this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
521 points (99.1% liked)
Political Memes
12357 readers
1791 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"But surely this time it will be different"
At some point, pervasive surveillance alongside an army of AI-controlled bots and drones with unquestioning mechanical loyalty might actually make it different.
That's one possibility of the near future that really scares me: it might become practically impossible to have a revolution anymore. Of course, the tyrant can't depend entirely on the AI bots, but they could easily be enough to tip the balance in the tyrant's favor -- revolutions are already a dicey business, before introducing that factor. Historically, revolutions have succeeded because while the revolutionaries might not be as well trained or as well equipped, they have the numbers, and they might be able to get some of the tyrant's own forces to turn against him. But in an age of AI surveillance along with plentiful, cheap, and deadly robots, that may change. The robots could outnumber revolutionaries, and they could be immune to being turned against the tyrant.