Human nature
Whenever I feel optimistic about human nature, I seem to make the mistake of reading more history:
Mao was also frequently compared to China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars—and liked the comparison. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said he had far outdone Qin Shi Huang in his policy against intellectuals: “He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive…You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.”
— Wikipedia, Mao Zedong
A few thousand years ago, if a violent sociopath wanted to foist their ideals on a group, their reach was limited by their relatively small sphere of influence… there simply weren’t a lot of people around. But now, we’ve vaulted into a world where mass communication, tremendous population density, and modern weaponry mean that the consequences of one sociopath can be literally unimaginable. I mean, Mao killed 40-70 million people with his policies, while introducing a system of government where critique of his actions is forbidden to this day. Thus, there is a mismatch between technology and human nature. Outside, our lives are girded by sleek modernity, but inside we remain barbarians.