Not an overnight fix. But with sustained effort, meditation changed my life. Eventually other things fell in place. Diet, exercise, relationships, mental health. Buddhist teachings really helped too.
Your logic is correct, but this would require real-long term regulatory change. Remember it's still the NSA. People are slowing changing sentiment to policy more accepting of personal choices toward those that don't infringe upon to others. The NSA in scope is still an ideologically healthy organization. Until a fundamental shift in scope we should champion their organization. Over time you are correct but I posit that is a socially healthy operation where you feel the counter. Do we not as society want to do away with those who wish us harm? That is really all they are doing here. That's the balance. You're right the people will have a direct say who and who does not belong. That is a good thing and the purpose of why we were formed nation. For this exact power. Protection.
People don't care what you do so long as it doesn't harm them. Sentiment is changing towards that. It's reflected in the data. Expenditure will just be greater with any the counter.
I suppose quantum computing presents one of the few exceptions? And on the other end, distributed systems? Where else is new ground being explored? Cross functional work?
Growth isn't just exclusive to startups. It's a health indicator for a majority of businesses. Just the same, a tech company does not equate to a startup. There is a priced in expectation for growth in nearly all capital seeking companies. Yes, there are sectors and utilities where full saturation prevents growth, however population as a constraint is hardly common.
You can have a healthy company that's shrinking because it's in a cyclical industry or removing less profitable / overly risky part's of the business. Case in point during the run up to the banking collapse several banks where shrinking during the boom because they avoided 'overly' risky loans but they where ideally situated to take advantage of the bust.
Is the source of growth an important metric to measure for success? The source of groupon growth is through excessive sales push. Compared to that, Google growth in early days is because of viral effect without too much sales & marketing spend.
If a beginner does want to tackle SICP, I recommend they follow the MIT 6.001 lecture series on YouTube. It's much more manageable than simply diving into the text, but makes a great companion if you do want to keep up with all the exercises.
Granted, I'd recommend doing a L*THW or something before going to SICP, but you don't need a ton of programming experience to get something out of it.
I started here. http://headspace.com