Try to Rule Fairly and You'll Be Overthrown

the view of coups as one faction replacing another is quite a rabbit hole, but it's a political analysis that has some experimental and predictive power. there has to be guarantor or benefactor on the other side of it. in this view, leaders are figureheads accountable to the small essential coalition who keeps them there. the idea of secret cabals orchestrating these things is usually backwards, where a revolutionary (or politician) is really just an entrepreneurial dealmaker between elite factions. it's essentially demesquita's "logic of political survival," also distilled into the well made cartoon, "rules for rulers" ▶ this video

in “Code that helped end Apartheid” · View on HN

Governments are designed primarily to serve it's citizens and not the needs of shareholders or profit. They are designed additionally to prevent externalising of costs to some third party. IE; forced servitude or significant harm to the population while chasing profit. Your same statements could be reflected inward of course: British empire, the several thousand peaceful transfers of power that come and go without fanfare and of course very violent revolutions that pass with very significant fanfare and attention. A seated government, especially a democratically elected one should be capable of serving the needs of people, however governments are made of people and the smaller the government is the easier it is to buy it off. - The smaller the government, the easier the corruption. (which is why "small government" capitalists always end up embroiled in corruption scandals eventually). A good example of this is denoted "the keys to power" in the easy to understand video essay by CGP Grey: ▶ this video

in “EU-funded report calls for wealth of super-rich to be taxed, not income” · View on HN

Some thoughts for you: Leadership is a taught skill. Start learning. If you want to get promoted, your current company has sent you a strong message... it is up to you to listen to it and understand it. Personally, I've stayed on the technical side of the house, no regrets. As a Principal Software Engineer... you'd have to pay quite a bit for me as a lead. That said, I have led teams, and enjoy it. I recommend the following books to anyone interested in leadership: And if you are a Senior looking to go to Principal, you are. - Getting to Yes. - Difficult Conversations. Now I also recommend: ▶ this video The last video seems odd... until you realize it is how power works. Think about why your manager has power, etc... Why odd things happen. And that video often explains it. Good luck. Maybe it is time to pump the brakes on the car, or turn. Just some advice.

in “Ask HN: Stuck as a developer for 15 years. How to become a manager?” · View on HN

More accurately is the ruling class wants to stay rich, and if they can stay rich without needing an educated and non-poor populace, all the better, because the hungry, disconnected and illiterate do not start effective revolutions. You see this in many resource dictatorships, since you don't need your populace to create your wealth. In dictatorships where they need the populace, then they are in a tough spot, because the only way you get rich is having a developed population productive enough to tax, which you see in Singapore, China, Dubai and Iran somewhat. It is this kind of authoritarian regime that needs the internet, but also wishes they didn't need the internet in the case of Iran and China. CGP gray has a great youtube video summary explaining this: ▶ this video

in “The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report” · View on HN

Lying? Manipulating? What? Is it wrong for a politician to mirror the opinions of their voters? That’s literally what a representative democracy is supposed to be. Is it wrong for a person to express their heart felt opinion to folks who like and trust them? Isn’t that what all human communication is? Obama did the right thing, in both 2008 and 2012. If he does 2008 differently, he remains a Senator with no national platform. If he does 2012 differently and doesn’t use his national platform to advocate for gay rights, maybe it takes longer for it to reach 80% support in the general population. If you’d like to actually understand politics, I’d suggest reading The Dictators Handbook or watching this video for the tldr- ▶ this video

in “HK media erase their archives amid rising arrests” · View on HN

You would probably enjoy CGP Grey's video Rules for Rulers, which covers very reasonable arguments for why politicians don't enact "good" legislation: ▶ this video

in “Legislative Performance Futures – Incentivize Good Laws by Monetizing the Future” · View on HN

> It's not strictly a "wrong leaders" problem. It's much more systemic than that. Elect a good leader and the oil will provide the impetus to tear that leader down. See also, The Dictator's Handbook , summarized well by CGP Grey's video "The Rules for Rulers" ( ▶ this video ). It's an unstable equilibrium to run a country on a wide power base, if it has centralized resource-extraction economy; as any dictator who just plans on staging a coup to take the oil and then reward their few revolutionaries with it, will be able to win over pretty much anyone from the previous wide-base government, who was previously getting a much-smaller slice of the pie.

