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wredcoll • today at 5:08 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

The most commonly repeated pattern across literally all of human history is that power grows.

Being the chief executive in a system like brazil's results in a lot of power, for several perfectly good reasons, but it does mean you have to build in safe guards against that power growing.

Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.


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anonymous908213 • today at 5:29 AM

> Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.

Term limits are not a solution either, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate. Clearly there is a need to check power, but perhaps the mechanisms that check power should not also ensure you will never have a truly excellent leader && increase instability from flipflopping policies && give more opportunities for people who will abuse power to take office and ignore the term limits because that's what people who abuse power do. A term limit is only effective against a mildly bad candidate who is not truly willing to abuse their power, because if they are willing to abuse their power they can just ignore it. In that way, you've created a system that caps upside but leaves downside uncapped in practice.

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