Regarding the unforgivable rarity of the A-words

I've criticized the MSM repeatedly because I believe that it softens and normalizes concepts of authoritarianism and authoritarian (A-words) people. The MSM misleadingly uses words like conservative or conservatism. As far as I know, no MSM sources consistently uses A-words to describe the GOP, DJT, Project 2025 or the MAGA wealth and power movement. When an A-word is used, it's a rare moment of honest accuracy and candor. Far too rare. 

Slate writes:

On Monday night, while much of the United States was tuned in to the College Football Playoff game, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump released 41 different executive orders and memorandums covering such issues as varied as immigration, energy, gender identity, and even the names of significant geographic features.

In both form and substance, these Day 1 actions leave no doubt that the Trump administration intends to take up the mantle of Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation–led blueprint for building an authoritarian executive branch. Project 2025 is best known for its mammoth 900-page manifesto, which assembled a comprehensive right-wing agenda for nearly every policy issue you can think of.

Receiving less attention, though, was the effort’s promised “180-day playbook” for taking quick action to advance that agenda, beginning on Inauguration Day. Notably, that playbook, which Heritage advertised but never made public, called for aggressive use of executive orders and memorandums soon after inauguration.  

As these Day 1 actions indicate, the unitary executive theory supplies a veneer of academic respectability for the Trump administration’s policy goal of creating an authoritarian president. That has enabled the administration to wield it to justify presidential actions that arguably violate the law as well as to defeat attempts to oversee or hold the president accountable for those actions. Thus, it undergirds the memo’s call for political appointees to find ways to sideline the top career staff in their agencies as well as the order’s plan to make it easier to fire career civil servants and replace them with people willing to put loyalty to the president ahead of their legal duties. (emphases added)

Well there it is ladies 'n germs, a few A-words used by the MSM. Savor it. It will likely soon become rarer, if not completely extinct. Dictators, theocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs, MAGA and their politics really, really hate being referred to by A-words. They call themselves patriots defending democracy, the opposite of what they actually are.

Rut roh!! Chinese AI is upon us

This NYT article got my attention (not paywalled)[1]:

DeepSeek Forces a Global Technology Reckoning

The fast-growing popularity of the Chinese artificial intelligence software hit shares in tech giants like Nvidia, as Silicon Valley worried about what comes next.

Markets are on edge on Monday, as global tech investors face a $1 trillion wipeout. The cause: anxiety that the emergence of powerful — and cheap — Chinese artificial intelligence software could upend the economics of A.I.

Nasdaq futures have plummeted nearly 4 percent. And shares in Nvidia, the chipmaker whose processors help train and run A.I. software, are down 11 percent in premarket trading. Those in Constellation Energy, a utility betting heavily on powering A.I. data centers, are down nearly 13 percent.  

DeepSeek is forcing a reckoning in Silicon Valley. 

The company’s models appear to rival those from OpenAI, Google and Meta, despite the U.S. government’s efforts to limit China’s access to leading-edge A.I. technology. And DeepSeek says it did all this with a fraction of the resources that American competitors use.

Over the weekend, DeepSeek shot to the top of Apple’s App Store charts, rivaling ChatGPT. And DeepSeek is drastically undercutting OpenAI on price. 

Consider that OpenAI and its partners have promised to spend at least $100 billion on their Stargate project, or that Microsoft said it will spend $80 billion, or Meta $65 billion.

China's public investment in AI R&D was estimated to be on the order of a few billion dollars in 2018, but there may be secret Chinese government money involved. Given the hardware, software, and personnel costs, (and here) the development of DeepSeek was estimated at around $5.5 million to $6 million. This figure includes the cost of training the model, which is far less than what U.S. companies like OpenAI spend.

What the frack is going on here? If American capitalism is so damned good and efficient, why is China doing the same thing at what seems to be about 1% the cost of American AI development efforts. The US spends hundreds of billions or trillions, while the Chinese do it for far less. If American capitalism is so damned good and efficient, why is China doing the same thing at what seems to be about 1% or less of the cost of American AI development efforts.  

