Oddbean new post about login | logout Now that you bring it to scale. I was continuing giving it a thought and reach to the following conclusion: The US has this armament industry (not counting government) that in one side provides the citizens with arms to go to the shooting range to say Fuck Yeah, and support their industry, while in the other side provides arms all around the world to undeveloped countries to kill each others in perpetual civil wars. (Basically a very nasty industry) It's true that an armed population keeps the government in balance, and also keeps away a possible insurrection of military forces. That's a great point. It's not easy, I hope Bitcoin fixes this.
I hope so, too. Among countries with populations over 100M, only the USA and Brazil were not involved in a major democide last century. They are democratic republics, sure, and large enough to be functionally independent, but so were Germany, Indonesia and Pakistan up to the start of their respective rampages. (Arguably Russia was too, very briefly under Kerensky before the October Revolution kicked off.) So its not that. USA and Brazil are notable among their peers for widespread citizen ownership of rifles, as well as traditions of decentralised governance. Our sample size here is too small to prove anything, of course, but I think the evidence is rather suggestive.