Who else would like politics to be humdrum?

[David Horn]

(02-15-2022, 01:19 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(02-11-2022, 08:59 AM)David Horn Wrote: As bad, if not worse, is the exact opposite: no one can change anything ever.  Eventually, stasis becomes rot and whatever sense of community and polity that may have existed simply disappears.  Of the two, my disaster scenario is a lot closer to reality today.
Be careful what you wish for.

I hope we're in agreement that we don't want either of these, but frankly, I'll take "rotten stasis and anarchy" over "top-down continual surveillance and micro-management" without a second thought. For example, I'd take the life of a violent Somali pirate over pretty much any citizen of North Korea any day of the week. In either event, morality tends to break down at either the extreme of order or the extreme of chaos.

If you really believe that, then you should examine a few real-world examples: Somalia at its most chaotic, Afghanistan under similar circumstances, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.  Chaos is exactly that.  It can happen under a maniacal dictatorship that no one wishes to follow or under a benevolent non-leader who refuses to control anything.  The last is exemplified by Nero who ignored his duties in Rome.  We know how that went.