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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

>...unpredictable dictators posing a nuclear threat

I'm sorry to say that it makes the most sense to simply not worry about it, unless it's your job to.

We tend to forget that dictatorship is the default human civilization. It also happens to be the "normal" structure of the family, even in liberal countries, for the simple reason that kids are, by definition, incompetent. So I'm not sure if it makes sense to "stamp out dictatorship" when so many people legitimately want to live under one. So that leaves getting rid of nukes - a problem most of us assumed would solve itself over time after the fall of the Soviet Union. This backsliding is worrisome, but the path to success remains the same. But when the next Soviet Union falls, we should pursue denuclearification much much more seriously.

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Really, the vast majority of human activity remains organized under heavily hierarchical, authoritarian command economies—since that's how nearly all companies work. We're fortunate to live in a seemingly-unusual time when maybe 1/3 of the world's population lives under semi-functional, more-or-less liberal democratic states that claim higher authority than those companies and do an OK job of slightly moderating the ability of the rich to dominate everyone else, but still. The world's very much mostly not democratic, even today, and even in democracies little mini-oligarchies/dictatorships dominate much of our life.

I don't see how "dictatorship is the default human civilization" (which seems true!) implies "so many people legitimately want to live under one". The fact that many/most people do live under authoritarian control, to me does not say anything about those same people's desire to continue doing so.

Totally agree with the main point of denuclearization, it needs to be pursued even more aggressively in the future. The current 12,000 nukes is yes way lower than Cold War, but it's an insane level / irrational overall.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say denuclearization is not the solution for peace. I believe the reason the world has been at (relative) peace since WWII is because of the threat of a nuclear war.

If Ukraine had kept their nuclear weapons, do you think Putin would even consider invading? I don't think so.

A better solution to denuclearization, in my opinion is to adopt a "No First Use" policy [1]. I suspect internally the US and NATO do follow this policy but will not disclose it publicly for strategic reasons.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

No, if you connect a nuclear launch to the decision of a single human mind, eventually that mind will have a stray thought, and press the button. To think otherwise is to assume that any human mind remains stable, sane and rational for its tenure manning the button. Nevermind morality or compassion! But nothing could be further from the truth. Organic mushy brains are inherently unstable and irrational in the long run. If the button exists, its only a matter of time before someone pushes it.

That's why deployment processes require multi-user launch approval (eg 2 simultaneous keys).

That's the launch infrastructure and only in some circumstances is that required.

An order from the US president to launch nuclear weapons can only be rescinded by the US president: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Nuclear-button-U.S.-has-no-...

This is well known, there was a submarine captain who was dismissed for inquiring about it in the US Navy.

Sure the order can't be rescinded. But it's also possible for the individuals to be insubordinate.

Until some kind of glitch causes one country to freak out and launch, it has almost happened on at least one occasion that I know of.

War is not peace, cold or otherwise.

Policies do not work when someone irrational is at the helm of a country.

A no first use policy is never going to happen, because it completely flies against all of the prevailing wisdom about nuclear deterrence[1]. Nuclear powers benefit heavily from ambiguity about where their "red line" is that would need to be crossed for them to use nukes, because that limits the ability of others to act against them for fear of crossing the line. Drawing a lower bound on where your red line is, like with a no first use policy, frees up others to act against you because they know how far they can safely go (literally anything short of using your own nukes in the case of a no first use policy).

[1] https://acoup.blog/2022/03/11/collections-nuclear-deterrence...

China and India have a no first use policy, even though they have nuclear armed neighbors.

"so many people legitimately want to live under one"

We sort of see this in democracies when the simple majority want to force a large minority to do or not do things (sometimes contrary to law). We want a dictatorship, just so long as it's one that we agree with.

Edit: why downvote?

You're describing a feature of democracy and majority rule. The majority always can vote in policies they prefer. That is not a feature of a dictatorship.

This phenomena was called the "tyranny of the majority" by John Stuart Mill in "On Liberty". The theoretical ability of the majority to bully a minority was a big open question about the viability of democracy, which was to be determined by the American experiment. Results are mixed.

