There are wonderful parallels with Wilhelm II of Germany. It just takes one idiot at the top with no understanding of his own failings to undermine decades of careful diplomacy and policy.
In a functioning democracy, this should not be possible. There should be check and balances.
Reading a bit about Wilhelm II: so many parallels indeed. "Dreamt of a great colonial power", had to deal with some form of democracy, making incoherent replies, ... And more.
No it should definitely be possible in a functioning democracy (and is because it happened in one). It would not be possible with an educated electorate. But that's different from what you said
> It would not be possible with an educated electorate.
A free and impartial press is vital for democracy to work (how else do you know who to vote for). However the current state of American news media leaves a lot to be desired..... Abandonment of the broadcast media 'fairness doctrine' for one thing.
The problem with this situation in USA is not quite only because of media. Why did Congress instantly caved under the threat and even imposed a self censorship on itself to prevent any minority dissent (the case of "let's make whole year 2025 a single legal day, to prevent opposition vote" a year ago). It's because they are afraid to not be elected under threat of MAGA. And why is that? Because the election system is very not democratic in the USA. First past the post is already very bad system. No alternative parties, no open election lists, a huge legal lobbying/bribing allowed preventing electing independents. Etc. So the top commenter is right - democracy or even a semblance of one would have mitigated this disaster a lot, by protecting "checks and balanced" from being dismantled by a dictator.
Doesn't it require some form of educated electorate to sustain a functioning democracy? Otherwise it is really "by the people" if they are merely avatars?
> In a functioning democracy, this should not be possible.
I think it's less about democracy vs not, and more about empires/hegemonies vs whatever the antonyms are. They seem to just fold over themselves at one point or another, like it's unavoidable.
At one point we (humanity) should figure out how the small and many can try to rein in the solo bullies in the world, but guess we're not quite there yet.
You need a lot of support to stay in power, even in a democracy. Impeachment procedures for instance exist for that reason. No one rules alone, it's never one, nor even a small bunch of idiots.
The person you were responding to said that cyan feels like a completely different color to them, neither green nor blue. I had the same reaction when it gave me a color that I immediately identified as teal, and I learned my colors as a monolingual english speaker in Ohio. Therefore the supposition that all English speakers see only blue or green is an oversimplification.
I didn't say that English speakers only see blue or green. I said that those are the two basic color terms that cyan is in between, and cyan isn't a basic color term and thus collapses to one or the other if categorized under basic color terms. Same goes for teal.
I think the point is that the story’s universe is populated by intelligent life forms that did not evolve from any lineage of meat. Hence the reference at the end to the hydrogen cluster.
Unlikely but they can be intelligent about their trajectory. That is avoid known areas of resistance, use natural features for protection.
Being slow moving as they are, they are quite vulnerable to countermeasures after they have been detected. I expected a-10s, helicopter gunships guarding critical infra, but have not heard of anything like that in the news.
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