Or more precisely, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "when politics imitates technology". In the beginning there was the simple world of DOS around which the computing universe evolved (with networking, communications, GUI, etc emerging in time from the primordial swamp). It was a creation about which a single person could understand everything. Latterly, that cosmos has fractured into myriad specialities (Mac vs. PC vs. Linux for starters) - each spinning away from the other, making it near impossible for one mind to map.
How like today's political landscape that has subdivided into global archipelagos that won't be divided into neat categories like democracies versus autocracies anymore, each drifting farther away from each other with different interests and values. We now live in a world of parts be it political or technical - and like all zero sum games it's a matter of hoping you back the winner.