Maybe China is going to eat our lunch in AI.

I went to DeepSeek and checked it out. Since it is a Chinese company/government, one can expect no privacy. Its privacy policy includes this, along with some other creepy things:

Data Controller: The Service is provided and controlled by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd., and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd., with their registered addresses in China (“we”or “us”). If you have any questions about how we use your personal data, please contact service@deepseek.com(Chat) / api-service@deepseek.com(Platform) or click "Contact us" column on the website.

The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live. We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China.

Where we transfer any personal information out of the country where you live, including for one or more of the purposes as set out in this Policy, we will do so in accordance with the requirements of applicable data protection laws. 

We automatically collect certain information from you when you use the Services, including internet or other network activity information such as your IP address, unique device identifiers, and cookies.

• Technical Information. We collect certain device and network connection information when you access the Service. This information includes your device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language. We also collect service-related, diagnostic, and performance information, including crash reports and performance logs. We automatically assign you a device ID and user ID. Where you log-in from multiple devices, we use information such as your device ID and user ID to identify your activity across devices to give you a seamless log-in experience and for security purposes.

My keystroke patterns and rhythms? WTF is that about? Who is going to stop China from breaking applicable data protection laws? No one. 

I tried to set an account up, but DeepSeek denied me. I wonder if the Chinese government already knows me and decided it doesn't like me. 🥺 

Qs: Is this creepy or what? Is China going to eat our lunch in AI?

Footnote:

1. Another NYT article: How Chinese A.I. Start-Up DeepSeek Is Competing With Silicon Valley Giants -- The company built a cheaper, competitive chatbot with fewer high-end computer chips than U.S. behemoths like Google and OpenAI, showing the limits of chip export control -- DeepSeek’s engineers said they needed only about 2,000 specialized computer chips from the U.S. chipmaker Nvidia, in comparison to the as many as 16,000 chips needed by major American companies. The team behind the system, called DeepSeek-V3, described an even bigger step. In a research paper explaining how they built the technology, DeepSeek’s engineers said they used only a fraction of the highly specialized computer chips that leading AI companies relied on to train their systems. These chips are at the center of a tense technological competition between the United States and China. As the U.S. government works to maintain the country’s lead in the global AI race, it is trying to limit the number of powerful chips, like those made by Silicon Valley firm Nvidia, that can be sold to China and other rivals. But the performance of the DeepSeek model raises questions about the unintended consequences of the American government’s trade restrictions. The controls have forced researchers in China to get creative with a wide range of tools that are freely available on the internet. According to the benchmark tests that American AI companies have been using, DeepSeek answered questions, solved logic problems and wrote its own computer programs as capably as anything already on the market.

Using the constitution to destroy the constitution

A fascinating, detailed article in The Atlantic (Jan. 8, 2025) discusses Hitler's rise to power:

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.

Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.

Hans Frank served as Hitler’s private attorney and chief legal strategist in the early years of the Nazi movement. While later awaiting execution at Nuremberg for his complicity in Nazi atrocities, Frank commented on his client’s uncanny capacity for sensing “the potential weakness inherent in every formal form of law” and then ruthlessly exploiting that weakness. Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—“legality oath”—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement.

“So, through constitutional means?” the presiding judge asked.

“Jawohl!” Hitler replied.

By January 1933, the fallibilities of the Weimar Republic—whose 181-article constitution framed the structures and processes for its 18 federated states—were as obvious as they were abundant. Having spent a decade in opposition politics, Hitler knew firsthand how easily an ambitious political agenda could be scuttled. He had been co-opting or crushing right-wing competitors and paralyzing legislative processes for years, and for the previous eight months, he had played obstructionist politics, helping to bring down three chancellors and twice forcing the president to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections.

