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Comment by borissk | Hacker News Reader

There's a hypothesis that the social order of a society depends on the accessibility of the military tech. E.g. in Ancient Greece almost any free citizen could afford to buy the top weapon of the time (an iron or bronze sword) - hence it was very expensive for a dictator to hire a force that could deal with an armed crowd - and this is why they had a democracy. Or a free person in the 13 American colonies could afford a musket or a rifle - hence the American Revolution. On the opposite end in medieval Europe a full suite of armor was extremely expensive and very few could afford one - hence they had absolute monarchies.

Makes me wonder if technologies, like armed autonomous robots, where a single person can easily control an overwhelming military force can potentially lead to erosion of the democracy in the western world.

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> E.g. in Ancient Greece almost any free citizen could afford to buy the top weapon of the time (an iron or bronze sword)

You have an historical mistake that supports your argument here.

Bronze weapons were very expensive, due to needing tin which could not be mined locally and needed to be traded for from as far away, such as the balkans, Germany or even Britain [0]. Because of this it was only available for the rich, ie the rulers and their supporters. Bronze age Greece[1] was not democratic, and was based around kingdoms, ruled by those who had access to the bronze weapons.

The later more 'equal' (but by no means equal at all, simply more so than ruled by tyrants, they still had slaves and oppressed lower classes. It's just there was a more numerous upper/middle class) greek states were in the Iron Age. Iron was much easier and cheaper to make as it was available in large quantities locally. This lead to to the iron age weapons and armour being much more widely spread [2] and therefore they had less powerful dictators.

Not all Iron age Greek states were democracies, and those that were would not seem like fair democracies today. But partially because of the more easily accessible weapons, the power in these states was less centralised than it was when the weapons were predominantly bronze.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancie.... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages

> a free person in the 13 American colonies could afford a musket or a rifle

This view of history needs to account for the nonfree people and how, despite the ambient tech level, they were kept unfree for a century after independence.

Well, they couldn't afford/acquire a musket, which if they could on a wide scale, would probably have effected their freedom.

It's always been that the one with power controls those with less power. We've only got democracy because of unionization and education. And some good, old-fashioned Christian guilt feelings.

Now, that power needs to be distributed properly. If there were a super-villain with an overwhelming military power under direct personal control, (s)he would be able to dictate some terms, but not be able to control all the way down to individual behavior. That would require micromanaging at an impossible level. So, to completely subvert society, you need an army with a hierachy.

You account of history is so wrong and biased I don't even know where to start.

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