Subsequent to the start of it, the American experiment has shown that the implementation details of democracy are fundamental to not backsliding into dictatorship. Germany's democracy is different from USA's democracy is different from Russia's, and they all have had different results. There are other experiments to be run, too (especially with recent advancements in technology), but unfortunately we lack the necessary ingredients to test them out. Experiments like large scale direct democracy vs what's technical a republic. Centrally planned economy under a democratic system.

"Experiments like large scale direct democracy"

Are there actually people that think this would work on a large scale in the US?

On the other side, isn't Switzerland sort of close to direct democracy, at least in the way they require referendums?

Western democracies greatest danger isn't Russia, it is their own collapse into authoritarianism out of fear. You can look at Germany how it managed to create two dictatorships in short order and it still repeats the mistakes of the last century even today. The stereotype about Angst might be exaggerated, but an old population has similar attributes.

Overall we didn't had much time not under some form of emergency powers. Terrorism, war, insurrections... there is always a reason the be afraid.

With the interesting conclusion: we must all learn to live without fear even in legitimately fearful circumstances! If you cannot control your emotion, it becomes rational to ignore your reason, or even "hack" your reason by feeding it false belief. Somehow that one scene in "Airplane!" comes to mind, with the long line of people waiting to slap the hysterical passenger. The joke being that in an emergency most people are fine, a few people get hysterical, and other people cope by slapping the hysterical person in order to "help" them calm down.

In the end, it probably doesn't matter; the Fermi paradox strongly implies no civilization makes it out of their tiny radio bubble alive. Consider that our own radio waves have only traveled 122 light-years into the void, and already our civilization has been at risk several times from nuclear weapons, and is now at risk because of climate change and biosphere degradation. A civilization desiring interstellar contact must prioritize it's own longevity above all else. That humans might be the first in our galaxy does not bode well for humanity's chances! Which brings me to my own favorite tool to disspel fear: zoom out, remember it's all temporary at some timescale, and enjoy the good stuff while it lasts.

I'd imagine slaves would view it differently. They clearly did live under democracy in the US, but I don't think anyone would argue that it behaved like a dictatorship towards them.

This is also why the US is a republic. The founding fathers despised democracy for your stated reasons.

>does not say anything about those same people's desire to continue doing so

Well, I'm not sure about that. I feel that we are all responsible for our government to some degree. If the gov is really doing evil things without accountability, then it is the people's responsibility to change it.

The problem is that it is very easy to move from democracy to dictatorship, and very hard to move from dictatorship to democracy, with the latter transition almost always requiring the use of force. Its a big, gigantic step. It's starts when Russian mothers and fathers, Russian neighbors and shopkeepers, start whispering about really taking up arms against Putin.

This is a very problematic line to cross, mainly because people are stupid and will trigger 'a revolution' about anything and everything. The information landscape is treacherous for false positives, now more than ever. Consider the example of the pitiable 1/6 insurrectionists. Every one of them thought they were defending their country against a threat. But they were all badly wrong, and now they suffer for it. But the instinct to put their lives on the line for their constitution is, in my old-fashioned belief system, admirable. They just got tricked into fighting for the wrong side.

There's no getting around living under "authoritarian" control. You could categorize the forms of government as so:

- Monarchy/Dictatorship: Power in the hands of one, one person is authority

- Oligarchy/Republic: Power in the hands of a few, aristocrats are authority

- Democracy: Power in the hands of many, majority is authority

- Anarchy: Power in everyone's hands, everyone is authority (or no one is depending on how you look at it)

In reality, society only works when there's a power hierarchy; it's the natural order of things. The more power is equally distributed amongst people, the more dysfunctional/less orderly/more bureaucratic society becomes. When you're in complete Anarchy, might/ability is what ultimately determines the outcomes in conflicts, and those who wield it typically end up becoming the "authority". Hence, over time, Anarchy will naturally develop into the other more stable forms of government. Notice however, all forms of government have the following issue: when there's a conflict in wants between people, someone (ie authority) will have their way, someone won't. You can't get rid of this reality, no matter how you structure government, which is to say: oppression is unavoidable so long as there exists conflicts in what people want.