When he became chancellor himself, Hitler wanted to prevent others from doing unto him what he had done unto them. Though the vote share of his National Socialist party had been rising—in the election of September 1930, following the 1929 market crash, they had increased their representation in the Reichstag almost ninefold, from 12 delegates to 107, and in the July 1932 elections, they had more than doubled their mandate to 230 seats—they were still far from a majority. Their seats amounted to only 37 percent of the legislative body, and the larger right-wing coalition that the Nazi Party was a part of controlled barely 51 percent of the Reichstag, but Hitler believed that he should exercise absolute power: “37 percent represents 75 percent of 51 percent,” he argued to one American reporter, by which he meant that possessing the relative majority of a simple majority was enough to grant him absolute authority.

He believed that an Ermächtigungsgesetz (“empowering law”) was crucial to his political survival. But passing such a law—which would dismantle the separation of powers, grant Hitler’s executive branch the authority to make laws without parliamentary approval, and allow Hitler to rule by decree, bypassing democratic institutions and the constitution—required the support of a two-thirds majority in the fractious Reichstag.

The process proved to be even more challenging than anticipated. Hitler found his dictatorial intentions getting thwarted within his first six hours as chancellor. At 11:30 that Monday morning, he swore an oath to uphold the constitution, then went across the street to the Hotel Kaiserhof for lunch, then returned to the Reich Chancellery for a group photo of the “Hitler Cabinet,” which was followed by his first formal meeting with his nine ministers at precisely 5 o’clock.

Hitler opened the meeting by boasting that millions of Germans had welcomed his chancellorship with “jubilation,” then outlined his plans for expunging key government officials and filling their positions with loyalists. At this point he turned to his main agenda item: the empowering law that, he argued, would give him the time (four years, according to the stipulations laid out in the draft of the law) and the authority necessary to make good on his campaign promises to revive the economy, reduce unemployment, increase military spending, withdraw from international treaty obligations, purge the country of foreigners he claimed were “poisoning” the blood of the nation, and exact revenge on political opponents. “Heads will roll in the sand,” Hitler had vowed at one rally.  

Hitler had campaigned on the promise of draining the “parliamentarian swamp”—den parlamentarischen Sumpf—only to find himself now foundering in a quagmire of partisan politics and banging up against constitutional guardrails. He responded as he invariably did when confronted with dissenting opinions or inconvenient truths: He ignored them and doubled down.  

As President Hindenburg waited to receive Hitler on that Monday morning in January 1933, Hugenberg clashed with Hitler over the issue of new Reichstag elections. Hugenberg’s position: “Nein! Nein! Nein!” While Hitler and Hugenberg argued in the foyer outside the president’s office, Hindenburg, a military hero of World War I who had served as the German president since 1925, grew impatient. According to Otto Meissner, the president’s chief of staff, had the Hitler-Hugenberg squabble lasted another few minutes, Hindenburg would have left. Had this occurred, the awkward coalition cobbled together by Papen in the previous 48 hours would have collapsed. There would have been no Hitler chancellorship, no Third Reich.

In the event, Hitler was given a paltry two cabinet posts to fill—and none of the most important ones pertaining to the economy, foreign policy, or the military. Hitler chose Wilhelm Frick as minister of the interior and Hermann Göring as minister without portfolio. But with his unerring instinct for detecting the weaknesses in structures and processes, Hitler put his two ministers to work targeting the Weimar Republic’s key democratic pillars: free speech, due process, public referendum, and states’ rights.

The article continues at length with this fascinating story. Does any of that sound at least somewhat familiar? Can you see how fragile a democracy is and how many ways an authoritarian demagogue can attack it? Just another few minutes of squabbling might have averted the Hitler chancellorship, the rise of his Third Reich and World War 2. A seemingly small thing, a short enough squabble, that could not have had predictable consequences.

An upcoming post will be about unpredictable events in the US Revolutionary War that had major consequences for the outcome.

