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Democracy is a damping utility: it pretty much guarantees that nobody too horrible will damage the country or organization but it also pretty much guarantees th
by yason 17y ago
Democracy is a damping utility: it pretty much guarantees that nobody too horrible will damage the country or organization but it also pretty much guarantees that nobody really good still can't make appropriate progress easily. Democracy is kind of the safe, average choice of how to rule a group of people.
A good dictator would be really effective and could do tremendous amount of good. The downside is that generally in a dictatorship, the ruler could also be an evil dictator and cause lots of damage.
In business, the owner is the dictator but luckily, he can only crash his own company, and people are voluntarily employed by him. Dictating what the company must do is often called the leader's vision.
If the vision is any good, the company will thrive. If it's bad, it will go down under.
However, if it's about the damn close button, we can only watch how it goes since Mr Shuttleworth has the final say and he will go up or down by his decisions. I don't understand peoples' moaning either: the buttons in Metacity are configurable and even if they weren't, people are not so stupid that if they want to use Ubuntu in the first place it would all break down because they can't close the damn windows.
- cookiecaper 17y agoRelevant scripture: Therefore, if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, who would establish the laws of God, and judge this people according to his commandments [...] if this could always be the case then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you. 16 Now I say unto you, that because all men are not just it is not expedient that ye should have a king or kings to rule over you. 17 For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction! http://scriptures.lds.org/mosiah/29 http://scriptures.lds.org/mosiah/29
- iskander 17y ago>A good dictator would be really effective and could do tremendous amount of good. The downside is that generally in a dictatorship, the ruler could also be an evil dictator and cause lots of damage. I don't think this is quite right, since it assumes the possibility of a sufficiently good dictator.
- iuguy 17y agoI think they have happened over time, just not regularly and as with many disciplines, the bad and mediocre tend to outweigh the good, but if you consider Julius Caesar, Alfred the Great, Saladin, Suleyman the Magnificent and Ataturk, then actually there are a few (perhaps more historically than now due to the lower prevalence of current opportunities for would-be dictators).
- jerf 17y agoWe have historical evidence that there can exist a "good" dictator for an iron-age society. I don't think such a thing can exist for a silicon-age society; it's too complex to run, and inefficiencies you can ignore in the iron age make you grotesquely uncompetitive in the silicon age. That people in the 21st century still think centralizing everything is the answer to any problem is a testament to the continuing power of the Utopian Dream to override reason. (This is a parenthetical; I am not saying iuguy is advocating it.)