Thus, I honestly don't see why people think a dictatorship is necessarily more oppressive than other forms of government. Some people are quite happy with their dictators, even if there's other people living under the same dictator that aren't; but this is true of any form of government. And it's not hard to see why there can be people happy with their dictators, as dictatorships are highly efficient and effective at carrying out policy. If your dicator is competent & beneveloent towards your wishes, it's arguably the best - most effective form of government. But understandably, if your dicator is not competent or benevolent to you, its among the worst...

>oppression is unavoidable

Otherwise very nicely put, but surely there is a useful distinction between "not getting what you want" and "oppression"! I think we can all agree that even losing the vote on every issue is far preferable to losing the ability to vote on any issue. But that's not true if, by losing a vote, or a court case, or an administrative decision, you consider yourself 'oppressed'. You lost, true. Maybe unfairly. But that's necessary but not sufficient to prove oppression! Like, if I could wave a magic wand and grant all American voters the (apparent) super-power of gracefully losing, I would.

If every loss is oppression, then winning becomes a moral imperative, possibly requiring escalation to violence. No-one wants to live in that world, so we need to give people a way to take their licks at the polls and then work together to solve the world's problems. And you know what, if you want to go to war over abortion, have at it, but do you really want to die on that hill? Aren't there issues that are more urgent, and more clearly dire than abortion? Or gay people? Or racist people? Aren't we ALL kind of in the same boat with respect to climate change, nuclear armaggedon, income inequality and the backsliding of democracies into autocracies? And aren't all of these at least 5 orders-of-magnitude more important than whether or not a trans woman can compete in NCAA sport?

(Why don't we hear our senators debating the important issues of the day? Why aren't they erudite men, well versed in many fields of endeavor, hosting daily podcasts of debates, singly and in groups? Is this not their job? And isn't it our job to second-guess all of them mercilessly??)

>Otherwise very nicely put, but surely there is a useful distinction between "not getting what you want" and "oppression"!

Wants themselves do have ranks, as does the amount of oppression felt by not getting them. As you can imagine, there are likely some people who want 2nd vacation homes, but would prefer not having a 2nd home over not having food if they were ever forced into a situation where they had to compromise. But it's not as black and white as you'd might think. People don't all share the same wants, let alone to the same degree. There are people in this world who would prefer to own 3 homes not caring that there are homeless people wanting just 1 (greed). There are people out there who prefer to go without buying food, dumpster dive, and work minimum wage jobs despite having better offers, all in order to save up to buy a house (I personally know a guy - and this is pride). People who like to go without food (ie fast) for weeks (me). And yet, people who prefer to remain homeless, people who want to help the homeless, and people who don't want to help.

>If every loss is oppression, then winning becomes a moral imperative, possibly requiring escalation to violence

Whether something is a moral imperative is subject to opinion - whether you personally deem it so. But yes, especially at some extreme point, that is reality, and you cannot escape it. This is exactly the sort of thing political philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke argued in their social contract theories. It's why when loss is deemed to be so terribly bad under tyrannical governments, that there are violent revolutions. It's the reason for wars. It's literally what lead to the foundation of the United States.

That said, you can learn to go without most wants. It's what Buddhist monks teach and practice. Additionally, wants have ranks, as I mentioned above. So winning is not always a moral imperative for everyone in every case. Some people simply don't care that much about certain topics, and don't care if they lose the outcome.

>No-one wants to live in that world

Yes, that's why true Anarchy doesn't last long. Anarchy, or the state of nature, can often be brutally violent. Wild animals often kill each other just for fun, it's called surplus killing. Power hierarchies naturally form within same species, just to avoid constantly having to violently fight to determine the outcomes for conflicts. The suffering of being subjugated is often preferred to the suffering of being violently maimed (or mere risk of it) by your neighbor, but pushed to a point it can obviously flip, leading you back into a revolution. As you put it, no one wants to live in that violent world, (at least not very long), so a hierarchy eventually forms in order to avoid having to live in it.

>Aren't we ALL kind of in the same boat with respect to climate change ...

Yes and no depending on how you look at it. Do we all have opinions on those topics? Yes. Do they affect us in some way? Yes. Do we all share the same opinions over them? No. Do we all rank those issues at the same level of importance? Probably relatively to some degree, but ultimately no.

>> as dictatorships are highly efficient and effective at carrying out policy

Hardly ever true. Most dictatorships are unstable and unable to do anything more than a bare minimum.

