You mean the substrate of our entire economic engine? I think that's a bit dramatic.

It is a bit dramatic.

On the other hand, imagine it’s 2015 and someone tells you that in ten years, we could have an administration starting trade wars with Canada and Europe, talking of withdrawing from NATO and establishing a military base in Hungary, hacking away at the administrative state with an extralegal, roving band of 19 year old code monkeys… I know that I would have dismissed the idea.

These days, I don’t feel much certainty that anything is too far.

What, like free trade?

Parent didn't say all the internet at once, it could just be a matter of telling telecoms to block connections within certain geofences when protests start to flare up, Egypt 2011 style.

Could even bring down 4G services while whitelisting POS terminals, keep the Starbuckses up and running.

I dunno why you're getting downvoted so much.

This sort of thing seemed unthinkable a decade ago, or even in the first Trump admin, but definitely doesn't now.

Other similarly-inclined regimes like Modi in India have proven the effectiveness of targeted Internet shutdowns.