reasons for optimism #1: autocracy is becoming harder and harder to sustain

This is hopefully the first post in a series (not all in a row), alternating reasons for being optimistic about the next couple decades with reasons for being pessimistic/scared/paranoid...
The very same technology that has enabled and will continue to enable improvements in governments' ability to track us in various ways will finally prevent autocracies from functioning - if we let it. But that is neither controversial nor difficult. What is required is not only the technological tools, but knowledge both of their existence and of how to use them. Essentially, the only way for repressive regimes to survive is to somehow convince their citizens that knowledge, particularly about the world outside their country, is a Bad Thing, that ignorance is bliss. But a strange thing happens when you forbid learning—it happens anyway. Human beings have an innate thirst for knowledge that no dictator can stop. Instead, they're forced to micromanage every parcel of knowledge that flows in their country, a feat that has eluded even the most resourceful despots.
The first step towards democratic revolution is usually capitalism. A free market is incompatible with autocratic rule, and empowers individual citizens through economic improvement. Unfortunately, what much of the world has done over the past few decades to "put pressure on" rogue states has been in the form of "sanctions". These are rules designed to hurt the states' economies in the hope that their government would collapse. These policies have never worked - every single democratic revolution has been from the bottom up and due to the people realizing that a better life is possible, not due to a top-down collapse of the government. With these sanctions, we intend to end the lavish lifestyles of regime officials and party members. Instead, the regime simply transfers the costs to their people—causing a decrease in the standard of living of millions of the world's poorest people and giving the regime itself additional justification and propaganda. These sanctions also prevent the very economic development that is one of the only ways to a democratic revolution.
But enough with the pessimism, it turns out that, even with sanctions, technology is already beginning to make a difference. You can bet that Iranian officials will never rig an election again—or if they do, a revolution will be nigh. China may have to back down on its decree that web filtering software must come bundled with every new computer—or if they don't, the easily-hackable Green Dam software itself may very well become a tool of freedom and not repression.