Hierarchy is not the same as dictatorship. Dictatorships means unlimited power. There is also hierarchy in democracies, but it is more about the separation of power, rather than of concentration.

>Hardly ever true. Most dictatorships are unstable and unable to do anything more than a bare minimum

Dictatorships are only as effective as their leaders competence, so you can make that argument. But relavtive to other forms of governments, dictatorships are efficient and effective at carrying out policy simply because there is minimal questions, debates, delibrations over decisions and conflicts. In democracy, you MUST debate, vote, count votes, and come to an agreement about a topic amongst many people, before you can enact policy. This is often a lengthy (ie inefficient/bureaucratic) process. In dictatorships, this is a shorter process, as one man decides, and it's do as your told, no questions asked. In this aspect, dictatorships are faster at enacting/delivering policy.

>Hierarchy is not the same as dictatorship

A heirarchy is a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. Dictatorships are a heirarchy, namely a heirarchy consisting of 1 man having unlimited authority over everyone. But not all heirarchies are dictatorships, as you can have many other possible forms of heirarchies.

I doesn't help you much if you are the fastest widget maker if every widget you produce is defective because you didn't take the time to do it right. So no, there is no law of nature decreeing dictatorships are more efficient or effective than other forms of government. It is actually the other way around, skipping important input is what makes dictatorships historically almost universally worse than other forms of government from the offset.

>I doesn't help you much if you are the fastest widget maker if every widget you produce is defective because you didn't take the time to do it right

You're conflating effectiveness at "making good policy" with effectivness in "delivering policy". I never said they were most effective at "making good policy" but in "carrying out policy" (meaning time to deliver policy).

>So no, there is no law of nature decreeing dictatorships are more efficient or effective than other forms of government

And again, I never made that claim (if you mean efficient/effective at making good policy). I said they were when it came to delivering policy (whether that's good or bad policy) and it depends on their competence. IF their leaders are competent (in making good policy and decisions), they naturally are more efficient and effective governments. This holds true, because, of the words 'if' and 'competent' and the reasons I explained prior.

As far as waiting for input vs skipping input goes, it's a double edged sword not a one way street. Extra time spent in gathering input means slower to act. Slower to act means missed action/opportunities, which is a terrible aspect to have in an immediate crisis. This is exactly the reason why the executive branch of the US functions more similarly to a dictatorship than a democracy - it's so that it can respond faster in times of crisis. It's because dictatorships are actually better in this aspect, when compared to other forms of government.

I mean Gaddafi had a pretty stable dictatorship for a pretty long time, but dictatorships are anything but stable and they are always challenged. As soon as the dictatorship cannot deliver mainly economic prosperity, they will fail. True for other forms as well, but the economic growth comes with desires of political participation at some point.

> I honestly don't see why people think a dictatorship is necessarily more oppressive than other forms of government.

To be honest, that isn't too creative of you.

A friend once wondered why there are nations. I responded that because even one nation will expand until it is stopped by another. (A nation usually meaning one geographical location and it's people, language, etc. Or, uniquely for the US, meaning one set of values. Used to mean enlightenment values, but now means Jerry Springer, WWF, Payday loan values. But I digress.)

"dictatorship is the default human civilization" definitely needs a citation. Many historical societies had one person at the top, but a bunch of several rich and powerful people with non-trivial ability to veto things / influence policy. I'd guess that an oligarchy where these people take turns to be the top guy and still retain some control when they're not on top is a fairly common pattern.

In that respect, the mention of family made earlier is also really more like an oligarchy. One member may have the final say (historically the man of the house), but other members of the family (notably said man's wife, historically speaking), can wield power to try and sway the opinion. That distinction from dictatorship may not be all that significant.

It's difficult to determine who is at the top, like in the UK. Who are the principle people who control PM Johnson? There's the royal family, but without resources of the secret service it's impossible to know who he's taking direction from. There are occasional glimpses: connection of Russian money to Brexit, delay of the Russia Report, delay of sanctions against oligarchs showing them to handle their finances before sanctions take effect, etc., but that's one small block, I suspect. Clearly there's heavy interplay with media tycoons. But really it's all pretty opaque.

> Who are the principle people who control PM Johnson?

The editors of the Daily Mail and The Sun, donors like the Elliotts, and whoever has financial kompromat.

