The creativity and inquisitive curiousity in this thread is honestly inspiring and heartwarming.
My week was spent in object oriented code and log burning stove installation. The cherry on the top was putting my knee through the glass so last night was devoted to thinking about how it can be repaired without spending more money.
If you think about, the benevolent dictator model of governance is pretty much the best type of hierarchy. It avoids the indecision of a democracy, the corruption of oligarchy and the tyranny of autocracy.
Rare to see examples of this form, especially at large scale. One notable exception is Thailand, a country that is one of a handful that has never been colonised. The Thai people revere their king but they also have a democratic process, which occasionally comes under some corrective influence, backed by the army. It's definitely not a tyranny but it's not a democracy either.
Good news if true. Setting and defending personal boundaries is essential in any relationship and especially dealing with a narcissist. It's not that different at the international scale.
The pattern I'm seeing is a corrupt government not to be trusted. You have a fraudster in charge and his henchmen are Nazis. The fact that those agents were convicted of stealing money is not a good sign.
The judicial system in America is obviously not about what is written in their legal statutes or the veracity of the evidence presented. Otherwise war criminals, fraudsters and rapists like Bush, Cheney, Trump and Clinton would be in prison. It is about advancing an agenda for a white male US hegemony and that explains most of the outcomes, e.g. black people being enslaved in prison. Ulbricht thumbed his nose at the establishment and they got pissy. Assange and Snowden revealed their crimes and they hunted them to the ends of the earth. The CIA and their stooges, the Swedes, fabricated a rape allegation against Assange that was quietly dismissed, unfulfilled, seven years later. This establishment will stop at nothing to assert their authority and you wonder about evidence in the Ulbricht case?
We form opinions and feelings about places we've never visited. I get the sense that much of the vitriol directed at the current international villains e.g. Russia, China, North Korea comes from a place of ignorance and is shaped by news media.
That growth is disproportionately benefiting the ultra wealthy so this is good news. I'm sure they will change their ways and not retreat to their NZ bunkers.
That's the spirit!