In my working life I designed computer software and hardware systems for large enterprises. I worked as a part of team, but most of the time I was the team leader. In order to design a new system for an enterprise we had to understand what it did and how it did it, so we had a data collection step. We interviewed employees, asked the managers of the enterprises to tell us what they wanted the new system to accomplish. Everyone in the enterprise quickly understood that some people would be adversely affected by the new system. Some of them began to resist the design effort by giving us false information about the operational procedures and policies of the enterprise. It was a real problem. We had to quickly determine who could be trusted.

I develop, over time, two lists of behaviors. One was for those people whom we could trust and the other was for those whom could not be trusted. As I refined the list I learned that very often I could be correct to assume that a person who exhibited some behavior would be expected to exhibit a range of similar behaviors. I pretty much settled the lists in 1969, and I have used it ever since. It works, for me at least. I developed names for the people who fell into one category or the other. There are tyranni, who naturally work against the common good, and democrati, naturally work for it. Over time I observed that these lists worked in other places, even on Internet blogs, but even better on national political leaders.

But I observed that the two kinds of personalities, the two varieties of our species, have a predictable, and repeatable, relationship. I call it the Cycle of History.

• Tyranni naturally, aggressively push forward to take power.
• Democrati naturally, timidly step back to let them pass.
• Tyranni naturally use that power to indulge their selfish urges.
• Innocents (tyranni and democrati alike) suffer and die unnecessarily.
• A great commotion occurs—from elections to wars.
• Tyranni-outs seize power from tyranni-ins.
• Democrati, who make up the majority of our population, continue to suffer, but under new tyranno-rulers.
• And the cycle renews.

Scary, ain’t it?