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But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coo

But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. Hence the root problem, that we haven't discovered a way to consistently have "good" government, whether it's a dictatorship or democracy. Perhaps with technology, we can invent a better form of government, e.g. a "super-democracy" where people vote on individual decisions (though even today I can imagine issues that would cause). Until then, the key point I make is that you can have a government where some people ("leaders") do have more power than others, but not enough power for total control. The hopefully-realistic ideal is that the government has enough power to defend itself against an external threat always, and coordinate large projects when functioning well; but not too much so that, when functioning badly, essential internal systems are preserved, and when it's replaced (because as mentioned it will eventually collapse) the transition is minimally disruptive.

potato3732842 1y ago
>Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. We're pretty f-ing far from even having to think about those problems.
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. You can prohibit the government from doing things it should never do (e.g. mass surveillance) without prohibiting it from doing things it ought to be doing (e.g. enforcing antitrust laws). The problem is we currently do the opposite: The government is doing mass surveillance but not antitrust enforcement.
- 20after4 1y ago
  Obviously some very powerful and motivated people disagree with you about what the government ought to be doing. Sadly I think there are more highly motivated, extremely selfish and destructive people than there are people who are capable and altruistic.

potato3732842 1y ago

>Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. We're pretty f-ing far from even having to think about those problems.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

> But the people in office need some power, enough to cause problems if they're bad. Otherwise you have the failures of no government: "might makes right", no coordinated projects, no defense, etc.; or another group (e.g. corporation) becomes the de-facto government. You can prohibit the government from doing things it should never do (e.g. mass surveillance) without prohibiting it from doing things it ought to be doing (e.g. enforcing antitrust laws). The problem is we currently do the opposite: The government is doing mass surveillance but not antitrust enforcement.

20after4 1y ago
Obviously some very powerful and motivated people disagree with you about what the government ought to be doing. Sadly I think there are more highly motivated, extremely selfish and destructive people than there are people who are capable and altruistic.