I always wonder, is it really possible for a free civilization with sufficiently advanced technology to survive and sustain? Due to development of the contemporary industry, many types of technology, previously only available to major corporations and governments, can now be purchased off-the-shelf for personal use.

The very development of personal computing and the Internet is a manifestation of this. In the early 1960s, computers used to be seen as giant, enormous, oppressive machines used by faceless corporations and governments to produce national statistics, design nuclear weapons, or perform top-secret cryptographic communications. On the other hand, our pioneers of personal computing have identified, that once the power of computers is available to everyone, to "we the people", it may become a powerful anti-authoritarian tool, something we've never seen in the human history. This is the original meaning behind the famous 1984 advertisement by Apple.

And we've been following the same path of liberties and decentralization down the road in the next 30 years. Although today, especially since after 2013/2016, computers and the Internet has somewhat restored its "oppressive" public image, Apple and Google becomes the new IBM, etc, but it's clear that the essence of the technology is still largely neutral, and we have many development in the decentralized, pro-freedom world.

The advent of free and open source software has mostly guaranteed that individuals could has the freedom to use the computer for any purpose. The discovery the public-key cryptography can protect personal communication against the most powerful nation-state on Earth, and in principle, allowing the construction of an anonymous communication system, which is believed by many as a mean to eliminate the state, partially or fully.

Recently, the proliferation of dirt-cheap electronics potentially allows a hardware hacker to manufacture semiconductors, electronic equipment, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing toolkit, handguns, or missiles in his/her backyard. Most hackers see this aspect of technology as a force of liberation. If some people, somehow, eventually managed to create a stateless world in virtual reality, it would be impressive but not surprising.

The question is, what about malicious actors? Many things a hacker would do can be classified as illegal activities, but his/her intend is not malicious, just a different ideology.

But there are truly malicious actors in all civilizations.

The damage that can be done by a malicious actor in a free world, is proportional to the level of (decentralized) technological development. And they can be something more harmful than individuals - rogue nation-state, organized terrorism, etc. WMDs can be created in days, not years.

And you absolutely cannot ban the technology, for example, cryptography, because it's needed for a free society.

So, the eventual outcome is either,

(A) The civilization is destroyed by a few malicious actors.

(B) The civilization becomes a dictatorship, possibly driven by mass surveillance, where most individual liberties are abandoned, we either have 1984, The Matrix, or Black Mirror.

(C) Neo-Luddism, where technology is abolished.

Or a combination of (B) and (C), found in many Science Fictions. Is that the eventually doomsday of a free technological civilization? Do we the technologists still have hopes? For example...

(D) Due to space colonization, any malicious use of technology can only have localized effects, allows many free civilizations to survive?

(E) Due to mind-uploading, nobody bothers to mess with the physical world?

Did I miss something?