“Suck less” isn’t a good option, since the people will disagree dramatically on just what, exactly, that means and how to accomplish it.

However, the system will produce the candidates that the incentives within the system make possible, so it seems to me that a new system, something beyond liberal democracy, that hasn’t been invented yet, is necessary for something lasting and good.

Even in my damaged state, cruising with multiple engines non-functional, I’ve been pondering a system in which the legislature is replaced with think tanks that voters delegate their votes to across multiple categories, funded by public funding according to their votes and percentile standing in a prediction market based on the outcomes of the legislation.  (Edit: After all, we can conceive of political policy having two axes - values and effectiveness - and many policies that suck have okay values but are ineffective.)

But the question then becomes, who prevents the prediction market and the state’s instruments of measure for outcomes from being sabotaged by political operators, who notoriously don’t care for empiricism?