Every society reaches the moment when it must choose between enforcing standards or enduring collapse. We are approaching that crossroads with remarkable enthusiasm and almost no self-awareness. Reality does not negotiate, history does not care, and consequence has an impeccable record of eventually collecting every unpaid debt.
Idiots are not an anomaly within civilization. They are one of its products. Every successful society eventually creates enough comfort to shield people from consequences, and once consequences disappear, incompetence begins to breed unchecked. The danger is not that idiots exist. The danger is that prosperity allows them to rise, multiply, and institutionalize themselves before reality finally returns.
Civilizations rarely collapse because solutions are unavailable. They collapse because comfort becomes more important than truth, victimhood becomes social currency, and politics devolves into emotional management for populations addicted to reassurance. The mob still wants bread and circus. Only the circus became digital, the bread debt-financed, and the emperors replaced by influencers and consultants.