I've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, mainly from Joe Rogan (think what you want of him [I don't know your opinion of him at all, but some dislike him] but he has awesome guests sometimes!) and many understand that democracy is a system doomed to failure in what we know of it as democracy. It's nice on paper but when it's practiced in the way we know it through voting systems that are gameable, it leads to some pretty unfortunate results. I will have to dig out which ones make good arguments for it but one I think that comes to mind first is John Anthony West.
Taking it further will be a great step but one that we have to take on our own such as the Zomia situations. I will have to educate myself on Zomia as well!