The incentives are also quite different. Without strong encryption, the growing e-commerce industry would have started lobbying for it eventually.
> Perhaps only a very dark future involving a lot of war can stop this inevitable flow towards digital tyranny.
Depends on the details, but as long as electronic equipment still works, war tends to cause (acceptance of) surveilance - including China style street phone inspections. They don't bother with the ZK-facade. Potemkin SNARK?
On the bright side: people are having fewer children, so at some point the obsession over protecting them becomes silly :-)