I think I know why authoritarian has different connotations, specifically not inherently negative to me–stellaris! When setting up your civilization in stellaris, there are several… factors? you can base them on, each one has an opposite. Materialist vs spiritualist, militarist vs pacifist, xenophobe vs xenophile, and authoritarian vs egalitarian. I’m used to the word in the context of a descriptive spectrum, not inherently good or bad. (Usually bad in the context of irl stuff, that just doesn’t seem to be where my mind goes first) Just thought you might find it neat