I appreciate your perspective, as always!

In a sense, recent events point to the potential weakness — or Achilles heel — of true decentralization: The taking of action.

Yes, in the ideal world, everything is transparent and out in the open, and a broad consensus is reached. But that ends up becoming rather like a form of communism... if we have to "make decisions by committee," a potential "Bad Actor" can come in and bomb the party while everyone is busy discussing.

That's the part of decentralization I have never been able to make work. The ideal conveniently sidesteps human nature... a handful of greedy people can quickly overcome and usurp those who say "Well, let's talk about things and come to an agreement!" BANG! Now we're all dead, but at least we had the freedom to talk about things properly...

I guess I'm just not that attached to making that brand of "liberty" the centerpiece of my existence... feels too much like regressing down Mr. Maslow's hierarchy of needs...

I agree that this already has an adversarial subtext.

My "self-interest" is that I'm sick and tired of every blogging/social site that presents itself as an "alternative" to MSM seems to self-destruct and go down in flames, OR is usurped by people whose only interest is to exploit the system.

That leaves me contemplating the distinct possibility that the pervasive success of Facebook is actually just a statement that "The People Have Spoken" and Facebook is actually NOT evil, it is what the world WANTS. AT which point I just shake my head and realize that my best bet is to live in an isolated cabin in the woods and never talk to people again.

Of course, that's overly melodramatic...