jsr on Nostr: It is a lot easier to celebrate a turn towards dictatorship when you are untethered ...

It is a lot easier to celebrate a turn towards dictatorship when you are untethered to historical knowledge.

No amount of centralized power delivers a society with true personal freedom in the long run.

History shows that even when dictatorships perform 'well' on some factors, especially in the short term, they send people into a freedom-robbing labyrinth.

Do you care about personal liberty?

Because in the long run with dictatorships you will lose on having a society that supports freedom, personal rights and liberties and decentralization of knowledge and innovation.

Because dictatorships concentrate power without balance.

Over time as inequalities & unfairness become severe... the rule gets more brittle.

And dictators have to give more favors to the people that help them stay in power. Like economic favors.

People with ambition then need to play into the system and help prop up the dictator if they want to keep their resources.

Even then they are vulnerable to having everything taken.

And for anyone that dares point out increasingly obvious flaws?

Well, most dictatorships invariably slide into repression.

People with new, better ideas that also happen to challenge the dictators entrenched interests? Or those of the dictators necessary economic allies? Family members? Point out corruption?

Co-opted or cut down.

Fueled by massive surveillance.

And the threat of violence.

Because self-censorship scales better than physical coercion on each person.

People see opportunity for personal advantage. Some become informers.

Some delight in the cruelty of seeing people they dislike arbitrarily punished.

And when the strong leader dies? The society can be incredibly unstable as it carries the weight of so many injustices, so many lies.

And for the system to persist? More repression needed.