The cognitive biology of morality and authoritarianism

Morality is an aspect of human cognitive biology.[1] A fascinating NYT opinion by David French discusses one of my favorite (but mostly ignored) topics, morality in politics (not paywalled):

“When you worship power, compassion and mercy will look like sins.”

Benjamin Cremer, a Wesleyan pastor and writer who is based in Idaho, posted that thought last year. I saw it last week and immediately forwarded it to some of my close friends with a note that said that this sentence captures our political moment. It helps describe America’s moral divide.

Over the last decade, I’ve watched many of my friends and neighbors make a remarkable transformation. They’ve gone from supporting Donald Trump in spite of his hatefulness to reveling in his aggression.

This isn’t a new observation. In fact, it’s so obvious as to verge on the banal. The far more interesting question is why. How is it that so many Americans seem to have abandoned any commitment to personal virtue — at least in their political lives — and have instead embraced merciless political combat so enthusiastically that they believe you’re immoral if you don’t join their crusade or even if you don’t mimic their methods?

It’s a question with a multifaceted answer. In December, I wrote a column examining the question through a specifically religious lens. When a person believes that he or she possesses eternal truth, there’s a temptation to believe that he or she is entitled to rule.

There’s a difference, however, between yielding to temptation and developing an alternative morality. And what we’ve been witnessing in the last decade is millions of Americans constructing a different moral superstructure. And while it is certainly notable and powerful in Trumpism, it is not exclusive to Trumpism.

A good way to understand this terrible political morality is to read Carl Schmitt, a German political theorist who joined the Nazi Party after Hitler became chancellor. I want to be careful here — I am not arguing that millions of Americans are suddenly Schmittians, acolytes of one of the fascist regime’s favorite political theorists. The vast majority of Americans have no idea who he is. Nor would they accept all of his ideas.

One of his ideas, however, is almost perfectly salient to the moment: his description, in a 1932 book called “The Concept of the Political,” of the “friend-enemy distinction.” The political sphere, according to Schmitt, is distinct from the personal sphere, and it has its own distinct contrasts.

“Let us assume,” Schmitt wrote, “that in the realm of morality the final distinctions are between good and evil, in aesthetics beautiful and ugly, in economics profitable and unprofitable.” Politics, however, has “its own ultimate distinctions.” In that realm, “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

One of liberalism’s deficiencies, according to Schmitt, is a reluctance to draw the friend-enemy distinction. Failing to draw it is a fool’s errand. An enduring political community can exist only when it draws this distinction. It is this contrast with outsiders that creates the community.

Schmitt was being both descriptive and prescriptive here. If the friend-enemy distinction is necessary to the creation and preservation of a political community, then it can be destructive to seek accommodation with your political opponents. This is human nature, and it’s naïve not to yield to our essential character.

Schmitt was partly right. The friend-enemy distinction is an aspect of human nature, and we are constantly tempted to yield to it, to rationalize it and to indulge it. Rather than resist it, we want to find some way to make it right, often simply to preserve our self-conception that we are moral and decent people.

He was also right that the friend-enemy distinction is ultimately incompatible with the liberal democratic project. Pluralism seeks to create a community in which historical enemies can live in peace and flourish side by side. If the friend-enemy distinction is an essential feature of human nature, how can pluralism survive?

No one was more aware than the founders that the American experiment contradicts our base natures. A century before Schmitt was born, they understood that reality intimately.

Our government is constructed with the understanding that, as James Madison famously put it in Federalist No. 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

The Constitution tries to ameliorate the will to power as best it can — as Madison said in the same essay, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition” — but the founders also knew that even our elaborate system of checks and balances is insufficient. To make our system work, virtue is a necessity.

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion,” John Adams wrote in his 1798 Letter to the Massachusetts Militia, “Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.”

Adams’s New England metaphor is perfect (his readers would absolutely know what a whale would do to a net): Pluralism requires both law and ethics to function, and without ethics the law will fail.

We forget how much the founders — for all their faults — were focused not just on the forms of American government, but also on personal virtue. One of my favorite books from last year was “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center.

