If you grew up in America prior to 2020, you might have gone through life with the vague assumption you had certain inalienable rights such as the right to pursue an education or work a job, have friends over for a party, or speak freely in our digital town squares.

Granted, there were always obvious asterisks: Slavery and Jim Crow, post-9/11 surveillance, the basic business model of Big Tech, etc. But the racial asterisks were in the past, and at least some of the privacy ones came with the undeniable benefit of allowing friends to comment on pictures of that cute thing your cat did.