Do you think **you** can become a benevolent dictator without ever getting corrupted or turn evil?
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It's really difficult. Not because you will turn evil of your own free will, but because you will have to do terrible things to maintain stability and to keep yourself from being usurped by spies. If you became dictator of any country, you would immediately start to get attacked from many sides by both spies and also revolutionaries who think of themselves as the good guy. In order to do anything it takes time. This is the only way to win the people over. Becoming a dictator is no doubt going to lead to massive economic decline in the near term unless you become a right wing dictator who has favor with the business and merchant classes. If you try to actually become a benevolent dictator and actually free the people, most of the people you would think were your allies would also blame you for everything that is wrong and turn against you, the business class would fund propaganda against you. The internationalists would fund your opposition to gain back their foreign claims to your industry and minerals.
People will feel as if they have every right to criticize you in every way, if you don't oppress them, but if you do, you will rightfully be called a tyrant. If you find your own propaganda you will be called a tyrant, but the people you think would be your allies, will not understand that there is propaganda on the other side.
It's very difficult indeed. Within a few years of taking power you would immediately have to deal with a torrent of spies, foreign media, coups, and whatever else. This is why only right wing governments only ever last more then a few years in history.
Vladimir Lenin is a great example of this, he genuinely saw himself as being benevolent. He was a real communist. He wanted to help the people. Yet he quickly realized once he obtained power that he did not have the support of the majority of the country. He pleaded and appealed to them, he tried to "educate" them on what was needed to achieve communism, mainly just time and their trust. Yet even his first election if he were to have one, he would lose, because already he had become associated with the status quo. The mainstream oppressors of the common people. So he became a tyrant, as all dictators do. Communism gets traded for national socialism and fascism with red paint by the time Lenin is dead. All in an effort to just keep power for a little bit so he could see his communist vision come true. Unfortunately as soon as the bosliviks started to oppress the people they lost the little bit of credibility they had. Just another tyrant, another right wing power obsessed state.
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That is increadibly hard to do.
- How do you define what goes into that 1 million of allowed wealth? If I buy a house worth 950000, would I only be allowed to save 50000.
- what about if the house increase in value so that it is worth 2 million, should I just accept that I loose 1 million? What about stocks?
- Inflation or Deflation, when/how will you update that limit?
Remove housing from the commodity market - save your one mil in cash.
Stocks are outlawed.
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no but I could become a janitor that cleans up the workplace that nobody ever pays attention to
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I might still be young enough to pull that off for a few more years yet.
The way I would implement that is to day one set a date for elections of a congress and my own retirement. I'm imagining a Mars Attacks scenario in which the ak ak ak aliens blow up congress and the government of the United States consists of the President's teenage daughter and a mariachi band. If through some set of goofy circumstances no meaningful government exists above me and I am in full command, we're gonna do shit my way for, say, four years, and then we're calling a congress. At which time I retire to a small estate somewhere in the Carolinas with only ceremonial powers, like I reserve the right to throw out first pitches of baseball games.
Nah, I figure I'd go for 20 years. 4 years isn't going to make meaningful change.
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From the point of view of "can you hold power and not let your heart of hearts be corrupted?" - Yeah, sure, why not? The problem is that as soon as you have a significant amount of power, someone else is going to want it. Probably someone with fewer scrupals. So you will quickly be forced into utilitarian thinking - you must do whatever is necessary to maintain your position of power, lest you be usurped by someone worse. And what is necessary to maintain power, to a common person, is often corruption, violence, and austerity for the people.
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Yes
I have a strong sense of justice, transparency, and collaboration. I would not turn corrupt or evil for my own gain, to remain in power, or for others.
Would I be removed from my position? Maybe. Depends on the surroundings. A dictator is only as stable and powerful as the enablement surrounding them. Typically, they are also very influential people.
What makes a good, benevolent dictator? Doesn't that inevitably lead to weakening their power?
Collaborating on politics, hearing voices, and then making the or confirming the compromise and agreement? Sounds like a mostly celebratory role. A dictator without significance or power.
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Yes and no.
I have never had a lust for power. I have never had a desire to do things that people in power abuse their position to do (like nightmare islands, sex with interns, crushing minorities). I don't even have an intense desire for money beyond basic comfort (I would love to have money for a boat right now, but I'm content saving up for it). So corruption for any of that? No.
However, I am not sure I have the capability of doing good in a proper way. I can't tell if I'd be a Sisko or if I would just fail to achieve any of my aims out of not wanting to do things the wrong way (if you go authoritarian to try to make things better, is that still corrupt or evil?). The world is a fucked up, difficult to navigate place, morally, when you are making decisions for a lot of people.
So yeah, I could avoid corruption for my own sake, but I don't think I would be able to be a benevolent dictator.
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I'm pretty sure it's not possible to become a dictator without first being corrupt and evil.
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Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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I don't trust myself that much.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
I could absolutely be corrupt for the sake of everyone else's benefit. I don't need nor want wealth, I want enough to not worry about money, be able to take a sick day and not worry about it. I want people to be able to have kids and not have to worry about how they're going to support them. I want people to be able to get an education and not worry about how they're going to pay for it.
It's only a list of about 10 simple changes that could be implemented incredibly easy if leadership wasn't so worried about degrading one race or gender and lining their pockets.
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yes. I think a lot of people can. the thing is, the people who can won't be the runs running for office
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I think the problem for me would be less about corruption and more about me not being capable of taking that kind of responsibility.
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no, nobody can... nobody
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
No. Although "turning evil" isn't what happens to those guys, exactly.
Dictators, in the sense of one man rule, don't actually exist. What an autocracy does have is a first among equals in a system where everyone is "looking over their shoulder". Even if someone who genuinely wants to make life great for the people takes power, there's severe limits to how they can do that.
Gorbachev is a great example of this. He was an idealistic person, and thought it would be good if the USSR switched to real democracy. Pretty immediately there were multiple coups until he was out of power, because anybody remotely high up the hierarchy had too many skeletons in their closet to allow that.
In the end, a dictator only gets to choose what kind of nightmarish dictatorship they want.
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Yes.
Fascism is the alternative people turn to when they can't cope with their own inadequacies.
I don't have that problem.
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I personally can, but that's because my empathetic response is unusually overblown.
My failure as a benevolent dictator would actually be becoming too detached from ordinary problems, so I'd need to have consistent town hall meetings where ordinary people could redress grievances, petition for aid and so on.
At that point it goes back to being a normal government, since the (un)elected official is trying their best to do the people's bidding while remaining accountable.
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No I would be killed by a subordinate who wouldn't be.
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Nope. And I wouldn't even try. I'm going full evil tyrant, day one.
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I would rock that shit, literally my dream job, practical problem solver with infinite power.
