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> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better. Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has
by delusional 2y ago
> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.
Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has some trajectory towards "justice" or "prosperity". I don't think that impulse does us justice.
Stalin/Lenin could have won. Hitler could have won, Napoleon could have conquered and held. It could just get worse.
- johanvts 2y agoOppression and corruption is expensive. Systems based on them are not going to be competitive in the long run.
- dachris 2y agoThat may be the very long run. Taking it strictly, Russia never had real democracy. And they are trying hard to export that model.
- autobodie 2y agoDefine "real democracy"
- Draiken 2y agoLike the American one where unelected billionaires control the government and the populace. I always find it so surprising how people really do believe individuals have any real power despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Doesn't get simpler than that. Voting is the circus to distract us so we don't realize how much we're being exploited, while giving a sense of agency that simply does not exist. We can choose but they pick the choices we have.
- autobodie 2y ago> It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Precisely.
- closewith 2y agoThat's a very optimistic belief, not any kind of axiom, but even if we accept it, the long run could easily extend past the lifetimes of every loving person today. It could last generations or much longer.
- atombender 2y agoSystems based on oppression and corruption can still be extremely resilient. Countries like Russia, North Korea, China, Belarus, Cambodia, Eritrea, and Venezuela have all lasted many decades.
- Epa095 2y agoMaybe oppression is where AI finally shines, making oppressive systems competitive. Technology is certainly helping China, and I can only imagine how much Stasi would love to automatically transcribe and store everything all their microphones caught.
- yardie 2y agoI look at apartheid and how long it managed to hang on. And I can only determine it was surprisingly lucrative and competitive as well. It took a long, series of activists and a long time to finally delegitimize and finally break it. And now, apparently, everyone involved with it had always been against it.
- autobodie 2y agoLenin did win.