[Houshalter]

Dictators have come to power through many methods through history. Being given power by an outside force is only one possible route to totalitarianism. Many dictators start out popular and sometimes even democratically elected.

The scariest thing about modern dictatorships is they may never go away once established. As surveillance technology improves, perfect ideological control becomes possible. As drones and robots replace human soldiers, uprisings become much less practical. Nuclear weapons eliminate the threat of foreign invasion. Eventually anti-aging will prevent the dictators from even dying.

That was always the scariest part of 1984 for me. Not that the world was a dystopia, but that it was completely stable. The state could continue on for thousands of years. Or at least until they ran out of natural resources.