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0 pointscjalmeida4y ago0 comments

Interesting that Popper denounce Plato's political theory as totalitarian. But if you look at it, that's basically how we divide society and government.

We cherish technocrats and "philosopher-king" to rule us in the Supreme Court and high ranking agencies and military. In turn they're not expected to have relevant property to avoid temptation.

Truth is people like being ruled and being told where they fit, if this leads to some sort of purpose and stability. That's why such millennia old ideas prosper

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ethanbond4y ago

I think people like having a world that they can make sense of, and organizational schema help do that. I don’t think it needs to be hierarchical (ruled/ruler) in order to get 100% of the benefit of a world that is somewhat distilled, even imperfectly, from a complete mess of unstructured interactions.

Society will reach its peak when we fully adopt a graph-like conception of people’s roles, ideally with a high degree of mobility between the nodes. You can know where you fit without being told where you fit. Right now we’re in the uncanny valley of not wanting to tell anyone, but also acting like there’s nothing to be known.

watwut4y ago

For all flaws of current democracy, it is not nearly totalitarian. Just because two things vaguely reassemble when you abstract enough does not make them the same.

cjalmeidaOP4y ago

That was not my argument. And the organization of state and Plato's politics are way more connected.

But my comment was that people have such a "need for being ruled" that we repurpose ideas with clear autocratic root for our democracy.

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