Yes, hypocrisy is for neurotypicals. That’s why those people will be tattooed with - ah, damn, you got me
Only one way to find out
Absolutley. No more questions!
I would establish a socialist polity, then abdicate.
Cool you forgot to establish power checked democracy, now you have the soviets. Congrats :)
would I have to stay a dictator? because I’d be instilling a democracy ASAP
Dictator to reform not to rule
No.
Not because I’m evil, but because I am empathetic and someone evil would absolutely figure out a way to use that to manipulate me.
The benevolent, uncorrupt, good thing for dictators to do is to abdicate.
Yes. But I’d probably be killed by someone who will
For a couple months, maybe. Anyone who says yes absolutely is someone who shouldn’t be trusted with power.
But I know I can be the best dictator ever! 😉
What’s that? You disagree? Sounds like I need to send some of my people to your house to educate you on what I’m doing until you can until you can understand that its for the greater good 🤗
(you may not refuse my mandatory education program, I’ll be watch you 👀)
-Sincerely,
Your best friend and dictator
🥰I’d last six hours before becoming Caligula
Sure. Would I last long before getting killed or overthrown? No.
It is inevitable that an opposition would form against you. You either let the movement continue to gain traction and risk unseating you or you use your power in a corrupt manner to silence them.
In this particular case, it depends what you define as corrupt. If you are truly working towards the betterment of everyone under your power (even those that you are fighting against), then what becomes justifiable to that end?
Anything. Lies and manipulation will always work on the masses.
Not if you preemptively make what would be an opposition ideology illegal when making the country’s constitution
I could BE a benevolent dictator, I could never BECOME a benevolent dictator. The process of getting there would exclude me, because I would reject the power structure needed to form the dictatorship in the first place.
Same here. Also I don’t think I’d make it long at the top either. I think a certain lack of empathy is required to be ok with some of the requirements of the position.
I could make the hard choices if needed, once there. Because at that point it’s about what is the greater good. Even if you really can’t say for certain, someone making a bad call is most often better than no one making a decision.
The problem is that in order to become a benevolent dictator, you have to chose to hurt people that don’t matter to the greater good, or very likely are important to the well being of the population. With the only justification being that maybe by consolidating power you can make the world a better place. And there is just no way to square that circle other than violent narcissism.
That’s the thing though. I think after acquiring the power you need to keep on stepping on some people to stay in the position. You likely don’t have infinite resources so there’s always going to be someone who missies out. Also what about people meaning to harm you or your subjects?
Once you’re in power you can rationalize/justify their loss against the greater good that your leadership has brought to the people. There are concrete examples of human progress to defend. If there are significant counter examples, then it’s you that’s the problem to be dealt with, just like any other.
I don’t think I could cause I lack strategic thinking and would get easily outmaneuvered by some other faction
I could be benevolent and part of the population would be still against me (slumlords, libertarians, nazis).
After some attempts to kill me I doubt I couldn’t become aggressive against the population who wronged me.
Maybe if I had a few years to reorganise myself, and that’s a big maybe. I’ve never much cared for money, power, and I’m empathetic to a fault, but being in different environments causes people to change.
The biggest challenge would be staying in touch with the population. You would need a good team of people that represent the interests of human existence and happiness. At that point it’s sounding closer to a democracy anyway.
From there, there’s obvious moves. Find the biggest sources of misery and damage, reform or just straight up tear it out and start again. You’d need to move moderately slow, moving quickly destabilizes people too much and that is often not worth the cost. Raise social safety nets, try to turn the system from working to survive into one where working to get nice shit.
I feel like I might bankrupt whichever system I’m put in charge of though. Economics was never my strong suit, and I probably would start ignoring economic realities in favour of human existence.
