I don’t buy your bleak vision of a United States on the brink of, or even in imminent danger of, total collapse, but in this we agree, technology isn’t about innovation anymore, if it ever was. As I have said before it is impossible to innovate when you can’t even be honest with yourself about your current capabilities. The techno-elites have sold so many on their vision of AIs on every street corner and in every phone (there is no AI, it does not exist) and machines that learn (they cannot), that to admit their deception now would be tantamount to suicide. They have broken faith with the people of the world, and I think most know it even if they will not admit it. And so they keep doing what it is that they do, “inventing” one ridiculous gadget after another, each only a fraction more “advanced” than the previous. With each “upgrade” the “improvements” become less and less useful than before and the end user less and less impressed. Some have likened this decrease in user satisfaction with changes in technology over time to the tolerance that builds to many addictive drugs with time. By this view it takes more and more to impress us so it almost never does anymore. I disagree with that completely. It is really that the drug (technology) is being diluted, growing weaker and weaker. We remain as we ever were, only slowly sobering up to the reality of our situation, users who got used.