The book describes how the founders envisioned the pursuit of happiness not as the pursuit of pleasure or wealth, but rather as “the pursuit of virtue — as being good, rather than feeling good.” Benjamin Franklin, for example, listed temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility as indispensable elements of virtue.

You can immediately see the contrast with Schmitt’s friend-enemy politics. Virtue ethics certainly recognizes the existence of enemies, but it still imposes moral obligations on our treatment of our foes. The virtues Franklin listed are not simply the way you love your own political tribe; they are universal moral obligations that apply to our treatment of everyone.

Demonstrate these virtues, and your enemies can live with dignity and freedom even when they lose a political battle. When your enemies show the same virtues, you can still enjoy a good life even when you lose. That’s the social compact of pluralism. In a decent society, no defeat is ultimate defeat, and no victory is ultimate victory. And in all circumstances, your fundamental human rights must be preserved.

Dive too deeply into the friend-enemy distinction, by contrast, and it can become immoral to treat your enemies with kindness if kindness weakens the community in its struggle against a mortal foe. In the world of the friend-enemy distinction, your ultimate virtue is found in your willingness to fight. Your ultimate vice is betraying your side by refusing the call to political war.

The friend-enemy distinction explains why so many Republicans are particularly furious at anti-Trump dissenters — especially when those dissenters hold conservative values. In the friend-enemy distinction, ideology is secondary to loyalty.

You see this principle at work in Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of the Jan. 6 rioters and to revoke secret service protection from one of his former national security advisers, John Bolton, and from one of his former secretarys of state, Mike Pompeo. Friends can get away with violent crimes. Bolton and Pompeo publicly criticized Trump, and now they’re enemies who have to pay the price.

While Trumpists are among the most vicious voices in the public square, merciless aggression is sadly common across the political spectrum, especially at the extremes. I’ve seen far-left activists utterly demonize their opponents. Any deviation from orthodoxy is perceived as evil, and evil must be utterly eradicated.

And there’s no humility in cancel culture — regardless of whether it comes from left or right.

Because our civics depends on our ethics, we should be teaching ethics right alongside civics. Sadly, we’re failing at both tasks, and our baser nature is telling millions of Americans that cruelty is good, if it helps us win, and kindness is evil, if it weakens our cause. That is the path of destruction. As the prophet Isaiah said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

Woe to them, yes, but as friend-enemy politics dominates our discourse, tears our families and communities to shreds and reshapes our national morality, a darker thought crosses my mind.

Woe to us all.

That speaks for itself. We are so terribly broken. Can we self-repair and keep our democracy and its rule of law? I do not know.

Footnote:

1. Morality and cognitive biology:

Q: Is morality an aspect of human cognitive biology?

A: Morality, often considered a cornerstone of human social interaction, has been increasingly recognized as an intrinsic aspect of human cognitive biology. This perspective is supported by a convergence of findings from cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and psychology, which collectively suggest that moral judgment and behavior are deeply rooted in our biological makeup.

The dual-process theory of moral judgment posits that moral decisions involve both intuitive emotional responses and controlled cognitive processes. Utilitarian judgments, which favor the greater good, are associated with cognitive control, while deontological judgments, which prioritize individual rights, are driven by emotional intuition 6 10.

Climate science update

DJT makes up outrageous lies about wind and solar energy all over the place. For example, he claims solar farms are 100 sq mi, but the worlds largest solar farm is 21.9 sq mi. It is in India, not the US. DJT is not only anti-climate science and pro-global warming, he is a lying kleptocratic, autocratic demagogue.

Shutting down the flow of information and “re-educating” federal research funding

KILLING AND WHITEWASHING INCONVENIENT INFORMATION

Chronicling the ongoing authoritarian kleptocrat assault on American democracy and rule of law is getting very interesting. The tactics that past tyrants and other kinds of authoritarians typically use to kill democracy or gain power generally are being applied here and now. One of the normal tactics that authoritarians routinely employ is shutting down as much inconvenient or threatening information as possible. Since DJT now controls the executive branch, he is going to shut off all inconvenient communications to the public. Everything of importance coming out of the executive branch will be vetted and sanitized before release to the public. 

