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Yeah, and people used to think that the World Wide Web would make nation-states irrelevant and usher in a new era of unprecedented individual liberty and enligh

• nostrademons 5y ago
  Might just not have waited long enough. States are usually at their most repressive right before failing, because they become insecure about their power and take overt actions that engender discontent (where they might normally have relied on soft power) because the alternative is non-existence.
  • eigengrau5150 5y ago
    That does provide a measure of hope, but only a small one. Repressive states may fall, but new states always rise in their wake and eventually become tyrannys in their own right because even if people learn from history there's a defect in human nature that makes people yearn for the yoke. It's as if people want to obey an authority figure because it gives them license to stop thinking for themselves and just go with the flow.