alt Hacker NewsIran and North Korea are evidence that with modern technology, and a ruthless enough autocracy, there is possibly no way out from under it. Technological progress only makes this problem worse. It should highlight the urgency for anybody who loves freedom, human rights, and democracy, to fight the swing towards authoritarianism in the 'free world', before there is no way back.
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One could ask, who is giving Iran and North Korea this technology? Most of it they aren't developing themselves.
My cynical take is that this is the reason we're selling so many GPUs to certain foreign governments. Sure, AI is great for vibe coding and making cat videos but it's also amazing for tracking individual sentiment, influencing opinion on social media, creating fake news, and detecting threat networks. "Smart cities" are also Panopticons.
> with modern technology, and a ruthless enough autocracy, there is possibly no way out from under it. Technological progress only makes this problem worse.
US may not have autocrats, but it does have ruthless enforcers of "law and order" with access to advanced weapons. Its probably safe to say thst whatever the stated reason is for the 2nd amendment, it is going to be difficult or impossible to meet its objective if needed.