"It took thousands of years of human civilisation before we got relatively benign governments. Power structures are not inherently benign; they must constantly be pressured to prevent malignant people using them to leverage their actions.
A non-authoritarian government is an historical anomaly. It's a ball balanced on top of a hill, pushed there by the deaths of millions, and kept there by the vigilance of those who care.
Indeed. Or like the ISS in low earth orbit. It took enormous energy to put it into that decaying orbit and constant infusions of energy to keep it there. We will come crashing down to earth quite quickly if we can't keep up the balance.
This phrasing reminded me of a comment I favorited a while ago, so I went through my favorited comments and found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5847789
"It took thousands of years of human civilisation before we got relatively benign governments. Power structures are not inherently benign; they must constantly be pressured to prevent malignant people using them to leverage their actions. A non-authoritarian government is an historical anomaly. It's a ball balanced on top of a hill, pushed there by the deaths of millions, and kept there by the vigilance of those who care.
Please start caring."