6 ms·

Having been raised in a democracy and raising my kids in a dictatorship, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding from both side. People in democracies cannot

by xwolfi 6y ago

Having been raised in a democracy and raising my kids in a dictatorship, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding from both side. People in democracies cannot comprehend how anyone in a dictatorship could live anything else than miserable, and people in dictatorship mostly see people in democracies as hypocrite imperialists who lie to themselves about who truly rules. The funny thing is that, well, it mostly all depend on how much you care and how corrupt the people in charge are, totally independent of the system. A dictatorship in Singapore works better than a democracy in Mexico for most metrics except anything that will make the power feel it's not in perfect control. The only difference in a dictatorship is the complete insecurity of the leaders who can't fathom that... we'd frigging vote for them would they ask nicely :D And you can completely ignore the party(ies), and live an entirely fulfilling and useful life, in both systems. I wouldn't argue for doing this but I see it all the time from both side and I envy it sometimes. So this whole debate about censorship, it's really just a debate about insecurity. They don't censor the truth here, they don't censor debate or discussion, they only censor what nobody cares about: critics of the party. So it's a lot less "terrible" or "inhuman" than I thought it would be coming from a democracy. And I think the way to make it change isn't to whine and yell at it as much as you can, but to embrace the competent leaders when they come and give confidence to them we'll give them 10x more power by voting directly for them. And lay the final trap. At least my origin democracy became a democracy when it started doing just that after 2 centuries of massacres and revolts followed by authoritarian counter reactions in a seemingly endless cycle of aggressive "activism". It simply ended when we went to war in mass without being forced and convinced the rulers we'd vote for them anyway as a result, sheeples we are, which we did the first election. Trapped.

vmception 6y ago
Correct, its not binary. Its best case, average case and worst case, just like with algorithms on different data sets. We already know that a benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government, the best case in stewarding resources, it just lacks a secession path to maintain its efficiency, as dictatorships most frequently create worst case scenarios: worst stewarding of resources and no ability to dissent to correct it. No respect from the rest of the people on how the correction takes place, one coup just leads to another coup. Inclusive democracies most frequently create average case scenarios of efficiency. They aren’t inherently better just because they’re inclusive. They can create best case and worst case scenarios too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
yters 6y ago
My main problem with dictatorships is mass concentration camps, mass executions, torture, human experimentation, etc. Granted, democracies have done all the above, but diligent activists corrected the system, and the scale never reached that in dictatorships. But yes, for your average citizen, dictatorship is probably not too bad.
areoform 6y ago
That’s discounting the forced sterilization, imprisonment, and extermination of the target du jour, > One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women. The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps. - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/uighur-genocide-xinjiang-china-surveillance-sterilization/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/uighur-genocide-xinjian... > they only censor what nobody cares about: critics of the party Saying that they only censor their critics and adding that they are only censoring “what no one cares about, critics of the party” is disturbing. When one person can impose their will on you, it’s all rainbows and kitties until you disagree or step out of line. As I am guessing that the people who oppose forced sterilization and the other Nazi concentration camp policies (forced shaving of hair at camps for use as a product is a fairly distinct one) will end up censored and at those camps too? These problems and issues might be out of sound and out of mind for now, but sooner or later, as the previous enemy starts to thin out, they will find new ones. And eventually, they’ll come for you too. Often people who live in autocracies by choice do not believe such warnings. They are the intellectual equivalent of exercise and vitamins. To make it clearer, here's what happens at the end of such regimes. Even for their supporters, Towards the end of the war, the Nazis who were occupying the Netherlands blew up a town hall after inviting 134 people and their children to take shelter there. These people were of the right race. Most of them had done nothing against them. Some of them might have supported them. They were the in-group until they weren't. They died because they weren't members of the party. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadhuisramp_Heusden https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadhuisramp_Heusden Being ambitiously evil, the Nazis also killed erstwhile embraced citizens at scale with the Dutch famine by blocking the transport of food from farms to citizens in their occupied territories. They did it because they could. Perhaps this is still distant. Here's a shorter example. Almost all of the people Stalin directly ordered to be killed were his supporters. They were the in-group until they weren't.
- TacticalCoder 6y ago
  I don't disagree with you but... > They were the in-group until they weren't. They died because they weren't members of the party. So were they the in-group or not? Most people in occupied Europe did not approve at all of nazi germany. Sure, there were some collaborationist but most europeans did totally disapprove nazi germany. It's not the same as people who voted for communism then got was they asked for: in my opinion, when you vote for a totalitarian society, it's just fair game that in return you get what you asked for (I know, I know, the ultra-left leaning are going to say that "this wasn't true communism and next time, believe us, we're going to make it work"). You cannot compare occupied Europe who didn't ask to live under a totalitarian society to those who supported communism.
buran77 6y ago
Moving between democracy and dictatorship several times in my life I can say this: it mainly boils down to how well your interests align with the interests of the one(s) in power. The main difference is that if your interests don't align you'll have a much harder life in a dictatorship than in a democracy, special cases (like Singapore) notwithstanding. For every Singapore there's more than one Myanmar.
jariel 6y ago
" dictatorship mostly see people in democracies as hypocrite imperialists who lie to themselves about who truly rules." Han China is the most Imperial place on earth, and possibly has been since antiquity. 100x more ethnocentric and classically Imperial that America ever remotely was for example. Isn't it interesting that someone could contemplate even writing such a thing?
- eunos 6y ago
  forget manifest destiny ?
  - jariel 6y ago
    Go ahead and compare 'Manifest Destiny' to Han Chinese Imperialism of the last 2000 years, that exercise will enlighten us all. As part of 'Manifest Destiny', make sure sure to include the dozens of major states like Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Italy that the US liberated from other conquerors at great cost, and others it provides support for at some cost. Like Taiwan. If the US were an Imperial Power, all the Oil in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia would belong to it. Ironically, as the US 5th Fleet today provides protection for all merchant craft in the Gulf at this very moment, so that that everyone is free to move, buy and sell from/with whom they please - considerably more of that Oil goes to China than the US.

