The thing is a government never needed technology to be authoritarian. The government today already has all the tools to ruin your life. It had them in 1940. It had them in 1840 and it had them in the year 40 as well. And that tool is known as the monopoly on violence. It can be wielded in many ways good and bad.

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lmm 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The thing is a government never needed technology to be authoritarian. The government today already has all the tools to ruin your life. It had them in 1940. It had them in 1840 and it had them in the year 40 as well. And that tool is known as the monopoly on violence. It can be wielded in many ways good and bad.

Not to the same extent. An army of humans is obedient up to a point, but there is a limit to what orders you can give them. When the officers are algorithms that limitation is a lot weaker.

	▲	asdff 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> An army of humans is obedient up to a point, but there is a limit to what orders you can give them. Whatever that limit might be is genuinely terrifying, given how far obedient soldiers have gone and not hit such a limit many times over the past.

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flextheruler 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're confusing autocratic with authoritarian. Total war reached its most recent zenith in the 20th century. If governments have always been able to control people to the same degree, why was not until Napoleon that we saw the beginnings of nationalism? I say this rhetorically, as it is quite obvious that it was technology and industrialization. When we look at ancient Empires and see their territory on a map it would be much more accurate to only highlight population centers not the entirety of the land. Illiterate farmers, who made up the majority of the world, resided in small towns and villages and their daily lives were largely unaffected by conquerors.

	▲	asdff 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There was nationalism pre napoleon. Arguably east asia is a better example than european history IMO. I would say there is strong sense of nationalism among han chinese both now and in history. Likewise for Japan and Korea. Pre islam Persia as well. I guess the source of this was consistent centralized authority over a large region vs any technological change. You had that in east asia. You didn't have that in europe after roman times. Even larger empires like kingdom of spain were not really seen as "spain" as we know it but a unified monarchy over the kingdoms of castile, leon, aragon, sicily, and napoli. Interestingly you didn't really have that in india either, no one controlled the continent until mughal times and by then the religious and cultural regional differences were pretty set in stone.

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thaumasiotes 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The government today already has all the tools to ruin your life. It had them in 1940. It had them in 1840 and it had them in the year 40 as well. And that tool is known as the monopoly on violence.

There are a couple of problems with this:

1. As a matter of raw empirical fact, a government around the year 40 wasn't too likely to possess a monopoly on violence.

2. A monopoly on violence isn't necessary to ruin your life. A simple nonexclusive license, which governments of the period did have, is sufficient.

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bluefirebrand 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is all true, but surely you can see how automating the authoritarian bent of the government still makes things worse than before?