You all know which one I would choose lol.

If the authoritarian ruler is at least benevolent, he'll at least ensure that the government will be good following his death, whether this means some form of republic or democracy is formed, or if he trains and chooses a successor.

Anarchy is scary. No security. What happens if your neighbor gets hungry and they know you have food?
Not that I couldn't survive, or even do well, but.... I'd not want to be in such a "society"

that sounds very big brotherly of you LOL

What do you mean "LOL"? Big brother is no joke

Are we even allowed to use his face? LOL

But all at takes is 1 bad ruler and the whole society is arguably worse than anarchy.

I'd like to bring up the book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. The leaders do seem to act benevolently, and people are free and encouraged to have sex with many people for pleasure and to take a government issued happiness drug with no hangover/comedown when they feel down. The downside is that the government has cradle to grave control over people's lives, determining people's job and designing their mind and bodies to be fit for and happiest in that job, even limiting physical laborers mental ability to keep them content in their jobs.

Honest question, not rhetorical: would you prefer living in that society if you were in the upper class of thinkers and/or lower class of labourers (who are always happy still), where the government is guaranteed to be committing a certain number of moral tragedies, over a world where you won't always be happy and you are in more danger, but you are free to worship God or whatever you believe in, and possibly more or less moral tragedies occur, but they are not planned as in BNW?

Let me know if that doesn't make sense because it's a long sentence (but grammatically correct {I believe})

I am not going to judge you based on your answer, I'd just like to understand your thought process a bit better

I guess it depends on what you mean by benevolent. I wouldn't look at a system like that as benevolent, and in that case I probably would prefer anarchy.

Anarchy. live life how you want, maybe form small societies with their own internal government, pretty much a "The Walking Dead" kinda scenario, minus the undead of course. or hell, throw em in, make it more of a challenge.

"oh, and maybe some communism too. couldn't hurt"- every communist leader ever

If we all lived in harmony, I'd say both.

Would the government be corrupt?

Not in the case of this thought experiment, but in any real world government yeah

And another question i have is this: what region of the world was it in? For example, in the Pacific northwest I might choose anarchy because you can just run off to the woods and survive there

It's up to you. Maybe worldwide?

What region of the world would I be in then?

Definitely anarchy then. Better to live in the woods than to live in china

Okay

The first one, because if the ruler is benevolent, then they would be taking steps to dismantle such a government

Hmm, interesting take

Don't worry people
I have a third and better option
Dead

even if they start out benevolent, they will surely go entirely corrupt, and then what? they control effectively everything, there’s nothing to do.

total anarchy.

I'd say the same thing

in humans, any amount of power will drive them mad, let alone full control of an entire country.

I agree. What about in an unrealistic hypothetical where the leader is benevolent, though?

that’s tougher now. in that case, my mind goes to “well that’s just God”. In which case, as a Christian, I’d have to say authoritarianism.

Hmm, fair point

I think God may have been faced with this crossroads...and He gave us free will...so I'll take the freedom please. You may have inadvertently stumbled on a real philosophical dilemma here for a lot of people.

It wasnt an accident lol. I agree with you btw