“Benevolent” dictatorship

A single dictator has never really been the problem. You can find dictators that do better than democracies throughout history (especially on long-term planning).

It's the transition of power that's the problem. Like, a real bad problem. Like raze half your country and set you back 50-100 years problem.

What kind of dictator are you talking about? Roman-style, where it could be time limited, or the modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?

> could be time limited

Roman dictators weren't like modern autocrats. They were officials, appointed for a limited time (usually no more than 6 months) to address some specific emergency. They weren't crooks who staged coups. And it doesn't seem to have been a desirable appointment to hold; dictators often stood down before the time-limit.

I mean your technically correct that dictators were supposed to give up thier absolute power and indeed some did. But there is definitely a reason the term has adopted it current meaning.

The fact that there are terrible dictators does not invalidate the point that there are non-terrible dictators.

I think the GP's point was that even with "good" dictators, the problems come up when succession needs to happen, which is why "dictatorships" don't scale.

Democracy has a built-in mechanism to stop any bad thing from happening in a change of government, while ensuring that change happens often (at least in a good one).

> What kind of dictator are you talking about?

A ruler with absolute political power.

> ...modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?

This actually reinforces my point. I never denied the existence of bad dictators (or even that the majority of dictators are bad, I think that's quite likely). This would make the power transition for a country that happened to get a good one significantly more dangerous.

> It's the transition of power that's the problem.

That, and the lack of freedom, and the life you're subjected to when the dictator doesn't like you.