Hand-waving things away with your absolutist statement is what truly seems naive. IMO there is far more nuance than you suggest.
Democracy seems to work well for some types of problems but not others. What happens to democracies when faced with threats that manifest over very short timescales? They aren't nimble enough to respond in time. This is most evident in larger democracies; look at US/India responses to COVID. Countries like Taiwan are democratic and still succeeded, but they are small and they utilized methods that would be characterized as authoritarian here in the US.
What about problems where the consequences of decisions have a large time-lag? There is no incentive for democratic policymakers to address them. Global warming is the obvious example.
I question whether democracies can handle these kinds of
issues. More worryingly, I think that as humanity's capabilities continue to increase, these kinds of problems are going to be more and more frequent.
Democracy seems to work well for some types of problems but not others. What happens to democracies when faced with threats that manifest over very short timescales? They aren't nimble enough to respond in time. This is most evident in larger democracies; look at US/India responses to COVID. Countries like Taiwan are democratic and still succeeded, but they are small and they utilized methods that would be characterized as authoritarian here in the US.
What about problems where the consequences of decisions have a large time-lag? There is no incentive for democratic policymakers to address them. Global warming is the obvious example.
I question whether democracies can handle these kinds of issues. More worryingly, I think that as humanity's capabilities continue to increase, these kinds of problems are going to be more and more frequent.