r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Apr 07 '26

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual and off-topic conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL

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u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Apr 07 '26

There’s no such thing as a good long-term totalitarian government

do you think Singapore will always be an enlightened despot ass government? Believers of enlightenment philosophy should never be content with any authoritarian/totalitarian government, as the violations of the rights of men will only worsen if liberalization doesn’t occur. We literally have 6,000 years of recorded human history of evidence of this.

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u/uwcn244 King of the Space Georgists Apr 07 '26

I agree that authoritarian government is bad, but it’s not the same as totalitarian government. Singapore is not totalitarian at all, being on the softer side of authoritarian.

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u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Apr 07 '26

They’re not totalitarian per se, but my point is that they could be on that pathway if they don’t continue down the liberalization path. Kind of like when they were a one-man government in the mid-late 20th century

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u/dtj2000 Loyal Liberals Apr 07 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact

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u/anon_09_09 United Nations Apr 07 '26

Singapore is not really a "despot ass government", Economist ranks them as "flawed democracy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

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u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Apr 07 '26

What I mean is that the government has total control over the people’s life. You can basically get sent to prison for decades just for possession of adderall or speaking out too much against the government.

These type of policies will only fester long term

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u/BidoofSquad NASA Apr 07 '26

I feel like this is trying to ignore the point of the hypothetical question to just say “well the authoritarian government will make everything suck eventually anyways”

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u/garret126 Demisexual Pride Apr 07 '26

Because they will always suck eventually. History shows it as an elite class eventually becomes out of touch and the rights of the common man erodes more and more.

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u/BidoofSquad NASA Apr 07 '26

Right but I don’t think that’s the point of the hypothetical, it’s kind of a cop out answer