[jfengel]

A key difference was the lack of democracy. There was plenty of misinformation, but it didn't channel quite so directly to the levers of power.

That wasn't necessarily better. We put democracy in place for a reason. But there has been a shift in the societal basis that underlies democracy, and we'll be forced to come up with another set of solutions.

[mistermann]

It's weird how people can recognize early versions of manmade things are usually primitive and need numerous iterations to get working at acceptable levels of optimality but when it comes to democracy there's some sort of a magical force hiding it from sight in this regard.