| A tradeoff that I find fascinating is that of democracy vs authoritarian gov't. It's the question of our days. I've come to the conclusion that a well functioning authoritarian government (like China's) has many short term advantages: - very efficient in redirecting resources as needed - the top concerns of the state (e.g. beat COVID, create a domestic semiconductor industry out of thin air) are addressed very efficently - no politics or stupid "check and balances" to stall momentum (e.g compare to how many of Trump's orders, even for Tiktok, were at least temporarily halted by federal judges) HOWEVER- to have a well functioning authoritarian government you need a strongman at the top (Xi, Putin etc). This is my own anecdotal estimate, but I'd say there is at least a 25% change you get someone that wants to hold on to power and willing to sacrifice their people's well being in order to do that (e.g. see China's Great Leap forward and resulting famine [1]) So you get 1, 2 3 leadership successions that work out and prosperity keeps growing... but how far will your luck take you? Even if 3/4 leaders are 'good' chances of having 5 leaders all good are 23%, and to have 10 successful successions your chances are .75^10=5%. In the long run, the authoritarian regime will collapse under its own weight. In the short term it's kicking ass. Your call which one you want to pick. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine |