The key is the public recognizing its in their best interest to be educated, organized and informed. To make it difficult for them to be scammed, cheated or thrown under a bus by representatives.

There is no substitute for this, whether it be systemic or design oriented in nature.

People have been persuaded into believing they can built everything within a so easy a caveman can do it sandbox. So that we no longer need to know basic fundamentals or make good decisions. The software and design will make good decisions for us. Its an offshoot of warning labels needing to be on everything. People apparently do not like thinking about things, and apparently do not like learning. We try to build systems which omit thinking and learning but there isn't much indication that this can yield positive results over the long term imo.