[russell_h]

Not completely sure why you think they didn't realize that. As a counter-point, Thomas Jefferson once wrote:

And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

[mindslight]

So they realized it, yet didn't attempt to design for it.

His handwavey mechanism fails to the same complexity-induced irrelevance. People violently revolt only when they are hungry, not when they are merely unfree.

[xaqfox]

I believe that history provides many counter-examples to your claim. The American Revolution was not a peaceful coming of terms with Britain. The US Civil War was due to more than just the South being hangry.

[mindslight]

You're right, and what comes to mind is that in both examples business interests stood to significantly benefit from each upheaval. Perhaps what makes USG so resistent against ideological competition is that it openly courts business competition - it took a pretty short time for "web" to get a seat at the table with finance and entertainment. Business revolutionaries are better off subscribing to the existing power structure rather than needing to foment revolution to thrive.