I think the causality is “selfish genes optimizing for whatever behaviour leads to power” → “hidden biases making you think that you being in power very good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power.”
Dictators start off as normal people
If you learn about dictators and people who did horrible things with power, you’ll find out that they are scarily high amount of humanity.
Consider Ali Khamenei, the dictator of Iran. His favorite books were Les Misérables, and The Grapes of Wrath. These are the kind of deep meaningful novels which, to someone with low empathy, would probably be too boring to read.
Before the revolution, before he rose to power, you would probably see him as an innocent activist who was wrongly imprisoned by the previous dictator.
And maybe he was just an innocent activist.
Power corrupts, you start off good person but become evil.
Power corrupts insidiously
But somehow nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees this coming. No one ever realizes “wow I feel a strong craving for power, maybe I’m becoming evil.” That never happens.
The mechanism of how power corrupts you is so insidious that no one ever sees it working on them.
The Ring of Power in real life is so insidious it convinces you that it’s not dangerous at all. “Only people who are bad to begin with will be affected by me. Surely, you are not such a person!”
“You know yourself, you want to do good! You don’t feel any urge to seek power, you only feel an honest wish to help others. You just need to do a few necessary evils to prevent “them,” the truly evil people, from gaining power (the Ring of Power) and replacing you.”
Dictators don’t want to retire
I admit it’s not easy for a dictator to retire, but my only point was that they don’t want to retire. If they actually wanted to retire, we’d surely see it a lot more. They could negotiate with other countries to give them a good retirement if they make their country democratic.
Among all the dictators who did allow democratization, very few suffered consequences for it. Chun Doo-hwan is the only example I can find, and he was pardoned after one year.
I think the causality is “selfish genes optimizing for whatever behaviour leads to power” → “hidden biases making you think that you being in power very good for the people” → “wanting to stay in power.”
Dictators start off as normal people
If you learn about dictators and people who did horrible things with power, you’ll find out that they are scarily high amount of humanity.
Consider Ali Khamenei, the dictator of Iran. His favorite books were Les Misérables, and The Grapes of Wrath. These are the kind of deep meaningful novels which, to someone with low empathy, would probably be too boring to read.
Before the revolution, before he rose to power, you would probably see him as an innocent activist who was wrongly imprisoned by the previous dictator.
And maybe he was just an innocent activist.
Power corrupts, you start off good person but become evil.
Power corrupts insidiously
But somehow nobody, and I mean nobody, ever sees this coming. No one ever realizes “wow I feel a strong craving for power, maybe I’m becoming evil.” That never happens.
The mechanism of how power corrupts you is so insidious that no one ever sees it working on them.
The Ring of Power in real life is so insidious it convinces you that it’s not dangerous at all. “Only people who are bad to begin with will be affected by me. Surely, you are not such a person!”
“You know yourself, you want to do good! You don’t feel any urge to seek power, you only feel an honest wish to help others. You just need to do a few necessary evils to prevent “them,” the truly evil people, from gaining power (the Ring of Power) and replacing you.”
Dictators don’t want to retire
I admit it’s not easy for a dictator to retire, but my only point was that they don’t want to retire. If they actually wanted to retire, we’d surely see it a lot more. They could negotiate with other countries to give them a good retirement if they make their country democratic.
Among all the dictators who did allow democratization, very few suffered consequences for it. Chun Doo-hwan is the only example I can find, and he was pardoned after one year.