Who are your favourite 20th century leaders?

[Tooting Carmen]

I shall start off:

Clement Attlee - the father of British social democracy.


Mikhail Gorbachev - brought Communism to a relatively peaceful end.


FW De Klerk - brought Apartheid to a relatively peaceful end.


N.B. While very different in many ways of course, Communism and Apartheid share some important similarities: both are totalitarian modes of thinking which negate human agency and individuality, which instead impose collective identities on people and where, moreover, one group is deemed to be the saved (the Proletariat, White people) and another is deemed to be the damned (the Bourgeoisie, Black people).

[Tooting Carmen]

Perhaps another one IMO would be Jose Figueres, the man who in 1949 abolished Costa Rica's army, gave women and Black people the vote and instigated certain social democratic reforms.

[JamesBond007]

I shall start off:

Clement Attlee - the father of British social democracy.


Mikhail Gorbachev - brought Communism to a relatively peaceful end.


FW De Klerk - brought Apartheid to a relatively peaceful end.


N.B. While very different in many ways of course, Communism and Apartheid share some important similarities: both are totalitarian modes of thinking which negate human agency and individuality, which instead impose collective identities on people and where, moreover, one group is deemed to be the saved (the Proletariat, White people) and another is deemed to be the damned (the Bourgeoisie, Black people).

It is funny you single out Communism etc... as a failed totalitarian ideology when in reality unless democracy radically reinvents itself -- digital dictatorships are the future -- democracy will probably not survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Totalitarian regimes failed in the past because democracies were better at processing information but this will no longer be the case with AI and big data.

Before you retool up for a repeat of 1938 : digital dictatorships will not simply copy Hitler and Stalin but will likely hit you from an entirely new direction.

[JamesBond007]

I shall start off:

Clement Attlee - the father of British social democracy.

RIP Atlee and Democracy: say hello to digital dictatorships by 2050.

[Götterfunke]

[Cristiano viejo]

Franco and Hitler.

[Tooting Carmen]

It is funny you single out Communism etc... as a failed totalitarian ideology when in reality unless democracy radically reinvents itself -- digital dictatorships are the future -- democracy will probably not survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Totalitarian regimes failed in the past because democracies were better at processing information but this will no longer be the case with AI and big data.

Before you retool up for a repeat of 1938 : digital dictatorships will not simply copy Hitler and Stalin but will likely hit you from an entirely new direction.

Totalitarian regimes failed in the past due to lacking popular support and legitimacy. No matter how powerful they may seem, governments can only go so far in relying upon terror and violence to sustain themselves.

[The Blade]

Communism in the ex-USSR territories hasn't ended at all.
To answer the question: Boris Klemens Robert Maria Pius Ludwig Stanislaus Xaver (Boris III of Bulgaria), Alexander Cankov, Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini.

[Tooting Carmen]

Communism in the ex-USSR territories hasn't ended at all.

What do you mean?

[The Blade]

What do you mean?

That this is barely a democracy, much worse even than that Balkan countries have (only Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania make an exception of what I said).