In a recent major authoritarian move, DJT has ordered HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) to temporarily halt most external communications, including public health information and research updates, until at least February 1, 2025 (also reported here). DJT's order affects agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

The pause includes regulations, guidance documents, announcements, press releases, social media posts, website updates, and any public communications not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health. To create an illusion of open communications about critical public matters, all communications essential for public health and safety require review and approval by a presidential appointee before release. That way, DJT can whitewash, deny or downplay serious problems. From here on out, we will be lied to or distracted whenever DJT feels the need to distract or lie to us. Expect a torrent of lies and deceit.

RE-EDUCATING INCONVENIENT RESEARCH

Another anticipated authoritarian move by DJT gets rid of inconvenient federally funded research. This authoritarian goal was made explicit in Project 2025. To start the re-education of science process, DJT has ordered a complete halt of research-grant reviews at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's largest public funder of biomedical research. Funding for travel to research meetings and training of scientists is also blocked. All of this is for an indefinite time. This puts a temporary freeze on ~80% of the NIH's $47-billion budget that funds research across the country and elsewhere.

Project 2025 focuses on ensuring that federally funded research aligns with conservative principles. Funding for research that might generate data not conforming to radical right authoritarian ideologies will be limited or completely cut off. what ideologies? Mostly brass knuckles capitalism, Christian theocracy and dictatorship. 

There is a strong emphasis on scaling back or completely eliminating climate science research. EPA research activities would also be realigned with authoritarian political goals (brass knuckles capitalism and dictatorship[1]). In addition, Project 2025 proposes banning certain words and phrases from government documents, including terms related to diversity, gender (Christian theocracy), and climate change. That would indirectly influence the direction of federally funded research by imposing an ideological framework on policy and programs.

Not surprisingly, scientists are aghast because they have not read Project 2025, or if they did, they didn't take it seriously. Now that the cash flow is stopped, they are taking it damned seriously. Dumb fucks. Did they really think that DJT and Project 2025 were kidding? Idiots. A Nature article comments:

‘Never seen anything like this’: Trump’s team halts NIH meetings and travel

Confusion and anxiety is rippling through the US health-research community this week following Donald Trump taking office as the 47th US president. His administration has abruptly cancelled research-grant reviews, travel and trainings for scientists inside and outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public biomedical funder. Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programs and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site.

Without advisory-committee meetings, the NIH cannot issue research grants, temporarily freezing 80% of the agency’s US$47-billion budget that funds research across the country and beyond.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” says Carole LaBonne, a developmental biologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who has received funding from the agency for more than 20 years. The uncertainty caused by the pause will be “devastating for the scientific community”, particularly for early-career researchers, LaBonne adds.

The pause includes “mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health”, according to an NIH spokesperson. “This is a short pause to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization.”

Once the new team is set for review and prioritization, we can expect a torrent of lies and deceit to flow from the NIH. I bet MAGA yahoos will restart research on eugenics! If nothing else, increased MAGA oversight will ensure ideological conformity in federally funded science, or else YOU’RE FIRED!!

There, DJT has already fixed science. MAGA!!

Footnote (for the wonks):

1. Yes indeed ladies 'n germs, there is a lot of social science research on the ill-effects of dictatorship and kleptocracy on societies. Hold on to your butts, here we go: 

Q: Is there social science research into the effects of dictatorship on societies under dictators or kleptocrats?

A: Yes, there is extensive social science research examining the effects of dictatorships and kleptocracies on societies. 

