Let’s be clear: if the CIA was doing it, then it was not overt and obvious. It was secret manipulation.

Is that the kind of government intervention that you want to get?

And for people that know their history, the DoD basically built Silicon Valley as we know, funding research and buying essentially 100% of the output of valley fabs for several years for Radars, then ICBMs, and then flight computers (F14 was arguably the first modern microcomputer) from about 1962-1972. Only when silicon companies scaled beyond this demand did the consumer computer revolution begin to take flight.

Your tone implies that the same people who freak out about reasonable gov intervention, are also (hypocritically) okay with the shenanigans being discussed.

Who are these straw men you refer to?