Comments by "clray123" (@clray123) on "Philosophy Coded" channel.

  1. The way I see it is that there are two equillibria - on the one side you have systems run by intelligent people that favor ethical and just behaviors; on the other side you have systems run by stupid people that favor aggression and malice. The problem is: a just person will go under when placed in the second type of system, just as inherently malicious person will go under when placed in the first. The dilemma is: how do we make the equillibrium shift from rewarding "bad" behaviro to rewarding "good"? As history shows, the inherent tendency is to shift toward the "bad" equillibrium repeatedly (it simply seems more natural to humans to be ruled by assholes, possibly because it has provided evolutionary advantages in the past).
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  2. ​ @Soul-Depth-68  For every Gandhi, Mandela etc. there were countless more - unheard of - who tried to resist and went under. And then there are also those who famously tried resisting and were brutally eliminated as consequence (does the name Jesus ring a bell? do you think his sacrifice was a "success" because of the religion - and the following authoritarian systems - he helped establish?) The point is that resistance in an inherently evil system is only possible at great personal risk. Just like committing crimes in a good system is only possible at great personal risk to the criminal. So in a sense, the just opposition is an aberration, a sort of abnormal, irrational, individualistic behavior which most of the time does not work and most importantly does not benefit those who choose this path. My opinion is that systems should be designed up-front so that authoritarian behavior has automated, built-in punishment options - those in power should actively, and reasonably fear collective retribution from those who their power applies to, and the retribution should be easy to exert (e.g. without waiting for "next elections" - which in case of an established authoritarian system either never come or are meaningless). But this would practically require empowering everyone with the capability of exerting a more or less equal amount of violence to defend their individual rights and morality, based on their own judgmenet of feeling oppressed. Supposedly reasonable people will argue against this on the grounds that this would "enable populism to win" - the assumption here being that the unkempt, stupid, evil masses would quickly turn against their good leaders because of getting successfully incited by the bad ones. AFAIK, this assumption has never been tested in history - the usual arrangement has been that individuals do not matter, only well-organized gangs do - but accepting it is already a sort of surrender to the idea that an evil system is the only sustainable one. Today's systems evolve toward centralization of power/violence in the hands of very few, regardless of the laws claiming balances and equality (which when push comes to shove can be undone very quickly even under light pretense, as we've seen with COVID). The technological (military, surveillance) and organizational advantage of the established "elites" are enough to tip the system toward the bad equillibrium and permanently keep it there. If evil behavior of the so-called leaders goes unpunished, there is very little incentive for being good, and even less if you are the ones who are benefitting from this system and whose task (what a coincidence) is to design and "improve" it.
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