Then you interpreted my statement as more harsh than I intended, and I'll own up to my side of that, so I apologize. I don't necessarily take it as an insult for someone to say I misunderstood their point (if my statement to them comes across as a non-sequitur, I expect something like that), not that I've misunderstood some of the conversation. Sometimes comments are building on the context of a few prior comments in the chain, and seeing just the last two or three gives a distorted view of the context in which the current argument is being made. I'm not saying that happened here, but it is a reason I generally don't consider that statement to be very aggressive, but honestly it depends on the state of mind of the person hearing it.
> I don't disagree with most of your post, and I don't think you seem to disagree with mine, preface aside. Yes, it's still difficult, but I think there is a world of difference between being under physical duress versus being very inconvenienced.
My point was about control. No simile is going to be perfect. There will obviously be differences to being a fief than being a citizen in a democracy where the local company controls a lot of the resources and services.
That said, perhaps fiefdom wasn't what I was going for. Perhaps a Duchy is more appropriate? I admit to not being confident enough in the structures to know whether colloquially one implies more specific behavior than the other which might confuse the point (whether or not that implication is accurate).
> Keeping the analogy, it's very inconvenient to change even a normal job, and we are held hostage with things like healthcare. That's fief like too. Scale matters.
Yes. And I think adding power to this structure to reinforce those problems rather than a structure you have more control over which might alleviate them is the rational choice. I'm honestly surprised and confused that so many people are against that in this discussion.