Grrl Power #1024 - A squeaky clean leader
Added 2022-02-17 11:01:01 +0000 UTCThanks so much for your support! For serious!
To quote Agent K, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." I assume that line is paraphrased from some ancient philosopher or sociologist, because I think it may be the single smartest sentence ever committed to film.
Deus believes there are good persons, smart, selfless, and/or wise, but realistically, the selfish, hateful, short-sighted persons outnumber them when counted as individuals, and when counted as people, well, people are easy to manipulate with fear, hate, greed, self-interest, propaganda, and tribalism. The larger the group, the more inertia it has, and the more likely it is to subsume the good ones and fall to humanity's baser instincts.
And that's why he firmly believes that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, but mostly except for a benevolent dictatorship headed exclusively by him.
The Benevolent Dictatorship sounds like straight up science fiction, but they have (arguably) existed. Wikipedia only lists three, which is a little depressing, and most have some contention and none of them lasted more than a few decades. That's really the biggest problem with any sort of dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise; legacy. Maybe it's possible to really have a truly benevolent ruler. But what about the next guy? In a world with magic, maybe you could concoct some sort of test that ensures a positive destiny, (but be very careful how you define "positive") but without magic, probably the best you could hope for is a generation or two of benign results before selfish and ambitious parties begin manipulating things to a degree that the primary thing being served is greed and ego.
Comments
Okay, so nobody is going to comment on Dabbler's pose? really? It's Awesome!!!
Evgeny Sandu
2022-02-18 21:19:24 +0000 UTC"probably the best you could hope for is a generation or two of benign results before selfish and ambitious parties begin manipulating things to a degree that the primary thing being served is greed and ego" See also: Roman Emperors. The best they managed was the "Five Good Emperors" whose succession was marked by being mostly chosen by the previous emperor. It all fell apart when Marcus Aurelius (the last of the "five good emperors") left the Empire to his son, Commodus. Commodus, as we know, tried to kill Russell Crowe, amongst other things.
Sam Bradley
2022-02-17 22:18:13 +0000 UTCHe's got an army of demons, aliens, and supers to help him deal with people who have a problem with his rule. I'm also decently sure he's planning on never dying, thus negating the "next guy" problem. I'm not saying that your points are wrong...just the character of Deus probably views them more as quaint challenges to overcome, either through subterfuge, bribery, or out right overwhelming force. A lot of things aren't really problems when you aren't burdened with a lot in the way of scruples and have nigh infinite resources. (I know his resources aren't actually infinite, but to you and me they are pretty much infinite. To him I'm guessing they are "adequate for now")
Seth Swanson
2022-02-17 20:44:32 +0000 UTC"Maybe it's possible to really have a truly benevolent ruler. But what about the next guy?" That has generally been the problem, even if the King who was loved by the people runs the country well, his kids are going to most likely be entitled little shits who think everyone should bow and scrape to them just because of who they are. There is a HUGE problem with Deus' view. You can NEVER please all of the people all of the time. He *will* have opposition, for many reasons, but most of them will be for the wrong reasons. Among that hateful group he thinks he can manipulate so easily are a large number of people who think that they are superior to a lot of other people, and they will never accept being told that they are equal. Changing the status quo will be resisted vocally and possibly violently by these people (may I point to a very large number of noisy white men as my primary example of this). And if Deus isn't going to even make an attempt at equality in order to placate the above group... well, then he's done before he starts, he's just continuing the status quo and that already doesn't work that well. Plus of course all the oppressed people will continue to be pissed off before he even starts. So, we haven't even done anything and we already have a contradiction that cannot be resolved by just saying so. Bring equality of gender, race, sexual orientation and piss off all the people opposed to said equality, or don't and leave the broken system in place. Next, social inequality. In order for people - like him - to be wealthy, a large number of people have to be poor. The more money you concentrate at the top, the more people have to be poor, and the more poor they have to be. It is possible for a fair number of people to be moderately wealthy while having a middle class and keeping the poor out of the gutter but this requires something that is going to piss off a whole LOT of people: Socialism (not Communism you morons, they are different things). Deus is already talking like a Socialist, that society matters more than the individual. Hard line capitalists are going to be actively opposed to this. To do what he wants would require strict regulation of everything (again the capitalists and corporations would be pissed off) and - worst of all - would involve limiting the upper wealth of individuals and the profits of corporations, something the wealthy are not going to like. Because even if you can live really well if you have 500 million dollars, that just isn't good enough to people like that. So now you have the rich and powerful actively opposed to your plans. Because most of them don't give a flying monkey fuck about whether the country or economy in general is doing, only in how THEY are doing, and if you limit that, then they will not be happy. And we won't even talk about the concept of the redistribution of wealth. Or... he doesn't do those things, social inequality remains... and again he's done before he starts.
