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For people unfamiliar with this topic, it is commonly referred to as "Turnkey Tyranny". It is about the belief that you "don't give Mr Rogers any power you wou

For people unfamiliar with this topic, it is commonly referred to as "Turnkey Tyranny". It is about the belief that you "don't give Mr Rogers any power you wouldn't give to Hitler." Basically no matter how great you think your current leader is, you recognize that they will not be in power forever (or that they may not be good forever). Democracy, autocracy, oligarchy, whatever your system of government, there is a singular truth: all men die. All things change. Obviously this policy can go too far, but personally I think it is worth considering not just how good a policy or power can be, but how much harm it can do if abused or misused. It is easy to ignore this part because we want to believe people are good and have good intentions. Because we see the advantages and get excited about them. Because it is harder to think about abstract scenarios. But it is an important thing to think. You need not think your government is evil or nefarious to still be concerned with turnkey tyranny. In fact, the more faith you have in your government, the more you should be concerned. Because it is at that time that people are less likely to keep their guards up, and it is that same time that hostile actors look to take over. There is no absolute defense against malicious leaders, so it takes constant care.

rightbyte 2y ago
> "Turnkey Tyranny" Thanks this is a really great concept. I'm going to use this for the slippery slope fallacy fallacy.
namaria 2y ago
I am pretty sure this is the loophole Gödel found with the American constitution. It is pretty easy to turn the US government authoritarian, if you elect an authoritarian president.
refurb 2y ago
This is basically the intent of the structure of the US government. High degree of separation of powers (unlike most other democracies, the executive is separate from the legislative and there are two independent legislative bodies). High level of agreement across multiple bodies before a law can be passed (House, Senate and President). I thought Scalia's explanation was a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0
- godelski 2y ago
  I agree, that its the intent. The downside of the US is that it moves slow. But the upside is that it’s the oldest country in the world if you measure by (codified) constitution. You might think European countries are older but Germany didn’t exist till the late 1940’s. If you really want to stretch it you can argue early 1800’s but that’s facetious. The point is to be highly distributed. Many keys to power. It makes it hard to get shit done when people are unwilling to work together (read partisan hacks). Which is what makes it strong against takeover, even getting half the keys will still grind your takeover to a slow roll. That’s petty robust to adversaries. I have a hot take. My faith in the system strengthened with Trump and especially the stupid coup. Because I saw a man try very hard to take over and despite having a coalition that was practicing party over country, he still couldn’t. Though how many keys does he have now and did he do the legwork to make it work a second time? That we’ll see. But even then, I think it tells a successful story of robustness. That it took a few hundred years of growing power and extreme partisanship to break it. Clearly it can be and needs to be improved but clearly it’s got something of value. Something to learn from and iterate from rather than rework from scratch. I’m not aware of any country that’s survived under such extreme circumstances, but I’m not knowledgeable enough here. Please correct me but cite so I can learn more. Defining what is a country, let alone a continuous empire is very messy business with a lot of national narrative tied in (we can even argue the US’s fragmentation would disqualify, but the constitution stayed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >it’s the oldest country in the world if you measure by (codified) constitution I think a better way of phrasing it might be "a continuous system of government". Germany certainly existed before the late 1940s, but the system of government was obviously very, very different.
    - godelski 2y ago
      > Defining what is a country, let alone a continuous empire is very messy business with a lot of national narrative tied in Definitely gets fuzzy with definitions when we have things like Prussia, German unification, the German Empire, and all that. Especially, again, with the national narrative. It is messy business and I think we often pretned it is a lot cleaner than it actually is.

rightbyte 2y ago

> "Turnkey Tyranny" Thanks this is a really great concept. I'm going to use this for the slippery slope fallacy fallacy.

namaria 2y ago

I am pretty sure this is the loophole Gödel found with the American constitution. It is pretty easy to turn the US government authoritarian, if you elect an authoritarian president.

refurb 2y ago

This is basically the intent of the structure of the US government. High degree of separation of powers (unlike most other democracies, the executive is separate from the legislative and there are two independent legislative bodies). High level of agreement across multiple bodies before a law can be passed (House, Senate and President). I thought Scalia's explanation was a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd--UO0

godelski 2y ago
I agree, that its the intent. The downside of the US is that it moves slow. But the upside is that it’s the oldest country in the world if you measure by (codified) constitution. You might think European countries are older but Germany didn’t exist till the late 1940’s. If you really want to stretch it you can argue early 1800’s but that’s facetious. The point is to be highly distributed. Many keys to power. It makes it hard to get shit done when people are unwilling to work together (read partisan hacks). Which is what makes it strong against takeover, even getting half the keys will still grind your takeover to a slow roll. That’s petty robust to adversaries. I have a hot take. My faith in the system strengthened with Trump and especially the stupid coup. Because I saw a man try very hard to take over and despite having a coalition that was practicing party over country, he still couldn’t. Though how many keys does he have now and did he do the legwork to make it work a second time? That we’ll see. But even then, I think it tells a successful story of robustness. That it took a few hundred years of growing power and extreme partisanship to break it. Clearly it can be and needs to be improved but clearly it’s got something of value. Something to learn from and iterate from rather than rework from scratch. I’m not aware of any country that’s survived under such extreme circumstances, but I’m not knowledgeable enough here. Please correct me but cite so I can learn more. Defining what is a country, let alone a continuous empire is very messy business with a lot of national narrative tied in (we can even argue the US’s fragmentation would disqualify, but the constitution stayed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >it’s the oldest country in the world if you measure by (codified) constitution I think a better way of phrasing it might be "a continuous system of government". Germany certainly existed before the late 1940s, but the system of government was obviously very, very different.
  - godelski 2y ago
    > Defining what is a country, let alone a continuous empire is very messy business with a lot of national narrative tied in Definitely gets fuzzy with definitions when we have things like Prussia, German unification, the German Empire, and all that. Especially, again, with the national narrative. It is messy business and I think we often pretned it is a lot cleaner than it actually is.