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There's clearly a trend: the more people live in a country, the more paranoidal and authoritarian its rulers. They are afraid of their people and want more cont

There's clearly a trend: the more people live in a country, the more paranoidal and authoritarian its rulers. They are afraid of their people and want more control. That's understandable.

techdragon 6y ago
This prompts the next question... what can those of us who don’t want this slide towards authoritarianism to continue, do about it? Regardless of political/social viewpoints, I don’t think it matters if you consider your political views left, right, up, down, a, b or start... for the most part these views are compatible with free expression and “lowercase l” liberal democracy. Notwithstanding notable exceptions such as capital F Fascism or capital N Nazism, where being authoritarian is literally part of the political philosophy. So how do we resist this trend? I’m not talking about rallies and counter-protesting, that won’t help shit when it’s happening in other countries. How do we make liberty and democracy better so that people want it enough to say no to the continuing pressure towards alternatives... ?
- frongpik 6y ago
  I doubt you can make a free country out of a pile of greedy people who also want to control others. It's not just India, it's like that almost everywhere today: a bunch of sociopaths at the top, the clueless crowd in the middle who will support anything and anyone, and a minority of freedom seekers at the bottom. Eventually, the stream of evolution will wash the greedy and lazy out, but that will take tens of thousands of years.
  - HappyDreamer 6y ago
    That's what I was thinking too. > the stream of evolution will wash the greedy and lazy out Are there ways to speed up this tens of thousands of years of evolution? I can think of some things On the other hand, is there a risk that instead this species gets stuck for millions of years, in a "local maximum" with somewhat bright sociopath dictators, and a huge crowd of clueless people (if there's evolutionary pressure against being a bright person? Are there such tendencies?, e.g. bright women just working, working, no babies, or political dissidents disappearing in prison?), with regularly occurring massacres of minorities, so that eventually anyone who looks slightly different is at risk? ... Well, until a 3rd world war with nukes, mostly puts an end to all of it

There's clearly a trend: the more people live in a country, the more paranoidal and authoritarian its rulers. They are afraid of their people and want more control. That's understandable.

techdragon 6y ago

This prompts the next question... what can those of us who don’t want this slide towards authoritarianism to continue, do about it? Regardless of political/social viewpoints, I don’t think it matters if you consider your political views left, right, up, down, a, b or start... for the most part these views are compatible with free expression and “lowercase l” liberal democracy. Notwithstanding notable exceptions such as capital F Fascism or capital N Nazism, where being authoritarian is literally part of the political philosophy. So how do we resist this trend? I’m not talking about rallies and counter-protesting, that won’t help shit when it’s happening in other countries. How do we make liberty and democracy better so that people want it enough to say no to the continuing pressure towards alternatives... ?

frongpik 6y ago
I doubt you can make a free country out of a pile of greedy people who also want to control others. It's not just India, it's like that almost everywhere today: a bunch of sociopaths at the top, the clueless crowd in the middle who will support anything and anyone, and a minority of freedom seekers at the bottom. Eventually, the stream of evolution will wash the greedy and lazy out, but that will take tens of thousands of years.
- HappyDreamer 6y ago
  That's what I was thinking too. > the stream of evolution will wash the greedy and lazy out Are there ways to speed up this tens of thousands of years of evolution? I can think of some things On the other hand, is there a risk that instead this species gets stuck for millions of years, in a "local maximum" with somewhat bright sociopath dictators, and a huge crowd of clueless people (if there's evolutionary pressure against being a bright person? Are there such tendencies?, e.g. bright women just working, working, no babies, or political dissidents disappearing in prison?), with regularly occurring massacres of minorities, so that eventually anyone who looks slightly different is at risk? ... Well, until a 3rd world war with nukes, mostly puts an end to all of it