A number of years ago, my brother asked me what I thought was the greatest problem facing mankind. I thought about it for all of three minutes and replied: fear. He was, at that time, unconvinced, thinking there were surely greater challenges to be overcome. I do not know what he thinks now---we have not crossed the subject in a dozen years or more. But, my contention stands. Why? Because, throughout the ages of man, fear has been a common denominator, leading to wars and social unrest generally. That people embrace authoritarianism is but a symptom. We are, many of us, willing to sacrifice much to governance which is perceived as strong; governance which will protect us from all the bad people who would take what we have; governance which would save us in spite of ourselves... Fear is ugly, pervasive, and perennial. Always was. Always will be. Trust is hard-won; fickle, and fragile. You see what we are up against here?

Ask JK Rowling for the secret to creating an anti-authoritarian polity aka a group of individuals whose hearts and minds have been shown the virtues of tolerant, democratic, in a word anti-authoritarian, values. In all seriousness, the internalized values of key individuals (think whistleblowers) and masses of individuals (think voters) are crucial bulwarks against authoritarianism. I believe that telling good stories, engrossing ones with broadly relevant themes, like the Harry Potter stories, is one highly effective way to impress anti-authoritarian values (and a wariness when confronted with their opposites) on many millions of current and future contributors to open society.

I'll go with Democracy isn't everything it is cracked up to be. That said, what pray tell would make it better? Important question! Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who said Democracy needed to be in today's terms "rebooted" every ten years? I'd be in favor of that, starting anew.

My biggest issue with our current state of Democracy is why we elect someone to represent us when I would prefer to simply represent myself. Do our elected representatives truly represent us or do they represent the corporations that truly elect them? That's were the campaign money comes from isn't it? Does anyone you know give money to a campaign? And why do we need representation in a world where everyone has instant communication? We all have cell phones, right? Wasn't our existing form of representative government created because there was no distant communication devises invented yet? The only reason! Why can't we vote on everything ourselves? Here are some everyday things we all could vote on and have instant results:
Ban on Assault weapons Yes or No
Universal Healthcare Yes or No
Free Education Yes or No
Go Green and save the planet yes or no
Peace yes or no
Abortion Yes or No
Freedom to choose Yes or No
Would you rather represent yourself? Yes or No
Is it time to reboot?
I think we should all answer these important questions and many others ourselves.
I'm not even telling you which ones to vote for, decide yourselves.
Do we not currently vote away our self-termination, our self-control and give our power, our strength, to people we truly do not even know? How smart is that?
Thanks for the political dialog,
Reboot yes or no

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“为什么有些人觉得威权领导人很有吸引力?”

这使他们不必承担责任，因为他们知道酋长是部落的负责人，而让他们感到舒适，因为他们知道为他的位置而战，让他们有机会无视他的统治。它为裙带关系提供了自私和借口的机会。

It's innate.

We're still innately haram based tribalists by nature despite our developed subjective inhumanist idealism. This leaves us only a two dimensional mind and thought process. Adding a third dimension comes from marginalizing further rationalism and rationalists till a fourth dimension of thought results. Complete pariahs, the completley psychotic.

None of which dimension of thought are still expendable without suffering unthinkable loses. They're the funtimentals to many other dimensions of thought. But they are not core.

Anthropomorphized aspectualisations seem even deeper.

Perhaps the topic could be reframed as, "the allure of exploitation. "

Kudos to RepoMan! And that, my friends, is pretty much what megalomanic authoritarians are all about. Seems to me...

难道一个疯狂的威权主义者不需要既疯狂又专制吗?重要的是要知道，言语实际上没有任何意义。涂鸦和“意义”并不天然地属于彼此。“涂鸦和它们的意义”没有任何意义。没有所有权证明。

The dynamics of parlamentary or representative democracies create system forces that deterministically drive them to become despotic.

This was the diagnosis of Tocqueville in his "Democracy in America". I suspect that very few people reading this author get to the last 60 or so pages of the book. When this 4th "book" or chapter is published independently of the rest --there is at least one edition in France-- its title is "Le Despotisme Democratique".

后来，在20世纪，一位名叫阿什比的神经学家，发现了我们今天所知的“阿什比定律”。这一法则确立了，当任何系统的复杂性增长时，如果掌权者想要保留权力，它的控制力也必须相应增长。这种控制的增长是非常昂贵的，在很少的选举周期中，那些社会发现控制的成本高于实际生产，整体上进入负回报。对于当权者来说，唯一的出路就是限制自由。

Thanks and Regards

Authoritarianism is an -ism like all others, and I can't separate it from facts on the ground, history, or economy. Some situations call for this -ism, some call for its abolition. Sometimes it is best to leave authoritarian leaders to their worlds, and most of the time to leave authority to its path leads back to our own door.

这个节目发生在特朗普担任总统期间，它提到了特朗普。现在我们面对的是中国的奥运会，他们没有门票，而西方的收视率，至少是最差的。现在我们面临着乌克兰被民主世界夺走的局面，而现在这场秀传达的信息比三年前要严厉得多。

There is no way to deal with the forces at work in our world other than to gird the consequences of dealing with dictators. There will be a great deal of suffering to right this ship, and it's not human nature to choose suffering over scapegoating. We have too strong an us/them model for dealing with authoritarian regimes in real-time.

Technology and economics might address what politics and philosophy cannot, but not without some sacrifice. We have to find fellowship with the citizens of authoritarian regimes. We need to share learning and technology that allows them to liberate their lives. Allowing Russia and China to own social media, steal technology and wantonly threaten Europe (Ukraine and others) and Southeast Asia (Taiwan and others) will limit us in short order if we don’t take action to stop it now. We need to push technology to everyone and eliminate poverty without scapegoating a them that sooner or later will be an us if we don't push now and with unanimity.