a fake/judgemental/manipulative/exploitative/pushy/coercive one instead

I fear they will commandeer them, reprogram them, and unleash them on the population

I totally understand him, and I don’t know his policies, but wouldn’t it be great if the name Adolf Hitler got “appropriated” towards egalitarian policies of inclusion and equality, in a sort of opposition to the way the nazis appropriated the swastika

I have some quotes to share, though about the government side of things

“The digital age has created the semblance of social connection, while empowering autocrats to better surveil, control, and disrupt perceived political opponents. China, Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have used digital tools to silence opponents, spread propaganda and disinformation, and sow polarization and division among their rivals. So, too, have regimes in smaller countries, like Togo and Bahrain, relied on digital surveillance to curtail civil society. Recent trends among mass movements also show some cause for concern.” (Erica Chenoweth - Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know)

And 3 from “No Place To Hide”:

“Initially, it is always the country’s dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of the surveillance, leading those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe they are immune. And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.”

“All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you’ll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being “left alone,” is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant.”

“Mass surveillance is a universal temptation for any unscrupulous power. And in every instance, the motive is the same: suppressing dissent and mandating compliance. Surveillance thus unites governments of otherwise remarkably divergent political creeds. At the turn of the twentieth century, the British and French empires both created specialized monitoring departments to deal with the threat of anticolonialist movements. After World War II, the East German Ministry of State Security, popularly known as the Stasi, became synonymous with government intrusion into personal lives. And more recently, as popular protests during the Arab Spring challenged dictators’ grasp on power, the regimes in Syria, Egypt, and Libya all sought to spy on the Internet use of domestic dissenters. Investigations by Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal have shown that as these dictatorships were overwhelmed by protestors, they literally went shopping for surveillance tools from Western technology companies. Syria’s Assad regime flew in employees from the Italian surveillance company Area SpA, who were told that the Syrians “urgently needed to track people.” In Egypt, Mubarak’s secret police bought tools to penetrate Skype encryption and eavesdrop on activists’ calls. And in Libya, the Journal reported, journalists and rebels who entered a government monitoring center in 2011 found “a wall of black refrigerator-size devices” from the French surveillance company Amesys. The equipment “inspected the Internet traffic” of Libya’s main Internet service provider, “opening emails, divining passwords, snooping on online chats and mapping connections among various suspects.” The ability to eavesdrop on people’s communications vests immense power in those who do it. And unless such power is held in check by rigorous oversight and accountability, it is almost certain to be abused.” (Glenn Greenwald, “No Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State”)

Oh that’s awesome I didn’t realize cameras are able to create a system where the basic necessities of life aren’t locked down by money, where people aren’t being disenfranchised/marginalized/exploited and not having to fend out for themselves figuring out any way to survive but instead working together to answer everybody’s needs

The crux of the issue is that it’s not the citizens that determine what is hide-worthy.

Are you vocally unhappy with how corporations wreck the Earth and our future for monetary profit? Well then you might have something to hide. Are you not heterosexual and cisgendered? Well then you might have something to hide. Do you complain about taxes being too high while not seeing too many benefits and you’d prefer if they didn’t go to finance wars/invasions and subsidize harmful industries? Well then you might have something to hide.

The ruling class wants citizens with nothing to hide. Those don’t pose any risk to their power and privilege.

And adding a quote I have saved up:

“Whenever the subject of surveillance by police and government agencies is discussed online, invariably some John Doe will come along and declare that they are quite happy to give up some or all of their privacy in exchange for improved security, on the grounds that they have nothing to hide, and “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” from the authorities, or from whomever else might gain access to your “private” data (this can include private security companies, private investigators, banks, insurance companies, lawyers, employers, computer hackers, and any individual or company willing to pay for the information. And that’s in addition to the thousands of agents working at GCHQ, NSA etc.). Dissidents languishing in Chinese prisons and Russian gulags - not to mention millions of Jews and dissidents rounded up by the Nazis in the 1930s - might take a slightly different view”

Generally speaking, that might only be true in a system based on scarcity, competition, monetary profit, classes where enough of the upper class care more about maintaining their position of power and profit while using divide-and-conquer to keep the people below subdued and hating each other.

Thank you for explaining, and I agree.

For general reference, here are some books I’ve enjoyed that touch upon improving democracy:

• Getting Free: Creating An Association Of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods (James Herod)
• Turning To One Another: Simple Conversations To Restore Hope To The Future (Margaret J. Wheatley)
• The Great Turning: From Empire To Earth Community (David C. Korten)
• Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong With Our Economy And Our Democracy, And How To Fix It (Robert B. Reich)

Do you mean representative democracies? Or all democracies? If all then why, and what do you believe would be better?