| 100% agree, and I think that's sort of what was intended with a lot of democratic government setups. What we fail to realize though (or maybe just remember) is that these systems will ALWAYS be under attack by those who want more power always looking for attack surfaces. (We seem to be under attack by almost all, if not all, current billionaires!) For example in the US, the executive order is a massive problem. Citizens united as well. And for all democracies the natural appeal of strongman politics is a huge problem. Every attempt at government overreach really needs to be questioned. I don't say rejected, just questioned. How will it be used by future powers? Is the tradeoff worth it? Can it be temporary? Do we even have a way to claw it back if it turns out to be detrimental? Is it too subtle and nuanced that the majority will miss seeing it? etc. |
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| ▲ | quantummagic 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Except it's very easy to "sell" government overreach. Whenever a plane flies into a tower, or flu season is extra scary, people will clamor for strict government authority. With every such event, the government gains capabilities and tendencies that always end up with a few people having outsized power over the masses. | | |
| ▲ | rapind 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, but I don't think it's so straightforward. I think there are bad actors marketing this overreach. Like the surveillance industry for the Patriot Act (tech, defence, telcom, maybe compliance vendors?). I don't think their goal is to create a distopia, but we should always be looking at incentives for large government programs. | | |
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| ▲ | ranger_danger 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > these systems will ALWAYS be under attack by those who want more power I think this is an inherent human problem that prevents us from overcoming it... history has proven that the more equal everyone is, and the less individual ownership they have, the lazier and more bored they get. Look at the previous attempts at socialism... people stop caring when there's no goal to work towards, they can't all be doing the same thing and just be happy, because humans are naturally competitive. We desire things other people don't have, like possessions, money, or power. | | |
| ▲ | psychoslave 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Well we can look at attempts at socialism and see that some failed, some were successful: https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/successful-sociali... But of course success is relative to some cultural values. We could just as well wonder about success and failure in implementation of any political system. The most remarkable trait of humans is cognitive plasticity, so determining any natural tendency that would be more inate than acquired is just a game of pretending there are hypothetical humans living out of any cultural influence that would still exhibit predominent behavioral traits. Competition is a social construct. There are people out there whose biggest concern is keeping focus on enjoying what they are, freeing their attention from the illusion of possession, avoiding any financial/material bounds they can and staying away of contingent hierarchical servitudes. They are also many people who holds desires for both of these perspectives, or any interpolation/extrapolation that they can suggest. | |
| ▲ | rapind 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is there a way to accept but also limit greed that is reliable and durable? Like a pragmatic meritocracy. We accept that there will be cheaters, and we won't catch or stop them all, but we have some hard limits. Do we care if you stop working so hard once you hit $1b? Maybe we'd even prefer that you did stop working (against societies interest!)? This wouldn't even remotely resemble the communism bugaboo. It's basically saying, yes greed can be good, but at some point it gets ridiculous. |
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