[donbright]

democracy dies because people couldn't be bothered with the "mundane technical details".

its like this is a flaw of intelligent civilization that Carl Sagan didn't think about. it's not global nuclear warfare, it's not climate change, it's not some mad virus...

it's that the species becomes disinterested in performing maintenance because maintenance tasks don't produce a dopamine rush. the civilization becomes too incompetent to perform even the most basic upkeep on the structures they set in place - whether physical like roads and bridges, or social-political, like election systems.

nobody becomes famous or wealthy for performing upkeep.