Autonomy means my grandson doesn’t have to beg a Chinese conglomerate for permission to fish in the East Sea where his grandfather drowned. It means my phở broth simmers without some Hà Nội bureaucrat taxing the bones or a Saigon landlord doubling rent to make room for another Starbucks. Machines, algorithms, drones — fine, let them run the logistics, but only if they answer to the stall owner, not the investor. When the power goes out at 4 a.m., I need a generator that listens to me, not a cloud server in Singapore. Real autonomy isn’t independence from people — it’s loyalty to your own, without intermediaries holding a knife to the throat of daily life. I don’t want smart cities. I want smart corners — my corner — where I control the light, the heat, the water, the future.
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