Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.

It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.

> I'd hesitate to call it real power as well. You could not just go against someone of let's say senatorial class or god forbid, the Emperor himself, without substantial (military) backing and/or being an untouchable demi-god yourself.

I wouldn't hesitate to call it real power. You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not. There's a lot of power between cockroach and omnipotent.

> Today you can take the government itself to court and actually win.

And what does "winning" mean? It means the government decides that it must take some money from other citizens and give it to you.

The hockey-stick-like growth in technology, quality-of-life, and economic activity generally coinciding with the rise of modern market economics and liberal democracy suggests you might not be able to have one without the other.

That seems like it simplifies a few things like national security, civic safety of any kind, health care, migration, education. I can see a lot of arrows pointing towards centralization of power and for good reasons.

Not saying I'm happy about it, but I really, really struggle to imagine a solution for it that is as stable.

Many "liberal western democracy" governments do very badly and make decisions against the interest and will of the citizens on some or all of those things.

You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly. These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.

These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.

Non sequitur. One does not have to contrast something with something else to make a statement about it.

> You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly.

Strange how fragile a lot of people are about daring to attack the government they are subservient to. I disagree, in fact I see you have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters to defend them unquestioningly.

> These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.

That's just some declaration you've made. You've asserted it. And I disagree. It behooves us all to be mindful of government's corruption, incompetence, and growing dangerous power and greed.

> These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.

The fact you've equated holding people to account for their actions as being their enemy is telling.

It can also mean countless other things. Like that government has to stop excessive surveillance. Cannot take your home away to build a road. Or has to lift a regulation for your buisness, ...

Not every government activity is money redistribution.

You can change a few roads around from time to time, resulting in the government taking more of your money to build road that takes a longer route so you and your fellow plebs have to commute 10 minutes longer. That's not the "real" power previous poster was talking about, going up against the ruling class.

You are throwing the separate branches of government on the same pile, which I think is unfair to say the least.

The judicial branch tells the executive branch to stop or adjust whatever it is doing. The executive branch is not happy about this, but if it wants to survive it needs to listen or at the very least project the illusion that it is listening in some way shape or form. We haven't touched the legislative branch here which is also a force to be reckoned with.

All these branches are filled to the brim with people of various background and motivations. They might not be happy about eachother, but they are stuck with it.

I don't know about American politics, but these branches are pretty well separated in the Netherlands. Maybe not as much as we'd like, but I'm hard-pressed to call it anything but a clear improvement over the past.

I promise you your government does not give the slightest shit if it forces itself to force its citizens to pay more taxes on food and energy. Funny that they have people believing that is a "win" -- socialize the cost of climate change to the commoners. Have you not noticed that it has become fashionable for governments to apologize and promise atonement for such things? Have you ever wondered why that is? It's not because they are looking to take down the banks or the petroleum cartels or the billionaires or whatever. It's because government ~= people. They are accepting blame on your behalf to shield their friends and owners from the blame they deserve.

Wake me up when they dismantle the carbon profiteers and seize their profits and the profits of their profits from the past century or so. Then the war profiteers, and so on.

I get it, I really do and I am biased as well so your underlying points may just as well be 1000% correct. It’s just not something I can productively engage with.

Where?

> You then build on top of these simplifications in the most general of terms in an attempt to strengthen your ideas about power and how it is distributed.

How exactly did I do that?

Pretty weak response to my post tbh. I get it though, it hurts to realize the benevolent and omnipotent protector and provider you are subservient to is anything but. Lashing out is not an unusual response.

That is how to conflate branches of government. IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.

I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.

I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.

It's the government though. The point from the start was that the judicial branch is part of government control. You are the one confused if you don't understand that.

> IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.

IMO it isn't.

> I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.

And yet you seem to know that the government is the solution to them all apparently without knowing what they are.

> I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.

I think you're angrily lashing out at strawmen of your own making because it has become difficult for you to reconcile the scary new ideas in this conversation. But I do find it very interesting how wildly irrational and angry governments and bureaucrats become at the suggestion that they should be held to account for their actions, or that anything they do could be questioned or disagreed with, and by those "hateful commoners" of all people!

Yet fun as it was, I will now cease my demented rage, but not before profusely apologizing for my irrational and unforgivable lashing out.

Also, sorry HN. I have indulged forces here that shouldn’t be. I thought it would be interesting, but that is.. doubtful in hindsight.

And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.

Strange.

> If not, do you think, there is anything positive, the government is doing?

Yes.

> And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.

I can't understand what you mean.

I notice a lot of dirty corrupt western politicians have started a lot of unpopular wars and "interventions" that have killed countless thousands of people and stolen trillions of dollars from their citizens since WWII, and all have escaped justice for it. Worse yet, they have the gall to blame victims of their crimes and force them to bear the consequences, "we meddled and caused wars and destabilization, and therefore we (read: you) need to shoulder burden of the consequences and 'help' more". That's not winning. Avenues of hanged war criminals would be winning.

