> Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution. after increasing the number of states by 5x.

FTFY.

And regarding "how on earth people still think":

See also: https://ml4a.github.io/ml4a/how_neural_networks_are_trained/

> Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient.

The entire structure of the systems seems rather convenient. And archaic. And...some other things.

Nothing strategically planted heuristics can't paper over though!

> In general the US population gets most things right over time.

I suspect knowing this would require access to a counterfactual reality machine. No such machine is required to believe it though!

> Nearly all our problems can be fixed by more democracy and giving the people a greater influence.

Perhaps, but maybe only for very specific definitions of "nearly", "can", "fixed", "democracy", "giving", and "influence". People tend to have strong aversions to complexity/accuracy though, so maybe best avoid such styles of thinking - leave that up to The Experts, and of course, Democracy (our most sacred institution)!

I'm sure it will all work out in the end.