I have been positing for some time that there is a fatal flaw in democracy, that being: it empowers ignorance as much as knowledge so that, over time, the system dumbs down until it can no longer solve the increasingly complex problems it faces. This was entirely too simple. It fails to take into account the fact that man, individually or collectively, can never know less. So, it is not a simple dumbing down but a divergence of "curves".
My original graph was similar to a supply and demand graph. Time on the horizontal axis. Knowledge on the vertical. Top curve heading down was the available knowledge to be applied to a problem, bottom line curving up, indicating the amount of knowledge required to solve increasingly complex problems. They eventually intersect, with dire consequences as problems go unsolved.
So, there is a third curve. At the top of the chart is Amount of Knowledge curve, ever upwards. Just below that, and following it closely for some time, is the curve of knowledge applied to solving problems. At some point that curve diverges from the Amount of Knowledge curve and begins to drop, until it intersects with the rising required knowledge curve, where dire things begin to happen.So, what causes this divergence? It has to do with the numbers of citizens who are actually engaged with the system. Knowledge is collective. No one person, no one group of people, particularly from similar backgrounds, with similar skill sets, has all the knowledge needed to solve problems. As government is taken over by business executives, the very wealthy, the amount of available knowldge drops. Not that business executives are stupid people, they aren't. But, it is unlikely that an oil company CEO is a climatologist, or a biologist, or even a chemist. This divergence may result in a level line of knowledge brought to bear, but I fear it is a downward curve. It is this downward curve that had me fooled. Mankind does not dumb down, though the system does. Those with knowledge, rebuffed by what poses as leadership drop out of the system. Those who lack knowledge, probably by design of "leadership" are easily duped into remaining engaged though not functional in the system, further dumbing the system down.