Political Beliefs and Preferences: Research indicates that exposure to dictatorships during youth can significantly influence individuals' political beliefs and preferences later in life. For instance, studies have shown that past exposure to non-democratic regimes can reduce current satisfaction with democracy, preference for democracy, and confidence in institutions. Individuals exposed to dictatorships tend to lean more towards the left of the political spectrum, suggesting a lasting impact on their political orientation 1.

Economic Policies and Social Mobility: Dictatorships, particularly kleptocracies, often implement highly inefficient economic policies that favor the ruler's personal enrichment over societal welfare. A study on Chile under Pinochet's dictatorship highlighted how the regime's conservative ideology and technocratic approach led to a contraction in higher education, disproportionately affecting less affluent backgrounds. This contraction hindered social mobility, contributing to increased inequality 3.

Repression and Propaganda: Dictatorships use a combination of repression and propaganda to maintain control. Research suggests that repression can make citizens more amenable to propaganda, as it removes the most disloyal elements, allowing for more effective manipulation of the remaining population. This dynamic creates a cycle where repression and propaganda reinforce each other, ensuring the regime's stability 9.

Mental Health: The mental health implications of living under a dictatorship are profound. There's evidence of increased posttraumatic stress disorders due to state violence and repression, leading to intergenerational trauma. Additionally, dictatorships can foster internalized oppression, where individuals believe in their own inferiority and mistrust their own thinking, which can have long-lasting psychological effects 7.

Public Good Provision: Dictatorships can excel at solving specific problems, like health outcomes, through centralized planning and coercion. However, this often comes at the expense of political freedoms. For example, in Cuba and the former Soviet Union, improvements in health outcomes were partly a by-product of the regime's efforts to monitor and repress potential opponents 10.

Kleptocracy and Authoritarianism: The relationship between kleptocracy and authoritarianism is complex. Kleptocrats use their control over state resources for personal enrichment while also cultivating international ties to secure allies and enhance their global reputation. This dual strategy involves both inward-looking control over resources and outward-looking efforts to influence international perceptions 5.

Divide-and-Rule Strategy: Kleptocratic rulers often employ a divide-and-rule strategy to maintain power. By exploiting the collective action problem, they can bribe or punish pivotal groups, ensuring that no effective coalition forms against them. This strategy not only helps in maintaining power but also in implementing highly distortionary economic policies without significant opposition 2.

Authoritarian Attitudinal Effects: There's evidence that authoritarian regimes can produce lasting attitudinal effects, where individuals internalize the regime's ideology. This internalization can lead to a lack of correlation between authoritarian ideology and mass attitudes or even resistance, but in many cases, it aligns with the regime's goals, producing a populace more in line with the dictator's vision 4.

Q2: Does the NIH fund any research like this?

A2: Yes, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) does fund research related to the effects of dictatorship and kleptocracy on societies. 

Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR): The NIH's OBSSR supports research that examines the behavioral and social aspects of health, which can include the impacts of political systems like dictatorships and kleptocracies on health outcomes. While the OBSSR itself does not directly fund research, it coordinates and promotes behavioral and social sciences research across the NIH, which can encompass studies on how political environments influence health behaviors, mental health, and public health outcomes 9.

Health Outcomes under Dictatorships: Research funded by the NIH has explored how dictatorships can influence health outcomes. For instance, studies have shown that dictatorships can improve health outcomes through centralized planning and coercion, but this often comes at the expense of political freedoms. This research highlights the complex relationship between authoritarian governance and health, where improvements in health can be a by-product of efforts to monitor and repress potential opponents 4.

Kleptocracy and Health: While not explicitly mentioned in the search results, the NIH's broad research portfolio includes studies on corruption, governance, and their impacts on health systems, which can be directly related to kleptocracies. The effects of kleptocracy on health can be inferred from research on how corruption undermines public health infrastructure, diverts resources, and affects the quality of healthcare services.

In summary, while the NIH does not have a specific program dedicated solely to the study of dictatorships or kleptocracies, its funding supports research that intersects with these themes, particularly in understanding how political systems influence health outcomes, governance, and societal well-being.