Mounk outlines a worrying trend in this talk, one which has seen populations in many countries losing their investment in democracy.

I think there is much to the idea that people in many developed Western countries have had decent government for so long, they don't really need to think about it. They just assume that there are good roads, schools, hospitals and the thousand other services governments provide.  All the positives that the government does for them, they see as the sort of background of the world, not understanding how historically unique and frankly amazing these societies are.

As a creeping consumerist individualism, pushed by marketers and capitalists, has overtaken the psychology of many people in wealthy countries, instead of being amazed at all the collective good governments do, they instead ask, "what are they doing for me?". Studies have repeatedly shown how people are becoming more selfish and consumerist as each decade passes. Given that they consume media owned by corporations and governments, often overly in thrall to those corporations, there isn't really anywhere else for people to experience a different worldview.

This is all incredibly worrying.  Just as we were making progress, we have loaded the gun and taken aim at our foot. This talk discusses some of this, and is very much worth a listen.