Eric Loken
2022-02-17 20:24:54 +0000 UTCIt has been said that the difference between Heaven and Hell is not in the structure of their governments, but in who is at the top.
Andrew Denton
2022-02-17 18:34:11 +0000 UTCDefinitely something he wasn't expecting to hear. LMAO
Kenneth Winkelman
2022-02-17 16:39:42 +0000 UTCHe's been researching supers, which most definitely is based in motivation for personal use...
Magraal
2022-02-17 15:58:41 +0000 UTCPretty sure Deus plans to live forever, therefore eliminating the legacy problem with benevolent dictatorships.
Greg Morrow
2022-02-17 15:06:25 +0000 UTCThe look on his face, heh.
Daniel Schinhofen
2022-02-17 15:05:40 +0000 UTCshe's on the walkway in the first panel
Daniel Schinhofen
2022-02-17 15:05:28 +0000 UTCWhere did Sydney go? Is she peeping?
Zip Zop
2022-02-17 14:58:26 +0000 UTCIf she "doinks" him in the shower, she can "accidently" kill him when she has "uncontrolled" muscle spasms due to "orgasm". (ref: "The Boys")
Town Crier
2022-02-17 14:22:20 +0000 UTCAnother greatest sentence ever committed to film is "Laughter is 10 times more powerful than scream ever was." In Monsters, Inc.
Marc Vun Kannon
2022-02-17 13:47:38 +0000 UTCRational people know this. Improving living conditions for everyone improves them best for the people at the top, since their palaces are built on those backs. Every so often it seems you get a bunch of greedheads who want to sheer the sheep a little too deeply, or just want to have lamb chops for their next party.
Marc Vun Kannon
2022-02-17 13:46:08 +0000 UTCHis administrative outreach program would look like a very good thing to a lot of people until he started losing.
Marc Vun Kannon
2022-02-17 13:44:05 +0000 UTCWhile any individual leader may be benevolent, that is unlikely to be the case for everyone in the ruling structure. Power attracts people who want it for their own sake. You would need a very good vetting and oversight system to keep everyone honest, and that is nearly impossible to implement as it is, because you cannot guarantee the people running it are honest. And the larger a system of ruling is, the more oversight you would need. I don’t believe there is a perfect ruling system, each system is flawed by the fact that humans run it. And the added issue is that you can never make everyone happy, no matter what you do. There will always be one group unhappy, and willing to fight for their ‘freedoms’. End of the day…. It’s very very complicated. But Deus is not out to save or unite humanity. He is 100% in it for his own greed. He just happens to believe that improving living conditions helps his cause.
Thisguy
2022-02-17 12:45:06 +0000 UTCDues is the very essence of "Ends justify the means". They don't, but people think that.
Souliris
2022-02-17 12:24:05 +0000 UTCwhy would it be painful? her body's durability comes from telekinesis so as long as she doesnt Want to be rough on your skin she wont be and, lets face it, if she Does want to be rough on your skin you're probably eating a terrain-altering haymaker for being anywhere near a scenario of considering that kind of interaction.
Aclys
2022-02-17 12:22:06 +0000 UTCDeus's expression at the end...
Aclys
2022-02-17 12:18:12 +0000 UTCIt SOUNDS a lot more fun than it is. Then again, Max can fly, which would solve a lot of the problems.
CSquared
2022-02-17 11:27:44 +0000 UTC“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
StLOrca
2022-02-17 11:26:45 +0000 UTCShower doinking really sucks though.
Cwolf
2022-02-17 11:13:32 +0000 UTCI still think David Xanatos from Gargoyles is Deus teacher
Enigma42
2022-02-17 11:10:55 +0000 UTCThe best example of a benevolent dictatorship is unfortunately fictional - Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
CSquared
2022-02-17 11:04:41 +0000 UTCAlso, she's advocating being a full body loofah which, with Max's body (no offense) seems like the most painful way to exfoliate.
Michael Obert
2022-02-17 11:04:24 +0000 UTC