You might be right, actually. Common bias eh? But I suggest we look at it practically.

> Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.

How do you suppose that technology came about? I don't wish to trivialize this, but I'm convinced systems of government and levels of technology have a very strong connection. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree on that.

> It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.

I did not proclaim otherwise. Elite assholes are exactly the same. It's just that they are less capable of actualizing it now. In my experience they lack the privileges they used to have. Sure, they are rich and fuck you over, but that doesn't come close to what they were able to do in the past. I am only interested in results, nothing else. Human souls are as murky as they ever were and maybe it's worse now. I don't know about that.

> You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not.

I'm sorry, maybe I did come across like that indeed. I meant to imply that whatever is between cockroach and omnipotent, it is more now, not less. Cockroaches these days have way more power than they ever did.

> And what does "winning" mean?

It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.

By people, inventors, creatives, entrepreneurs, explorers. Certainly not government or bureaucracy. Many of the most incredible inventions, discoveries, and creative works came about under governments that were not free or democratic.

I'm sure some amount of government is needed for a society to keep running. I have seen no evidence that it is what gives rise to technology and production rather than the other way around, or that bigger, costlier, more complicated, and more imposing is always better.

[snip]

> It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.

These are trifles. Corporations are all "on board" with climate change now. Petroleum profiteers have ESG scores. As far as the government is concerned, "doing more about climate change" means nothing for the people involved beyond making the commoners pay more for their food and energy.

If you lived in Rome this time 2000 years ago, well, you'd be going through a period of relative stability (Tiberius was, well, a bit odd, but things were mostly stable enough), but just coming off about a century of civil war, and looking at, well, interesting times in 2038. And, post the end of the republic, that stretch from start of Augustus to end of Tiberius was about as good as it got.

Even ignoring the civil rights issues (unless you were (a) a man and (b) pretty wealthy you were an unperson; while Rome had a concept of citizenship some citizens were very much more citizen than others) it was just very messy relative to just about any developed country today. Your chances of being collateral damage in a civil war at some point in your lifetime would be, well, quite high.

If you were a rich aristocrat it’s likely that you lived under a constant threat of being killed during one of his “stalinist” style purges. Which to be fair wasn’t that odd even the “good” emperors like Claudius engaged in stuff like that.

Rule of law wasn’t much of a thing during the imperial period.

To be fair ancient Athens even elected most public official using a lottery system so that the rich/powerful would be able to monopolize the power because they had time/money to campaign and extensive client networks.

Multiple other societies had they "eat the rich" moments as well it's just the it wasn't sustainable, almost immediately after the last ruling class was removed a new one (just as corrupt) arose.

Threads like this always make it painfully obvious how logically-minded and clever tech folks (HN crowd) are really clueless about anything outside their area of expertise.

"Over-confident"

"solution"

This is just too much, it's satire right? Really good if it is. Nothing more fragile and angry than an "expert" who has their proclamations challenged, or an indoctrinated follower who is threatened with scary opinions.

The Roman legal system was extremely arbitrary and highly dysfunctional by modern standard. Why transporting some random feature of it (which contributed to it being such) to the modern world would ever be a good idea?

> revert that kind of power to its citizens.

It think it’s the inverse and would significantly decrease the “power” a random person has due to obvious reasons.

> fragile and angry

I’m neither angry or fragile. Why would you even use these words? I just shared my observation, that’s it.

> indoctrinated

That generally comments which include this word tend to be at least mildly deranged is another thing I noticed here as well.

You were still incapable of pointing out this alleged over-confident solution that I was apparently techbroing about.

Maybe it's time for bed and to stop thinking about things that make you so scared and upset.

However seeing personal insults everywhere and feeling the need to respond in kind seems rather tiresome.

> solutions

What's more tiresome is people spouting rambling "critiques" of others they are incapable of substantiating due to their dishonesty and/or mental deficiencies.

Being so angry at random people on the internet is not good for you..

A weak, dishonest back-down after getting called out on being unable to substantiate your blathering. Pathetic.

But just to clarify a bit: I’m not “backing down” from anything I said.

Unfortunately it’s just hard tell what exactly I’m supposed to substantiate because your diatribes are a bit too incoherent.. and it’s quite hard to comprehend what are you trying to say.

I would advise you to tone do the amount of “personal” insults when trying to communicate with other people.

They really obscure your actual points (assuming they exist?) and they they aren’t doing much anyway since I still can’t really tell whether you’re talking to me or somebody else.

Also I generally find that insults are most effective when used sparingly or in a subtle backhanded manner.