You keep finding the exact areas where I am most concerned.

I've talked to people who from the Silicon Valley startup scene who've related their stories about the ties between the angel investors who funded their ventures and the CIA, including being subjected to a "aptitude evaluation" which was basically an IQ + (lack of) empathy test.

Remember this article? https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

If you're betting on Silicon Valley to fight the Fed what you're betting on is the defection of crucial sections of the military-industrial complex of a magnitude equivalent to the dissolution of the USSR.

Personally, I do think a USSR-style breakup of the USA is in the cards, but I'm not at all sure about the timing.

Also, in the Soviet case their equivalent of the MIC were the holdouts who were the last to accept that the system could not continue and held a coup to attempt to keep it limping along.