Changi is a stunning example of how beautiful an airport experience can be. I fly through there + Singapore airlines every chance I get. Perhaps a benevolent "dictatorship" can be beneficial.
A single dictator has never really been the problem. You can find dictators that do better than democracies throughout history (especially on long-term planning).
It's the transition of power that's the problem. Like, a real bad problem. Like raze half your country and set you back 50-100 years problem.
What kind of dictator are you talking about? Roman-style, where it could be time limited, or the modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?
The fact that there are terrible dictators does not invalidate the point that there are non-terrible dictators.
I think the GP's point was that even with "good" dictators, the problems come up when succession needs to happen, which is why "dictatorships" don't scale.
Democracy has a built-in mechanism to stop any bad thing from happening in a change of government, while ensuring that change happens often (at least in a good one).
> ...modern version, of which there are many terrible examples before power transition becomes an issue?
This actually reinforces my point. I never denied the existence of bad dictators (or even that the majority of dictators are bad, I think that's quite likely). This would make the power transition for a country that happened to get a good one significantly more dangerous.
Roman dictators weren't like modern autocrats. They were officials, appointed for a limited time (usually no more than 6 months) to address some specific emergency. They weren't crooks who staged coups. And it doesn't seem to have been a desirable appointment to hold; dictators often stood down before the time-limit.
I mean your technically correct that dictators were supposed to give up thier absolute power and indeed some did. But there is definitely a reason the term has adopted it current meaning.
