[gmadsen]

so my second sentence?

And I'm not entirely sure. Is authoritarian rule worse than billions starving to death, with collapse of the ecosystem?

All the enlightenment ideas fall apart when we actually reach the limit of the earths resources, and can potentially cause our own extinction along with the rest of the animal kingdom

[ethbr0]

The balance is between (a) effectively addressing an issue & (b) empowering government and risking it abuse its power.

Most long-lived democracies appear to have optimized to mitigate the risk of the second, over the long run, but at the cost of limiting the first.

One thinks the Roman Republic had a pretty good thing going politically... but declaring a temporary dictator in times of crisis only worked until it didn't.

Still, 475 years was a pretty good run.