Keltham claims that in dath ilan, if there somehow developed an oppressive tyranny, everyone would wait for some Schelling time (like a solar eclipse or the end of the calendar year or whatever) and then simultaneously rise up in rebellion. It probably helps that dath ilan has annual “oops it’s time to overthrow the government” exercises.
A thing I’ve been confused about for awhile is why the government… doesn’t just also know when the Schelling times are, and be extra prepared on those times? (the current government is hopefully trustworthy and, like, making itself easy to be overthrown, but, if it was trying not to be overthrown, shouldn’t it not be that hard? You could choose to give the military few enough resources that it just can’t handle a population rising up, but that feels like it’s… fighting it’s own hypothetical or something.
Most oppressive governments and militaries in history have not been able to handle a population rising up, and in many cases the miliatry themselves will join the population in rising up, for instance in Russia’s 1917 February Revolution.
Presumably in the “adequate” world of dath ilan, if the military supports the revolutionaries, they will and can assume they will be compensated for their trouble at least as much as they are compensated under the oppressive regime if they are necessary for the revolution to succeed, and progressively less as their negotiating position lessons.
A thing I’ve been confused about for awhile is why the government… doesn’t just also know when the Schelling times are, and be extra prepared on those times? (the current government is hopefully trustworthy and, like, making itself easy to be overthrown, but, if it was trying not to be overthrown, shouldn’t it not be that hard? You could choose to give the military few enough resources that it just can’t handle a population rising up, but that feels like it’s… fighting it’s own hypothetical or something.
Most oppressive governments and militaries in history have not been able to handle a population rising up, and in many cases the miliatry themselves will join the population in rising up, for instance in Russia’s 1917 February Revolution.
Presumably in the “adequate” world of dath ilan, if the military supports the revolutionaries, they will and can assume they will be compensated for their trouble at least as much as they are compensated under the oppressive regime if they are necessary for the revolution to succeed, and progressively less as their negotiating position lessons.