Comment on Say what you will about totalitarian dictators, at least they’re human.
DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 month agoThen allow me to enlighten you.
A system of laws is not human. Tho built by humans. Much like a car or a toaster. And as such lacks the intelligence, depth and flexibility of a human. And is subject to gaming, breaking, and all the other problems of machines that interface with reality and humans.
That is my point.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 month ago
So your point is “hate the game, not the player”?
Keep in mind that, unlike a car or a toaster that rely on the laws of physics to function, human laws rely on human enforcement, which is why they can be ignored, changed and gamed. Unenforced laws are the same as said law not existing.
Still, there are many better ways to state that (people put that person in that position because the system worked as intended/was gamed) without sounding like we should feel empathy for people that tend to be terrible to large populations
DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
No, my point is that the human is smart and the system is dumb. Therefore the human is better than the system for running things.
Hate and empathy do not enter into it.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 month ago
Again, there are better ways to state the point you wanted to get across. Hate and empathy do enter into it, especially hate, because it’s always one of the shortcuts for gaming and changing existing human systems. Blame the different, claim to be pure and superior, get a following, storm the enemy. This isn’t new or exclusive to any culture, it’s been around since before the first cities were founded.
Also, the humans involved in attaining power are not necessarily smart, they can be delusional but charismatic leaders, which immediately makes “the human is better than the system” wrong. Pol Pot is perhaps one of the best examples: he wasn’t smart by any measure, but was charismatic enough to have a loyal following and had enough enemies, real and made up, to blame for every woe the people suffered. Solano Lopez, Paraguayan dictator in the 1860s, is another great example of delusional leader - his generals and captains knew that contradicting his military orders, even when they were suicidal and tactically unfeasible, meant being executed as a traitor. Delivering factually correct news that the Paraguayan army was defeated at any skirmish or battle also meant, at the very least, prison time.