Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

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>>> Show me one truly powerful person who could have survived 30% of his subjects actively resisting.

>> It's a lot easier for "truly powerful person" to keep "his subjects [from] actively resisting" than you seem to think.

> Depends completely on the people.

Not really, unless you have a fictitious people that isn't subject to social coordination problems.

However, real populations are subject to those problems, which is why we've seen dynasties of awful dictators survive for generations (e.g. North Korea). The lesson of those dynasties is also probably "don't let up on the oppression or you'll lose power," which might be easier to keep up if the immortal leader doesn't doesn't have to be replaced by a naive successor.

> You have a mental virus that wants to believe everything is doomed.

LOL. Comments like that are totally unpersuasive, and also against the rules.

Well, you do. Lots of people do. I’ve never seen one become self aware though. But anyway, no, not all people are the same. Some populations of people create, initiate, prop up and then perpetuate evil cults of dogma as is the case with North Korea. Some populations never even let it get to step one. Make no mistake, the waves of political dogma lap on every shore. It’s always ready to take over. Some populations are less inclined to group think, save the children and etc. because that’s always what fuels it. I have read a couple of books about North Korea and you can believe me that North Korea was not held at gunpoint to create the regime. I also read “nothing to envy” which is a collection of memoirs written by defectors. They absolutely do it to themselves. And the multi-generational lifespan of that regime makes your point rather moot.

And Assad illustrates my point because I was watching the Syrian civil war and he very nearly did not survive. He was relegated to a bunker and when he emerged he was clearly deeply shaken and a different man. That 40 percent gave him his full moneys worth. To say that this is an example of dictators being invulnerable to dissent is incorrect. If it were 50 or 60 the scale would have tipped. It is an example of my point.

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