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wheels

> These are endeavors normally left to nation states.

The logical conclusion of that is feudalism, and I think with more or less the same consequences. Basically:

• You'll get some good kings and some bad kings

• Some will be into exploration for wealth, prestige and to further an ideology

• Wealth and power will be passed down through families

• A person being a good king is probably a bad predictor of their great grandson being a good king

Democracy and a strong central government aren't an optimal solution to the distribution of power, but they do tend to average out systematic performance over time to produce less ups and downs. Technology and finance seem to be the largest pseudo-king making disciplines these days, but I'll leave musing over their relative distribution of good and bad kingliness as an exercise to the reader.

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The nice things about nobility (and by extension, dictatorships) is that the buck stops with one person. You can get what you need by having one decree (at least until their mind changes).

By extension, you can fix a problem by killing/overthrowing one person.

The truly scary thing about both governments and corporations is that they are remarkably resilient power structures. Consider: would removing/jailing/prosecuting the entire board of directors/C-level officers of a company truly kill it? Could it just be taken over? Would its property, patents, IP, employees, etc. become public property, or just food for another entity?

It's pretty terrifying, actually.

Actually corporations have an average life of 45 years. They aren't really that resilient. But then I'm reminded of the quote by Jefferson that government should be re written every generation so the new generation is not enslaved to the prejudices and mistakes of their elders. Perhaps this is the odd way in which that comes to pass.

> A person being a good king is probably a bad predictor of their great grandson being a good king

This is a very interesting point. One of the very best things democracy offers is reasonable hand-offs of power. Has any country tried something like "electable kings"? There would be one monarch who gets voted into power, who then has ultimate control (subject to a Constitution or something). Then, upon death, the country holds an election and a new monarch is voted in?

Or, in between, what's the longest any particular head of state is elected for these days? In the US, the president is in charge for 4 years, which seems like too short of a time horizon to implement any sort of long-term plan. Any countries out there where they are elected, say, 10 years at a time?

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