17 October 2026 - grounded in reality

The ultimate purpose of democracy is to keep your government grounded in reality. It works as long as the voters themselves are grounded. Obviously, a demagogue can send people ballooning, but they do come back to earth after a while. It's not as obvious, but big changes in the world can cut the mooring lines of the ship of state, and leave it drifting for a long time. Big changes like AI mean that nobody is sure any more where the land is.