This is one facet how authoritarian behavior is unsustainable.
You can only punish victims for so long before those victims pick up a rock and bash their abusers heads in.
Unfortunately it can sometimes take centuries to get to that point.
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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See, the trick we've found is to raise the water temperature slowly, so the frog doesn't notice. Then, when agitators start to become a noticable problem, you can back off a little. You can get pretty far with scare tactics ("terrorism" is a good one which can be applied to almost any enemy of The State!), although the absolute best thing is to foment class warefare: the traditional, tried-and-true way is to convince the middle class that their problems are caused by the poor, but a better way is to get the middle class to fight with themselves! Keep most of the poor almost starving -- we don't want another French Revolution! - and they'll be too busy just getting enough to really revolt. Media helps a lot here, too; bread and circuses, indeed!
With some minor hiccups (pwew, the 60s and early 70s had us sweating, I can tell you) it's been mostly smooth sailing. Social media has been a godsend, I can tell you - it really put some gas in the old "circuses" dial - but the real breakthrough has been convincing everyone that they have some sort of mental health issue that requires pharmaceuticals. The entire country is taking something, and that's been a huge help in keeping people docile.
No, we're pretty sure we've figured out how to prevent open rebellion; we have all the tools and methodology, so you won't see any rock-bashing anymore.
Its funny but every authoritarian regime kind of thinks the same thing not long before rough music starts.
I see they have the Orphan Crushing Machine in China now.
Some would argue they were early pioneers of it, basically became a daughter killing factory after the 1child policy.
If only we could raise enough money to stop it 👀