After that movie, the influence the DoD had was much more subtle if it was there at all.
Their involvement is blatant. They literally have a near century long intimate relationship with Hollywood as a well established recruitment tactic. It's hardly a secret.
The oligarchy is a function of capitalism. Capitalism is the problem, its what brought us here. That's the cancer. It's an inherently unstable system which cannot sustain itself on a long enough timescale. It will consume everything, then itself, then collapse, taking us all with it.
We are caught in a system from which there is no escape and which dictates every facet of human civilization. It will not stop until it has consumed everything, at which point it will collapse, crushing humanity under the flaming rubble.
I think what people don't understand is that this is a single step forward. They don't expect to be able to enforce it straight away. But this sets a precedent. It's a stepping stone. First get it written into law, then inch ever closer to their goal. Same thing with the UK, they know some people will find ways around it.
They don't need to get everyone, just most people. Then they can go after the skilled minority with harsher penalties or whatever.
Also, please don't think it matters for a second that they are tech illiterate- they are running errands for the big corporations and the wealthy elite, who have plenty of money to spend on technical experts to enforce the bullshit.
I haven't seen it and I won't, because almost every time they do these TV show reboots of film, it ends up being the same relationship drama shlock you see in every other show nowadays, basically universe flavored Danielle Steele novels.
Religion sells certainty. The world is a big unknowable mystery, and that's scary. So people are inclined to listen to anyone who is full of certainty and claims to know everything and how it all works and what to do.
Fair enough. I just consider it quicker wikipedia, especially for very simple lookups. For what it's worth, I googled "gopher", which, shockingly, showed me pictures of gopher. "Gopher network" showed me an online network dedicated to gophers. XD
I 100% get the AI hate, but it did explain it to me, pointed me to a browser, which I installed, and now I'm on Gemini, so I learned something and gemini got a new user.
Thank god that at least they made them ask. Another thing I'm massively happy for is GDPR. I keep getting mails in my inbox for all sort of random accounts I don't remember signing up for that I probably just checked out once and forgot about, asking me if they can keep my data, please, because if I don't reply then they can't, and they would REALLY REALLY LIKE TO C'MON FRIEND BE MY FRIEND
But semantics have become more fluid and non-binary over the past decade.