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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Experience shows democracies work better in just about every way. Mainly, there's questions about how stable they can be over the long term.

I've known people who liked the idea of a dictatorship, but they've all had funny ideas about how they internally work. Palace intrigue and corruption are inevitable and huge, it's never just one potentially-wise individual calling the shots.

[-] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 hours ago

Everyone is pro-dictatorship until they realise they're not the dictator.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

So you could say that both suffer from a vulnerability. Both break eventually.

Also, consider the attractiveness of dictatorship. I think that everybody would like to be a dictator. Who wants to share power? Not me. I want to be in control, of my forum, my project, my game.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Dictatorship had a pretty clean run of several thousand years there. Sure, dynasties changed, but never the actual system.

Also, consider the attractiveness of dictatorship. I think that everybody would like to be a dictator. Who wants to share power? Not me. I want to be in control, of my forum, my project, my game.

So, my second paragraph kind of addresses that. It's never actually about one person having the power, as a government system.

One-person control over something, backed by externally imposed laws, is a completely different thing. You don't have to worry about your forum members poisoning you and physically taking control of your server.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 points 3 hours ago

Well the breaking here is the corruption. The 2 different flavors of that. Still ostensibly dictatorship or democracy but not.

[-] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 12 points 14 hours ago

Democracy, in the hands of the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie. The government should oppress the capitalist class and uplift the proletariat, political power should be stripped from capitalists and lay with the proletariat instead. This is the "dictatorship of the proletariat" over the bourgeoisie.

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 4 points 16 hours ago

Democracy, obviously. No it doesn't change if I'm the dictator.

[-] rentasonder@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 23 hours ago

Democratic dictatorship of the proletariat

[-] spittingimage@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

Why do some of the questions asked in this sub make it sound like the OP's first day as a human being?

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 6 hours ago

I don't know, but the way they're answered often ends up being very interesting.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Homie had his shit removed and now its everyone's problem.

[-] capuccino@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago
[-] Zacpod@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

Online? Dictatorship. Let the guidelines be clear and the conversations civil and on topic. If my speech isn't wanted in a particular community I can find another, or make another where I'm the dictator.

IRL? Democracy. It sucks, but it's better than everything else. I do, however, wish there were better laws forcing media to be locally owned, and bound to be truthful. And some way to keep late stage capitalism's hand off the scales.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 points 11 hours ago

(first, thank you for achieving the straightforwardness that has escaped so many others here)

What is the difference between online society and irl society that makes dictatorship preferable in one and democracy preferable in the other?

Is it the size? The complexity?

[-] Zacpod@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Online spaces are limitless, basically. If you don't like living under someone else's rules it's dead easy to spin up your own space with your own rules. The dictatorship-ness of these virtual spaces keeps then semi-civil and on-topic. Ideally, at least. We are talking spherical cows here, obvs.

Real life spaces, not so easy to spin up your own country. So we have to use a political system that (on paper, at least) caters to the majority without stepping on the minorities too much.

[-] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago

@DominatorX1@thelemmy.club

To build off this. Part of why people, who come off as reasonable and decent in person, can get so...very...VERY unhinged online is that

Tap for personal opinionyou don't have to see the reaction of the people who read/hear what you're putting out there. Even in places where you don't actually have any real anonymity, there's an assumption that because no one is in the room with you while you madly smash away at your keyboard...well... People used to say there's no girls on the internet...I feel like most people just type whatever like there's no PEOPLE on the internet...

TL;DR - can't see people being disgusted with what you just said.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 2 points 3 hours ago

People are generally very breakfast cereal. One musn't get worried about that.

And the incongruity here. Preferring the one kind of government for one kind of society, but the other for another. That's a big deal. Bears discussing.

It's one of those things that you wonder why nobody ever pointed it out.

[-] chillBurner@lemmy.ml 5 points 22 hours ago

Democracy, like mostly anyone. But it depends on anyone's conception, here.

[-] Vampire@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

I love them all equally Care-Comrade

[-] frippa@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 hours ago

Dictatorship by a wide margin. Why should the parliament squabble over a law for months, possibly years, when under a dictatorship said law could be enacted instantly? Also with democracy every politician just thinks about getting elected, not the actual long-term needs of the country.

[-] chaos@beehaw.org 2 points 4 hours ago

The squabbling process moves the law toward meeting the needs of more people. If a dictator just gets to decide what the law is, they'll likely be self-serving to the dictator, or even outright harmful to entire categories of people.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

According to election theory, a dictatorship is the only perfectly fair voting system: the only voter wins the vote, every time.

[-] loomy@lemy.lol 3 points 22 hours ago
[-] andrewta@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Who would realistically say dictator? Putin?

[-] Geodad@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago
[-] rumimevlevi@lemmings.world 4 points 1 day ago

Democracty, if people do bad choices it's the people problem not democracy . If the leader of the dictatorship is bad nothing can be done

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

Depends on the dictator, depends on the democracy. Ideally neither, but democracies are usually less awful than dictatorships.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club -5 points 1 day ago
[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 6 points 23 hours ago

Lemmy is inherently democratic. If you don't like a muni, or an instance, you go to another one. Without centralization dictatorship is impossible.

That said, it's not democracy, either: It's a federation of interdependent polities, each with their own laws and administrators. Which is good, because it allows for rapid response to spam, inappropriate content, and verbal violence.

And if the admins or moderators overreach, well, back to the first paragraph: we've got open borders, go homestead your own community on another instance. You literally cannot be silenced here.

[-] undrwater@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Closer to anarchy, seemingly.

Inappropriate to compare with governmental organizations. Differing goals.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club -5 points 23 hours ago

Democracy means that power is held by the people. It doesn't mean that if you don't like it you can leave.

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 4 points 22 hours ago

It's called "voting with your feet". Being free to leave is power. Means a hell of a lot more than up- and down-doots.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club -2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

In a democracy the vote determines policy.

But this is obvious. Right?

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 2 points 22 hours ago

You saw the whole paragraph where I talked about how lemmy is not a democracy, right? And literally cited this as one if the reasons why?

Like I get that you're probably responding to multiple subthreads right now, but it only takes a few seconds to scroll up.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club -3 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

And you also stated that it is inherently democratic.

Would it kill you to stop being so coy and evasive?

It's a thousand dictatorships.

[-] Aria@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

In a democracy, the community determines policy. Votes are orthogonal. If the community leaves when they disagree, by definition everyone that is remains agrees with the policy, making it a democratic policy. The friction to changing instance is very minimal, so it's a good indicator of people's opinions.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club -1 points 22 hours ago

Yeah but they aren't actually determining policy. Obviously.

Why are you bullshitting?

[-] Aria@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

The first sentence was a response to you asserting voting is essential to democracy, which is false. The rest of the comment was a response to you not accepting Nemo@slrpnk.net's argument.

If you can't find an instance you agree with, and you have a mass of people who agree with you but are collectively too lazy to create a new instance, you would communicate your stance with words. Lemmy has a system for leaving text statements. You seem to be familiar. But there's no mechanism to force the instance operator to obey you.

[-] DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 points 21 hours ago

But that wasn't my question, was it?

My question was whether you prefer a democracy or a dictatorship.

The answer is clearly dictatorship.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
-51 points (11.9% liked)

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