One of the basic but false expectations people have in democracies is that they get to vote on the things that could change their lives forever. Nothing happens, we think, that reorders the lives of millions of people all at once without some sort of referendum or election.
Things have never really worked that way, of course. And for a few generations now — since the advent of modern technology and in particular, the Internet — that has become more and more evident. What happens, in practice, is that some new technology arrives, and all at once, life changes forever for countless people. In one generation, watching a movie meant driving down to the theater and buying a ticket in person. It meant putting on clothes and interacting with other human beings. No alternative was imaginable. And then, just a few years later, watching a movie became as simple as sitting inside your house and pressing a few buttons on a remote, or yelling commands at it like some sort of schizophrenic. It becomes archaic to think of anything else.
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