[kevin_thibedeau]

And then there's Singapore. Ruled by an authoritarian, gum hating despot who provides nice civic infrastructure for the populace.

[ericd]

When you have a great king, it's among the best forms of government. The problem is that that great king's successor is probably not also great, and under a bad ruler, it's among the worst forms of government, and that bad king can last for your entire lifetime.

It's never spectacularly efficient, but the US' form of democracy is meant to be much lower variance. I think it's a good tradeoff.

[liberte82]

> When you have a great king, it's among the best forms of government.

citation needed

[AnimalMuppet]

Singapore, as kevin_thibedeaux said.

[ericd]

What kind of citation would you put there?

[aoner]

King of Bhutan?

[narrator]

With a dictatorship it really depends on the competence of the leadership. This is not a robust strategy for organizing human civilizations.

[jack9]

Really? Because stable singular hierarchies is exactly how we evolved to have civilization.

[disgruntledphd2]

Not sure if I would agree, given that estimates suggest that homo sapiens had evolved approx 400k years ago, and most of recorded history (with the somewhat stable hierarchies) lasts, at most, 20k years. So potentially much of recorded history, but certainly not proven to be necessary for evolution.