> Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way. civic duty should be emphasized in school more. It's not a 10 second exercise ev

> Democracy would be a lot better off if we thought about voting the same way. civic duty should be emphasized in school more. It's not a 10 second exercise every 4 years. It's something to be vigilant about indefinitely, and forever. Any change to laws, or any votes, require scrutiny, rational thought on the choices, and personal maximization. Unfortunately, people are too lazy, or too dumb, to do this, and choose to listen to someone else's recommendation on votes. So democracy represents somewhat of an averaged choice of the population. As the population becomes dumber due to lack of good education or cadence, their choices become increasingly worse. Authoritarian regimes don't have this problem. The average person in one don't get to make many, if any, choices. The elites make them all - and if the elites are more altruistic, the country generally do better than average.