The Price of #Dogma: #Religion's Impact on #Freedom and Progress

Russell Bell
Independent Scholar
Date Written: September 27, 2025

Abstract
This article argues that #religiousinstitutions function as systems of #socialcontrol rather than #spiritualguides, deploying #psychological mechanisms of #fear and #dependency to maintain #authority while resisting #scientificprogress and #humanautonomy.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5536859

Surveillance capitalism is an assault on human autonomy

Global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience. Personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behaviour but also to influence and modify it. This has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom.

#SurveillanceCapitalism #Democracy #Freedom #HumanAutonomy

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy-digital-privacy