> We've really foolishly built the technology necessary for authoritarianism just a few years head of a general global trend towards authoritarianism.

Hum... It was foolish, but it was decades after the trend started.

Looks to me that the real trend was started mostly by the wide distribution of TV and the subsequent media consolidation (that happened everywhere).

Also, who is "we" here? Because it was exactly the authoritarian-wannabes that created most of it.