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Comment by avastmick | Hacker News Reader

From a philosophical stance, this is history repeating for the same basic reason. 2022 AD and risk of war is still the same as it was in 1022 AD, or 22 AD. That reason is the accumulation of power (or by proxy, wealth) in a small set of individuals, or in this case one person. No realtime access to information changes this; it just makes the story of the horror unfold faster.

Persisting with the concentration of power in individuals has shown throughout history to have dire consequence. We continue risking civilization on the mental health of those who already show significant issues with their obsessive clammer for power. The cult of the leader is toxic and, as far as I can see, illogical and lacking evidence for benefit.

Where are the voices that seek a structured shift away from personality cult politics? The innovation we all need for the future are those voices.

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>Where are the voices that seek a structured shift away from personality cult politics?

Part of the issue is populism, which is as strong on HN as anywhere else. If I said 'hey the US & other countries should move away from a presidential system to a parliamentary one, because by making choosing the leader less democratic it reduces the cult of personality', I'll get a ton of downvotes. If I said 'the US shouldn't have primaries but instead let party elites choose their candidates [the way the rest of the world operates] to reduce the cult of personality', I'd get a ton of downvotes. If I said 'hey strong political parties are actually a good thing, and candidate-centered politics where candidates can appeal directly to the voters without party elites gatekeeping out demagogues is actually really bad'- I mean, same.

The way to 'shift away from personality cult politics' is boring and technocratic, and we're in the middle of a populist, anti-elites age. Less direct elections, more appointed offices in our democracy, stronger parties, more gatekeeping & no primaries- it's exactly what we need, and it's exactly what the mood of the 2020s doesn't want right now

I can see where you are coming from, but all the points you made are actually still relying on the mental health of a small group of indivduals. What prevents them from picking the cult of personality for personal gain over their public responsibility? Not to mention some of these people aren't even democratically elected. You don't need to look further than the current US republican support for Trump.

Well this is interesting: my perspective is that we are actually already living in the age of the bureau and the technocrat, with only some vestigial democratic traditions, and we have been since 20th century wars. Burnham (who is well worth reading, in my opinion) called this the "managerial system". Of course, it still calls itself "democracy" despite not really being democratic at all. In fact, whenever you hear the word "democracy" -- a word which tends to have positive valence in society -- in the official press, you can substitute "managerial system" for a more neutral term without loss of meaning.

That age might be coming to an end, but it's less about some vague general mood of the 2020s and mostly due to proliferated networked communications. This allows people to find their frens exchange ideas and coordinate actions. Oh and everyone starts to see how transparently duplicitous the official lines are.

We perceive all this as "populism." From Arab Springs to meme stocks to Donald Trump, the phenomena are clearly a form of network dynamics. Is it bad? Is it good? Well... it's certainly disruptive, and is probably both good and bad in different cases and at different times. Which are which depends on your point of view.

But disruption of any kind is certainly bad for the managers, so the natural reaction is precisely what you suggest, effectively, sinification: tighter control ("moderation") of online communications, suppression of opposition parties. Policy drafted by career mandarins. The CCP has done alright, so I suppose if (big if) they can execute it well it might buy them some more time.

But unless you are a party insider, I'm not sure why you would throw your lot in with them.

Biden was essentially appointed by party elites, Obama and a few other leaders decided it would be him, the party immediately followed. I don't think that Biden or Hillary Clinton had millions of people clamoring for them to run. Meanwhile, the least terrible president of the past 30 years was Obama, who would never have been appointed in a backroom.

There are many things to reform in the US democracy, but it is obvious that it is highly oligarchic already.

>Where are the voices that seek a structured shift away from personality cult politics? The innovation we all need for the future are those voices.

We probably slaughtered them off millions of years ago, when the cultist tribal leader our ancestors followed identified them as some 'other.' Tribalism is in our biology. We self domesticated ourselves and selected for features such as subscribing to a social hierarchy and being submissive to an authority. We did this by refusing to breed with people who didn't fit into our social order and also slaughtering those groups who stood in contrast to our social order.

What I find weird is that a very large number of states claim that they are a republic, a word invented by the Romans, but absolutely no one of them is a republic in the original sense of the words.

After bad experiences with their last kings, the Roman Republic was based on the principle that it is dangerous to concentrate any powers into any single individual.

