In similar news the well-known direct democracy of Switzerland just voted a new rule giving police similar surveillance powers without judicial oversight. So it's obviously the people wishing to be better surveilled and we're the outliers here.
A majority of the US supported the War on Terror. That was manufactured consent with thanks to the corporate press. It was only the outliers that protested from the beginning, only proven correct after 20 years, thousands of lives and trillions of dollars wasted in Afghanistan.
Now that this has ended, be on alert for the next campaign of fear that will be used to erode freedom and increase the surveillance state. Australia is a look at the near future of western "democracy" if they are successful.
What terrifies me is that HN community continues to double-down anything but mainstream and conformity. This is in direct relation to larger societal trends that you're highliting. Even the slightest neutral stance will get you downvoted.
If no one on HN is doing the legwork for raising concerns, who will?
Every platform is likely to eventually reflect the most common forms of groupthink from the culture. The reason I love HN is that I regularly see counter points and good perspective here that I simply don’t see anywhere else.
On the other hand, I don't think you can draw your conclusion from those two examples. Also, other than the cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus, Switzerland isn't really a direct democracy, semi-direct at best. You'll notice they have representatives in a federal structure, despite having mechanisms for some direct democracy, and that's not for nothing.
Your next hurdle is getting a police / army force as police can take over your city if they are not faithful to you. Since you can't protect your island, you'll need some diplomatic deal with a bigger country (USA, France, China, etc...) to pledge for your protection. Gotta pay them somehow for that kind of protection.
Don't be deluded. There are no dictators out there, but representations of the current forces and powers. At some duration in the timeline of this earth, the powers and forces enabled the creation of democratic nations with generous freedoms afforded to its citizens. Of course this would change as these powers and forces shift.
Australia is a de-facto military dictatorship given that it is a resource-export-oriented nation. The forces at the time (being part of the Common Wealth and an ally to the US) has made it a democratic and free country.
Really really hard. You have only a few choices and they're all terrible. First one is revolution, see history for how that tends to go. Second is conquest and then colonization followed by eventual independence, again see history for how much this sucks for your stated aims. Seasteading might work but if you develop and build the stuff to make it work you're unlikely to get any acknowledgement of your statehood from any other nation but might get attacked by them [1]. The last option is outer space somewhere and self-sufficient space colonies are still science fiction and once they're not the early pioneers are going to die a lot and their living situation is going to be awful.
1: https://reason.com/2019/10/14/how-two-seasteaders-wound-up-m...
The government will ignore a lot of things for a pretty long time as long as you're building, doing stuff and paying taxes.
But an independent country? Maybe on a bunch of ships in international waters.
Otherwise you'll quickly find yourself with a small army at your "borders".
Too many people these days, soldiers, guns and ammunition are cheap and all land is taken.
John Adams said, "Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy."
In the past, democracy was viewed as a form of government that republics devolved into.
If we are on topic of exchanging opinions of famous men, I think Machiavelli said that the people can be misled and go astray but are not prevented by pride from correcting themselves, like rulers would.
The age of their regime has nothing to do with their history of practicing direct democracy, that happened well after the founding of the US.
> This kind of rhetoric tends to come from elitist thinkers that would want a guarantee of power over people because they think they are right and somehow destined to have it.
On the contrary, I'm just defending the wisdom of the existing constitutional republic framework that we have currently. There's obvious value in constitutional safeguards against the whims of the mob, while still giving the citizenry a say in the long-term direction of the state.
Stability of dictatorships is a "trains run on time" style Big Lie.