This is two trends rolled into one.

Firstly the "I've reached the middle class therefore must buy a car" trend, which by itself is putting 20 million new cars on the road each year, predominantly in China's eastern cities.

Second, the "cars come in other shapes and colours other than black sedans" awakening. This is fuelled by the so-called "car culture" boom, with TV shows, radio programs, magazines, etc. all wanting to glom on to trend #1.

And while it is certainly true that "OMG they can't all experience American-style driving!" that's a little facile, as that was never going to occur with the way Chinese cities are built, and Chinese population density.

Yes the Chinese will get their cars. Yes, many of them will be models that, if used in American fashion, would be environmentally devastating.

But the trends on car usage in China simply don't point to that. And the Chinese government shows all signs of taking strong steps to prevent the expectation of being able to drive everywhere, anytime, from becoming widespread. You don't have to be a fan of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" to appreciate and applaud those moves.

An SUV that you use twice a month to take the family on an "away weekend" is not _really_ a huge part of the problem. Americans burning a dollar's worth of gas to buy two dollars worth of milk is.

It's inappropriate to say the game depicts a dystopian future. It's helping to create it. Thanks a lot, Pornstar Games.

Vapid inanity.

Firstly, the game doesn't depict the future. It depicts _now_. Radio DJs chatter about "Web 2.0". The roads are full of current-model cars. Political "news" is personality-all-the-time and policy-never. Internet dating. Theme pubs and "quirky" ethnic restaurants.

Second, the game is a _criticism_ of the hyper-capitalism sex-and-celebrities world we've created for ourselves. "I know there's a shortcut to the top for me," says one character, "I've just gotta find it." So, of course, he has a gambling addiction.

Finally, in being such a realistic "underworld simulator", the game completely strips the glamor (and I mean _completely_ strips) out of that life. Comparisons to "The Wire" are very apt. Why is Niko ("your" character in the game) such a successful killer? Because he has nothing to live for, and literally doesn't care if he lives or dies. There isn't a single moment in the game where this is depicted as a _good_ thing.

It's like that moment in good crime films where the (thrilling, sure, no argument there) bank robbery is over, and the wise old gangster says to the young guns "You know you can't go buy cool stuff now, right?"

And then the one that _does_ go out and buy an expensive roadster dies.

There's a difference between depiction and adulation. There's a difference between verisimilitude for the sake of criticism, or for the sake of "shock". There's a difference between great games like this, critically acclaimed, best-selling -- and violence-for-shock-value crud, which is _always_ panned, and more to the point, doesn't sell.

You said:

...Darwinian evolution [is] not testable, nor is it falsifiable, and it has no predictive power.

0 for 3. Or, to use plainer language: In response to your three points, sir, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Darwinian evolution predicted (among many, many other things) that intermediate forms would be found in the fossil record. They have been. Over, and over, again.

Darwinian evolution postulates a common ancestor. That's a testable claim. Genetics (specifically Evo Devo) has shown this claim to be almost certainly correct. The same genes are reused over, and over again, with different switches, at analogous sites, in all animals.

Darwinian evolution is certainly falsifiable, in the specific terms of the two areas I mention above, as well as in every single other one of its claims.

You clearly know nothing about how science actually works -- and what words like "falsifiable" and "testable" mean -- but then that's something you have in common with every proponent of the lunacy that is ID, so I imagine you don't have many opportunities to notice.

I'm giving you an opportunity: you're 0 for 3.

Of course, all complex questions have simple, wrong answers, but with that caveat, try this three-word answer:

The Magna Carta.

Either you "get" that the king must also be subject to the law, and then have continual war for 600-odd years until everyone else gets it too, or you don't "get" it.

China didn't get it. China still hasn't got it.

But encouragingly, one of Hu Jintao's "talking points" (and, yes, one can make a career being cynical about the talking points of Chinese leaders) is the rule of law.

Cynicism or no, there have been several decisions categorically unfavourable to "the Party" made in courtrooms over the last 5 years in China that have stuck, much to everyone's surprise.

So there's grounds to believe that, slowly, the "king also subject to the law" idea is making grounds in China, too.

Now for the 600 years of war needed to seal the deal. Although in fairness perhaps the Great Leap Forwards and the Cultural Revolution should count for 400 or so...

Many Americans are understandably upset and angry.

Upset and angry I buy. But "understandably"? No.

Americans are irrationally upset and angry. This has been coming for a long, long time, as anyone who travels, reads (good) newspapers, or is simply interested in events outside the US of A could tell you.

I'll never "understand" willful ignorance.

Let me try a re-write:

Many Americans are contemptibly upset and angry at something they should have headed off at the pass sometime in the eighties (like most other 1st World nations at least made an attempt to do).