Dictator or power vacuum. Which is worse?

Which is worse? A dictator or a power vacuum? Both of these things have negatives. In a dictatorship, there is no freedom and everyone has to do what the dictator says or risk being jailed or killed. But, in a dictatorship, everyone knows who is in charge and what to expect. This is a form of stability and certainty, and human beings value stability, even if it takes a dangerous form like a dictator. In a power vacuum, you never know who’s in control, power is constantly changing hands, and you’re not sure who to put your allegiance with because you don’t know if everyone who has allegiance to that group is going to be killed in a week or two. This leads to a lot of uncertainty, violence and chaos.

The comfort of certainty is what leads people to elect strongmen who they feel is going to set things right by force. People would rather live in a dictatorship than a power vacuum, it seems. These are both not ideal scenarios, obviously. Democracy is far more ideal than both. Interestingly enough, ademocracy is essentially just a “controlled” power vacuum. Maybe that’s why they’re so unstable, unfortunately. Power vacuums are always waiting to be filled, by arguably almost always the wrong people.

I go on to discuss the possibility of improving human society through the fusion of artificial intelligence and political systems, and I posit that sometime in the next 100 years, there will be at least one country that lets its government be run entirely, or almost entirely by AI. Likely a small country, like Estonia.