some shit someone else said, democracy is bad

Democracy is great! Democracy is not made of elections. Elections (not voting. Elections. Though majority fptp elections are pretty undemocratic) are anti Democratic. Democracy can only happen when people are involved. Like actually involved. If you want more than holes; read the damn book I recommended. It goes over this at book length.

you need that guy to sign off on resources

See, that can be a thing that happens, because that's how people know how to do things; the familiar form they defaukt to even if they know it sucks. But also, I feel like its often a legal requirement in the strictly hierarchalist systems we inhabit. Move to something that cares less about laws, and you'll see less of that.

big horizontal organization

They tend to be pretty secretive, because when they're not the cops murder them or arrest them for terrorism. See: 'food not bombs'. Show me a big hierarchal organization that isn't a recursive circle jerk shit show completely alienated from its original stated purpose used to pump up the egos and bank accounts of a fistful of kleptocrats who have barely any idea what the fuck their organization was supposed to be actually doing in the first place.

nobody is in control

That's kind of my point. When you try to get all the information through a few choke points (which individuals become) you have to reduce it massively until its useless, you have to reduce the considerations that go into decisions until they're barely (or just not) better than random, made entirely for reasons of the decision system and not at all for reasons to do with facts on the ground. The power they weild ceases to be a power to help; in that structure it literally can't be-every form of action besides violence requires at least some understanding, and the bandwidth just isnt there, and even if it was the data has been compressed and attenuated to nonsense by the time it gets to the big man. But its still power, and its still there, and it inevitably maps to the interests of the people who believe they should be in control, which means flattening the territory to match the map, which means culling the (human) outliers. So you cede all your autonomy to a hierarchy, which then loses the power to help you, and uses everything you gave it to have some white supremacist covered in military surplus shit kick down your door, shoot your dog, and lock you in a cage for feeding hungry people. They're not actually in control, its a fantasy built on a mountain off terrorism, but it exists.

a circlejerk

Some of it is. But the scientific stuff is interesting, studies communication and decision making. People talking about this stuff without a knowledge of that, or a broad knowledge of history and political theory, come off as ignorant as fuck. If you haven't studied human coordination, even casually, why spout off about your opinions?

casual bribery isn't a thing in long established democracies

So... Gimme an example of what you mean by 'long established' because I'm under the united states right now, and, uh...

open corruption is bad for re election

Okay so youre just imagining a fantasy world based on 'should', and there's no danger of you ever actually looking outside without a blindfold.