by xwolfi 6y ago

vmception 6y ago

Correct, its not binary. Its best case, average case and worst case, just like with algorithms on different data sets. We already know that a benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government, the best case in stewarding resources, it just lacks a secession path to maintain its efficiency, as dictatorships most frequently create worst case scenarios: worst stewarding of resources and no ability to dissent to correct it. No respect from the rest of the people on how the correction takes place, one coup just leads to another coup. Inclusive democracies most frequently create average case scenarios of efficiency. They aren’t inherently better just because they’re inclusive. They can create best case and worst case scenarios too.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

yters 6y ago

My main problem with dictatorships is mass concentration camps, mass executions, torture, human experimentation, etc. Granted, democracies have done all the above, but diligent activists corrected the system, and the scale never reached that in dictatorships. But yes, for your average citizen, dictatorship is probably not too bad.

areoform 6y ago

That’s discounting the forced sterilization, imprisonment, and extermination of the target du jour, > One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women. The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps. - https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/uighur-genocide-xinjiang-china-surveillance-sterilization/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/uighur-genocide-xinjian... > they only censor what nobody cares about: critics of the party Saying that they only censor their critics and adding that they are only censoring “what no one cares about, critics of the party” is disturbing. When one person can impose their will on you, it’s all rainbows and kitties until you disagree or step out of line. As I am guessing that the people who oppose forced sterilization and the other Nazi concentration camp policies (forced shaving of hair at camps for use as a product is a fairly distinct one) will end up censored and at those camps too? These problems and issues might be out of sound and out of mind for now, but sooner or later, as the previous enemy starts to thin out, they will find new ones. And eventually, they’ll come for you too. Often people who live in autocracies by choice do not believe such warnings. They are the intellectual equivalent of exercise and vitamins. To make it clearer, here's what happens at the end of such regimes. Even for their supporters, Towards the end of the war, the Nazis who were occupying the Netherlands blew up a town hall after inviting 134 people and their children to take shelter there. These people were of the right race. Most of them had done nothing against them. Some of them might have supported them. They were the in-group until they weren't. They died because they weren't members of the party. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadhuisramp_Heusden https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadhuisramp_Heusden Being ambitiously evil, the Nazis also killed erstwhile embraced citizens at scale with the Dutch famine by blocking the transport of food from farms to citizens in their occupied territories. They did it because they could. Perhaps this is still distant. Here's a shorter example. Almost all of the people Stalin directly ordered to be killed were his supporters. They were the in-group until they weren't.

TacticalCoder 6y ago
I don't disagree with you but... > They were the in-group until they weren't. They died because they weren't members of the party. So were they the in-group or not? Most people in occupied Europe did not approve at all of nazi germany. Sure, there were some collaborationist but most europeans did totally disapprove nazi germany. It's not the same as people who voted for communism then got was they asked for: in my opinion, when you vote for a totalitarian society, it's just fair game that in return you get what you asked for (I know, I know, the ultra-left leaning are going to say that "this wasn't true communism and next time, believe us, we're going to make it work"). You cannot compare occupied Europe who didn't ask to live under a totalitarian society to those who supported communism.

buran77 6y ago

Moving between democracy and dictatorship several times in my life I can say this: it mainly boils down to how well your interests align with the interests of the one(s) in power. The main difference is that if your interests don't align you'll have a much harder life in a dictatorship than in a democracy, special cases (like Singapore) notwithstanding. For every Singapore there's more than one Myanmar.

jariel 6y ago

" dictatorship mostly see people in democracies as hypocrite imperialists who lie to themselves about who truly rules." Han China is the most Imperial place on earth, and possibly has been since antiquity. 100x more ethnocentric and classically Imperial that America ever remotely was for example. Isn't it interesting that someone could contemplate even writing such a thing?

eunos 6y ago
forget manifest destiny ?
- jariel 6y ago
  Go ahead and compare 'Manifest Destiny' to Han Chinese Imperialism of the last 2000 years, that exercise will enlighten us all. As part of 'Manifest Destiny', make sure sure to include the dozens of major states like Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Italy that the US liberated from other conquerors at great cost, and others it provides support for at some cost. Like Taiwan. If the US were an Imperial Power, all the Oil in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia would belong to it. Ironically, as the US 5th Fleet today provides protection for all merchant craft in the Gulf at this very moment, so that that everyone is free to move, buy and sell from/with whom they please - considerably more of that Oil goes to China than the US.