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[-] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago

A lot of Westerners look at dictatorships and authoritarian states and cannot comprehend why the citizens would accept such a fate. The answer is: food, safety, housing, and cultural and religious homogeneity. People don't really care that much what the people in charge are doing as long as their life is good.

[-] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago

There's also the idea that since the system "works" it shouldn't be changed. IIRC Le Guin did some stories on a place called Omelas that explored a similar idea: there's this utopian city, but they chuck a child down a hole to suffer there, which for some arcane reasons is deemed as necessary. Once people learn of this, they either accept it as indeed necessary or (rarely) leave.

A utopia only works if everyone thinks of the same thing as being a utopian society, which people generally just don't.

[-] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Yes this is why democracy is messy. Everyone has a different preference for the pros and cons of policies.

this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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