That is why for all the public functions of the Republic at least 2 people were assigned and no important decision could be taken unless all those having a function agreed to it.

So there never was a single "President of the Republic" but only at least 2 consuls. (with the exception of extraordinary events that required very fast decisions, e.g. wars, when a dictator could be appointed for a short and limited time)

So all present republics fraudulently claim a historical link with the Roman Republic, because all of them are more or less controlled by a single human, who frequently succeeds to circumvent whatever checks and balances are supposed to exist.

Such a unique leader is contrary to the base principles of the original Republic.

The Roman Republic fell apart over a period of 100 years when no one cared about the law any longer, and this spawned 3 civil wars and massive upheaval. Many of the Roman Republic's most well known leaders acted without restriction from their co-consul. During Caesar's first Consulship, it was referred to the as the "Consulship of Julius and Caesar". (dates in Rome were defined by the two Consuls for the year, Bibulus was the other Consul during Caesar's first Consulship)

I assume to an extent at least humans are wired to form a parasocial relationship with a tribal leader.

It's not just a military thing- of I were to suggest Jeff Bezos has too much control over the working conditions of 1.5 million employees, many people will happily step in and say it would be a great tragedy if society stepped in and reduced his ability to order 1.5 million people around.

No, this isn’t all about an evil dictator named Putin being reckless. He’s a horrible person but he’s not a movie villain that’s being evil to move the plot forward. This is the same sort of cartoonish understanding that existed after 9/11 that lead to millions of people believing that the Middle East hated us for our freedoms instead of hating us for occupying their countries and for historical wars.

Much like Bin Laden and al Zawahiri told us their motivations and nobody listened for ten years, the Kremlin told us their motivations for this and nobody is listening: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828

Reaching for a simple explanation precludes real conversation about why this is happening.

Thanks for sharing that speech

This is probably the reason in this case by where was that epicenter of power when the previous large war broke out in Europe - the Yugoslav Wars? If anything it was the absence of thereof

>Where are the voices that seek a structured shift away from personality cult politics? The innovation we all need for the future are those voices.

You should look at what anarchists have been saying in their criticism of the state and capitalist system.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...

> or in this case one person

I don’t think that’s true. Even autocrats need allies to stay in power and stay safe. They might obtain those through fear, bribes, etc., but they’re still allies.

Autocrats also help elevate those that agree with them so if you also think Russia should return to USSR (or Russian Empire) borders, you’re going to get more power, more perks, etc.

Just like any country there will always be nationalist leaders and a good portion of the population that supports them.

Russia’s leaders from Putin to Stalin (and probably before — I don’t know my Russian history that well), have always had territorial ambitions. See: Georgia, Crimea, Afghanistan, Poland, etc.

Putin is the face right now, but I think it runs far deeper than just him.

Which single individual was responsible for the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003?

IMO, the vice president at the time.

Cheney pulled a similar move of cynically planning and instigating a war of aggression, which is why many people consider him to be a war criminal even within the US.

He wasn't really the head of a cult of personality, though. He just took advantage of the gullible people who surrounded him.

The Senate authorized the Iraq war. A far cry from one person.

Yes, and Putin's cabinet authorized this war.

It's always an oversimplification to attribute global events to an individual, but sometimes you can point to one person without whom an event could not have occurred.

I think that's oversimplifying it. These national or global decisions are a chain of events.

Here's how the Iraq war could have been prevented:

* VP doesn't push for it

* President (the Commander in Chief) doesn't give the orders to attack

* Powell never gives the UN speech and resigns in protest

* Senate doesn't vote to authorize war

* Intelligence agencies push back on WMD accusations

* Military officials push back on the strategic value of occupying Iraq and push for alternative measures

* UK opposes the US war effort

* Saddam allows UN inspectors back in with unrestricted access

* If enough of the US was anti-war (it wasn't), threaten impeachment

* etc.

Sure, leader's drive initiatives, but there's still a chain of conditions and any break in the chain can cause the event to stop or change course (at least temporarily).

I think it's important to remember that with a separation of powers, we aren't powerless to stop our leaders. These things only happen because we lack the will (or the desire) to stop it.

Fair enough. But he was only VP for 2 years at time, hardly a dictator. How does the American political selection process need to be modified so that tyrants like Dick don't come into power?

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