in “With oil cheap, Arab states cannot balance their books” · View on HN

I've read the book The Dictators Handbook (watch the CGP Grey video Rules for Rulers[1] for a good summary) and I can imagine a number of really clear and compelling Job Stories for this technology: * As a ruler facing large-scale protests, I want to clear the crowds of people from the streets without deploying soldiers who might choose to actually side with the protestors. * As a ruler who is afraid of a coup, I want to reduce the personnel-management costs of maintaining my military so that I can reduce the number of officers needed to maintain the same level of force lethality. This will let me purge my officer corps of possibly-disloyal members and lavish rewards on those who remain. * As a ruler from an ethnic/religious minority, I want to restrict membership in the military to that minority without reducing its lethality so that I can prevent members of the majority from having trained members who could seize power or resist marginalization. Technological advances like quinine and the Madsen and Maxim Gun allowed fewer than 1,000 Europeans[2] under Belgian King Leopold to spread the benefits[3] of civilization to The Congo, an area more than 3 times the size of Texas. I am excited to see the world that these new advances will usher in. [1] ▶ this video [2] [link] [3] [link] (although yes, also [link] )

in “An Estonian company developing unmanned weaponized ground vehicles” · View on HN

You are correct for the most part, but I think you are drawing the wrong implications. Yes, they are resistant to swings based on mood changes in the population. However, this does not hold for changes of mind or strategy by elected people themselves. They might promise something at some point and then not do it. US history is full of broken promises. A counterpoint is that Trump and Obama are elected directly and specially on foreign relations they have a huge power to do whatever they like. Obama promised some stuff, Trump retracted it. > In contrast, a dictatorship is unreliable, because all decisions are made by one person, whose mood swings can result in lots of unpredictability. That is true in theory but in practice many dictatorships are remarkably stable. A dictator has to please his cronies, he can't do whatever he likes. He can do what he likes as long as it does not touch the interest of the cronies. Check "Selectorate theory" in political science. Or this nice little video: ▶ this video

in “Venture investors blast US decision to withdraw from Paris Climate Accord” · View on HN

I don't think the /s is needed, decentralization of "power" or "authority" has never worked. Yes it most likely has. It's just not absolute . There's a very strong argument that all of history is supporting data for all societies and governments being on a spectrum of centralized power, with the more decentralized ones being better for the common person. ▶ this video

in “SBF scheduled to testify tomorrow at US House hearing on FTX collapse” · View on HN

The reason why Norway is an exception is largely because its liberal democratic political system was already well-developed by the time it became a heavy oil producer. ▶ this video

in “Internet disrupted in Kazakhstan amid energy price protests” · View on HN

▶ this video Corruption is not just leaders it is a network of beneficiaries, like a snake with thousand heads, and regardless how many you cut new will grow. And we do not know how to get out of that mold. And democracy in uneducated society simply does not work. And we do not have it. All governments are aristocracies. News media displays of "busting" corruption is just "bread in circuses" of this age, media manipulations of wide populous while business as usual continues, hypnosis of population by spin offs and demagogues narrative.

in “Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?” · View on HN

Yep. The purpose of taxes is building up the treasury, so that the people in power can keep being in power. ▶ this video

in “Evolutionary biologist slays the beast of Individualism” · View on HN

> People with power and wealth could still be toppled when you exposed them to the truth. How in the fuck does that even come close to happening today? I have doubts that this happened regularly in the past, usually wealthy/powerful were allowed to be toppled by their enemies. I don't know the details of how Weinstein got toppled after so many years of being protected, but my gut says that the people who were protecting him no longer felt like it was worth it to continue. In revolutions, it's not the people that overthrow the dictator, it's the court/army which allow the people to overthrow the dictator, in order for them to install a new dictator[0]. > How do you overcome marketing that is engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities you are not even aware of? Become more aware of your vulnerabilities so as to be aware of when you're being exploited. I recommend mindfulness and then making note of when you're being triggered in either a positive or negative way. If you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a thousand battles[1]. > How do we patch our society and governing systems from being pwned? As these systems become more complex it requires more energy and complexity to maintain the systems, this additional complexity creates a larger attack surface and more internal fragility. Solving these problems requires more energy and complexity, exacerbating the problem and delivering diminishing returns on additional complexity. Systems should

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