No system of governance can deal with immense concentration of power. The US Constitution was about separation of powers. Democracy is about (in theory at least) giving each person a meaningful say in their own governance, which in turn implies not allowing any single person to become too powerful.

Political leaders become a problem when they amass too much power. Corporations become a problem when they amass too much power. It doesn't matter what Sam and Dario's purported values are. They aspire to power and absolutely power always corrupts absolutely.

Technologies which are infinitely powerful or whose power grows too quickly outrun any reasonable attempt at regulation. If you imagine that tomorrow everyone were given a tank, we might think, "alright, everyone has a tank so it's not too bad." But humans are squishy, and our houses are (relatively) squishy compared to tanks. Substantial collateral damage would result from everyone having a tank, and it seems likely that substantial collateral damage will result from everyone having a cyberterrorism-capable slop machine.

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pixl97 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's interesting the cyberpunk-esque future we're sliding into. Things like cognito-hazards and information-hazards are legitimately discussed and researched problems we're experiencing.

It's going to be interesting on how humanity deals with this problem (well, or if we turn it over to AI and make it their problem and suffer whatever consequences falls out). Being able to gather further information and power by acting on the information you already have causing massive power imbalances that is very hard to deal with, it's a natural outcome.

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luqtas 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Democracy is about (in theory at least) giving each person a meaningful say in their own governance, which in turn implies not allowing any single person to become too powerful.

this is "direct democracy" and it's not even close to exist in USA... even with that a society can allow powerful people to exist if they don't create any law forbidding that

	▲	jsrozner 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Democracy includes a broader array of governmental organization than just pure direct democracy. If you do believe that individuals should have some ability dictate the terms of their own social organization, then you believe in some amount of democratic principles. Economic power eventually manifests in the political realm. The wealthy effectively get more votes, which means that society moves away from being democratic. Thus substantial wealth inequality is incompatible with democracy in the long run. We have been witnessing that corruption for a while now.

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throwaway13337 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Nearly everyone in the US has a giant car that is basically a tank.

They are dangerous. But it’s managed.

Centralized power never works. We have the worst times in history to look at.

Nationalization just centralizes to a different set of people. It’s personal ownership or oppression.

We all need open weight R2D2s.

	▲	jsrozner 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Cars are decidedly less dangerous than tanks, which are less dangerous than nuclear weapons. I am certain that giving a nuclear weapon to every person in the world would not go well.
	▲	pixl97 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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