There are far too few technologists in that list. Twitter, for example, certainly drives the decisions of politicians these days; politicians perceive it a pretty good substitute for polling, for better or worse, and have the donations to prove it.

I'd imagine politicians only care about it because the media may report on it.

Yeah I disagree with this. There was a line in Sapiens (I'm forgetting which chapter) but most of humanity during civilization have lived in Empires. Maybe you can construe the definition of Empire to be a dictator but I don't think that's fair.

The problem with dictators is that they don’t stop at their borders. In fact they don’t do boundaries and behave as though there’s nothing outside of their control or influence, including you and your children.

Plenty of people should worry about it. People have to physically remove themselves from these environments in order to seek opportunities for their own children and assure their long term opportunities. Millions of people are being displaced today by the whims of a Russian dictator, and we should assume dictatorship is good and well?

You absolutely should worry about that when, for example, you are voting for a president or in general elections. It does actually matter in terms of how your country will deal with that threat.

you keep telling people to worry. maybe we don't want to. how does worrying change anything.

No, they are telling people to worry when it matters - when they are voting. I personally think that's a good and responsible position. It's quite different than saying you should worry all the time!

No. It is you who went out of way to tell people passivity is right noble behavior.

I saying, choices in aggregate matters.

"I'm not sure if it makes sense to "stamp out dictatorship" when so many people legitimately want to live under one"

The people who want to live under a dictator do it either because they're greatly benefiting from the status quo (these tend to be an elite minority) or those who have been brainwashed by a state-controlled media and education system to not realize how oppressed they are.

Free access to the internet lets people see outside their tightly controlled propaganda bubble, which is why totalitarian regimes such as China try to censor it. They are afraid of the internet for good reason: because once people start to find out what really happened in their country (like at Tiananmen Square) they'll start to wonder if their own government is as benevolent and if the outside world is so horrible as state-controlled media and education tells them. That could contribute to the overthrow of the old regime.

Free access to information is only one piece of the puzzle, but revolutions and deposing of dictators can and has happened.

Unfortunately, what replaces dictators is sometimes just as bad or worse than the dictator. See the results of the Communist overthrow of the Russian Czar for one example, and the military's control of Egypt after the revolution that overthrew Mubarak for another.

To be truly successful revolutions can't just replace one elite with another, but have to really empower the people.

Not worrying is the correct choice in my opinion. More frightening are always those that want a dictatorship in your own country and western nations tend to call the domestic part of that "emergency situations".

Seeing all the people arguing straight up for dictatorship in these comments is really making me reconsider the "intelligent" reputation of HN.

To further expand on "don't worry about it unless it's your job to":

Unless you are able to directly exercise nonzero control over the foreign policy of a nuclear power, the threat of a nuclear apocalypse is sufficiently far removed from anything you can do anything about, that it's tantamount to worrying about a large asteroid impacting the earth. It would be devastating, sure, but it's not productive to genuinely concern yourself with it, because it's unlikely you'll survive and there's not much you can do to change the likelihood of the event or your survival.

You can't change the likelihood of the event, but you can change the likelihood of your survival.

New Zealand will probably not be hit in an exchange. It would be a safer place to live in event of nuclear war.

There are certain areas more likely to be vaporized than others though. I know in NYC at least there were some who felt moving to a less populated area (ie rural Midwest) might lower their risk of nuclear death.

Yeah but then you will freeze in the winter or starve to death first. I mean by all means buy a decommissioned nuclear bunker and setup solar and download as many videos you can about growing food etc... This is sort of the level of preparation you might need to take.

Except there are missile silos in the midwest that would be first-strike targets.

Your best bet is to move somewhere in the southern hemisphere, such as New Zealand. Hey ... that's where a lot of the mega rich have been buying property of late ...

You are throwing the mode of government and the outcomes of government on one big pile, but I don’t think you can. Even under a dictatorship people can reasonably expect access to basic human rights. Putin seems to be depriving his people of even that.

There are basic rules of human decency which we as a species have agreed to in the form of human rights, people may choose an alternate mode of government to democracy (and this is always a choice on some level, no dictatorship can rule an entirely unwilling populace), but nothing they choose can morally deny them their human rights.

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