> It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country.
Isn't this obviously visible in the structure of the democracies?
How do politicians get selected? By votes from people. The more people like one (politician, party), the more they vote for them. Given that saying/doing the right thing is likely to offend at least some groups of people, it will always be the case that political groups trying to be popular will be selected by the system in favour of the ones trying to get things right. It's deep in the structure of this process; our democracies optimize for short-term popularity contests, not making the right calls that benefit the nation most.
Isn't this obviously visible in the structure of the democracies?
How do politicians get selected? By votes from people. The more people like one (politician, party), the more they vote for them. Given that saying/doing the right thing is likely to offend at least some groups of people, it will always be the case that political groups trying to be popular will be selected by the system in favour of the ones trying to get things right. It's deep in the structure of this process; our democracies optimize for short-term popularity contests, not making the right calls that benefit the nation most.