[yafinder]

Any sufficiently big country is very anarchic in that sense. US and India are made of literal states. Russia resembles a medieval feudal structure. UK is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it all would be about 5% population of China. An idea that someone or something could govern such a huge amount of people directly and controlling all aspects of life and economy looks absurd to me.

[ethbr1]

> Any sufficiently big country is very anarchic in that sense.

The reason most large countries have standardized on democracy + separation of powers + rule of law (in various flavors) is precisely because it's a decent solution to this.

China's governance struggles are because it wants two contradictory things (a) absolute authority of the CCP + (b) absolute adherence to the rule of law.

Unfortunately, explicitly placing a political party made of humans above the rule of law is a recipe for ignoring the latter. First when it's politically inconvenient. Then, once it's become culturally acceptable, whenever anyone thinks they can get away with it.

Xi smartly pushed this back a few decades, to the extent possible, by identifying and pursuing corruption vigorously (from the top) as an existential threat to the CCP. Unfortunately, absolute power... etc. ... and inevitably aspects of those corruption crusades turned into removing political enemies from power.

Authoritarian regimes' greatest weaknesses are corruption and blindness to inconvenient truths.

Democracies' are lack of unity and long term planning.

[notjoemama]

You should spend some time on YouTube watching videos about China and North Korea. It’s not absurd at all and the psychological mechanisms are well known to anyone who’s spent time reviewing how controlling a population works. Just a minimal cursory review reveals how fear and a rigid hierarchy are all that’s needed.

[yafinder]

I was born in the USSR, so, with all due respect, I think I know more about the internal mechanics of undemocratic states than a person who watched YouTube.

[MichaelZuo]

I would go even farther, that someone recommending to watch youtube for such a topic is either joking, never been around the block, or literally copy-and-pasting from somewhere else.

Though to be fair, the vast vast majority of HN comments regarding more complex topics are not coming from first hand sources, or those who've had serious discussions with people who've had that first hand experience.

[acdha]

This is not helpful advice: YouTube has a vast amount of video but much of it is misleading, incomplete, or simply wrong and it’s all presented in exactly the same way. If there’s a specific person you think has expertise on a topic you have to link directly to their work.

[t0bia_s]

By watching YouTube and made conclusions like this you literary fulfill your description of manipulated society.

[hotpotamus]

> Just a minimal cursory review reveals how fear and a rigid hierarchy are all that’s needed

Or you can just work for a large company.

[baq]

It's always local lords and barons who make the rules. There are top-down rules, more like guidelines really, which are used to remove local government officials under whatever pretext when things go really south.

[arrowsmith]

And the years 2020 and 2021 provide an obvious example of your second sentence.