Watched a recent talk by famed Sci-Fi author and astrophysicist @davidbrin, in which he describes the core feature of democracy as "reciprocal delusion penetration".

The essence: if you have a social system in which having to confront one's intellectual mistakes is valued more than in other systems, that system will eventually outcompete the others. For that to work, you need a reasonably equal playing field, rule of law etc.

That's a really interesting insight.

youtube.com/watch?v=1J6uGeFEVx