The tyrannical government

The centralized media reinforces and enhances the results achieved through education by creating a convenient reality. 

And the apparatus of brute force spreads fear into the population to neutralize any potential threat to the system.

The most suitable organizational structure

It is crucial to understand the importance of the centralized and hierarchical character of the tyrannical regime organization. This is the most suitable structure for a small group to exert its coercion over a large population. The power is centralized, only individuals belonging to the ruling clan are sovereign. They use support social structures, key institutions of control, managed by the controlling class.  In most tyrannical societies the controlling class is maintained by making these individuals feel privileged. This is achieved by creating a large gap in living conditions between them and the oppressed. Furthermore, these controlling organizations rely mostly on individuals belonging to the oppressed class, which comply with the system because they have been indoctrinated and/or trapped within a web of basic necessities. In other words, the coercive will and actions originating from the top, from the ruling sovereign clan, is ultimately carried out by members of the oppressed class. The power of a tyrannical government depends largely on the compliance of its oppressed. 

The new technology

Tyrannical governments are constantly trying to improve their situation, and they are exploring the potential of the new emerging technology. However, it is important to understand that the way they look at it is profoundly affected by their condition. They are materially obliged to adopt a hierarchical form of organization, and this fundamental constraint creates in turn the paradigm which governs their vision and their interpretation for the new technology. Consequently, the solutions proposed so far, in general, are not generative. They don't posses the multiplication property by which their effect grows exponentially, simply because potential must be contained within a hierarchical structure of power. Overall, governments are interested in rapid and accurate access to personal information, analysis of personal information on a large scale to extract trends and patterns, increased control over individual potential and material possibilities of success, increased communication and coordination capabilities between all instruments of power, better forecasting and planning, increased efficiency in controlling masses by force, etc. Some of these tools are becoming very effective but increasingly vulnerable, because of their centralization. 

We are under increased surveillance, we are categorized and labeled. A massive amount of information about us is being  gathered and analyzed. In reality though, most of this intelligence is NOT actionable. The spectrum of actions against the entire population is reduced for political reasons, there is a threshold of pressure above which society starts to brake down, reducing the ability of those in power to project power. Moreover, the amount of available resources are always limited, and insufficient to oppose a well informed and well coordinated multitude.      

The future will be determined by the race between the tyrants and the multitude, by how much potential each side can actualize from the new technology. My bet is on the multitude. 

More on power

Political power is not pure power. It has never been. Politics is only the locus where those who have power negotiate and make decisions. But who has power then, where is the power coming from? Power and dependency are interrelated. One has real power on others if the others depend on him. This dependency can be natural or forced. Some knowledge that help others to survive conveys power to the individual that possesses this knowledge. The others will be naturally drown towards this knowledgeable person, they will naturally invest this person with power. In other cases, one individual succeeds in organizing a small group able to project physical power on a community, to enslave the population. This is forced power. Modern systems have evolve to be even more complex. Power is created and maintained by carefully engineering a system with built-in dependencies. Another proper characteristic of these new systems of power is that obedience becomes voluntary, internalized, incarnated, injected through education and couture, and enforced by a powerful system of incentives.