[you] can most optimistically assume normal distribution of these traits in people in power
This is not maximally optimistic! We can hope we could come up with a system that (a) empowers unselfish people over selfish people and (b) protects the system itself against interference from the powerful. This is a difficult thing to achieve, and many have arguably failed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to do.
Centralized systems inherently offer more affordances of seizing power to selfish ends.
I think this is kind of unclear. If you do not deliberately engineer a government to manage the distribution of power, instead you will get an unmanaged distribution of power, which in particular will not obviously be well-placed to prevent an individual accumulating and then seizing power for themselves.
But even if true, I think I would still be in favour of central government because centralized systems inherently offer so many other things, which together are IMO worth it.
This is not maximally optimistic! We can hope we could come up with a system that (a) empowers unselfish people over selfish people and (b) protects the system itself against interference from the powerful. This is a difficult thing to achieve, and many have arguably failed, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to do.
I think this is kind of unclear. If you do not deliberately engineer a government to manage the distribution of power, instead you will get an unmanaged distribution of power, which in particular will not obviously be well-placed to prevent an individual accumulating and then seizing power for themselves.
But even if true, I think I would still be in favour of central government because centralized systems inherently offer so many other things, which together are IMO worth it.