High tech societies

It has occurred to me that in a high tech society, there must be a large population of people that use their own good sense to make significant decisions.

For example, the way that my job works is that people come to me & say something to the effect of "We have this vague idea of something that needs to be done. Go do it." My task then, is to make something sensible of that vague idea & then implement what I come up with.

This general pattern is the norm for most of the people that I know. It isn't, of course, the way that everyone's job works, but my kind of job is essential to keeping the technology running. [My particular job is actually about making new technology, but new technology is required for wealth creation.]

The point here is that a high tech society requires a large supply of people who have almost complete freedom to do anything sensible in their jobs. In short, it trains people to think and act for themselves.

An authoritarian (much less totalitarian) government requires people to follow instructions, to do as the government decrees. This is incompatible with having people make decisions for themselves.

It follows that a society with a large amount of advanced technology is incompatible with an authoritarian regime. As people learn the habit of thinking for themselves in their jobs, they are likely to continue that behaviour to the rest of their lives and in particular, start to have independent thoughts about the way the government organizes their society. These people have de-facto power, since they keep the technology working -- they keep the lights on & the economy running. Sooner or later, there will be change. It may be peaceful, but it is more likely to be violent, a la the French Revolution.