Nice debate.
1) I liked Tab's approach from the process/game theory angle; I think it's the perfect subject to illustrate the concept of efficient & brittle systems vs. inefficient & robust ones. And as economies become larger and more complex, having a one-man bottleneck pushes things more into the disastrously-brittle system end of things.
2) I don't agree that violence is a past-tense response to dictatorship; dictators rely on popular support/consent today. The differences between Egypt and Syria are not in the technological sophistication of the weapons available to the government, but in the willingness of the leadership to continue to kill its own people, the strength of conservative support, the politics of neighbouring countries and covert or overt international pressures and incentives, that sort of thing. All of which are good old-fashioned political considerations going right back to the dawn of States.
3) What is different now is the knowledge and effectiveness of psychological conditioning techniques. Although democracies are as free to use them as dictatorships, as long as they're clever about them.
4) I'm not sure how dictatorships have as much freedom and liberty as democracies, unless the implicit message is that there is no real choice in democracies. Most dictatorships are considerably tetchier about border controls, and you at least lose the freedom to vote.
5) Overall, I found Stoic's arguments to be less focussed. There was often an air of "well, dictatorships aren't always
worse than democracies", which isn't so much a merit as a lack of demerit. And many of Tab's points went unaddressed - possibly due to time constraints. Tab writes a lot
As an example - dictatorships may fall and are replaced faster, but the point had already been made that democracies ensure a pool of people who are familiar with institutional government, which would be lacking in a replacement for a dictatorship.
6) Both sides had spiffy pictures.
On balance, my vote: Tab.
