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I haven't been blown away by democracy's ability to build competent governments, and the self-selection biases are terrible. Hard to see how chance could be much worse.

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"Democracy" (really small r republican government) is not designed so much to "build competent governments" but to solve nastier issues like the succession problem, the willingness of a current official to step down and allow his successor to replace him. You don't have to read very much history to see why solving this is critical.

I just don't see a coin toss conferring anywhere near the level of legitimacy needed for successions.

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