Yes, it's in my opinion one of the great tragedies of our time that some of our established countries are so hard to change. I don't mean this as the policy needs change, everyone will differ on those. I just mean the technology of government like you're saying. Efficient and more fair ways of voting on laws and electing representatives do exist.

For example my own (US) has a political system basically frozen in amber from a time before many of the political and policy challenges of our day were not even thought of yet. And they did their best to create a change mechanism, but I think anyone being truly fair of any political persuasion has to admit that while it has prevented nearly every harmful extremist constitutional amendment (I'd say Prohibition is the main one that sneaked in), it has proven to, within the lifetimes of most living Americans, be so hard to attain as to set the status quo in stone.

The framers didn't realize that most changes would be blocked by at least one party, out of fear that it would advantage the other guys. Same reason we stopped admitting states before letting Puerto Rico in, an absolutely absurd situation.

Do you not understand why PR isn't a state? Seems like you don't. Support for PR statehood is only about 50% (on the island). That largely has to do with the fact that their taxes would increase if they became a state. Additionally, they would have to switch to English (along with Spanish) which makes things a lot more complicated. They are already US citizens and can move to anywhere in the US if they want to vote in federal elections (and half of them do but mainly for work). They don't want independence either. So the current limbo state is actually desirable to them.

Even if the citizens of PR wanted statehood, you have to get both parties to agree. This means probably 2 states at the same time (one red, one blue). Since there isn't another potentially red state (Alberta but that's probably never going to happen) to join, that's hard to do. Look at US history, statehood has always worked this way. It has nothing to do with whatever you are implying.

PS The 27th amendment was 1992, probably during your lifetime. You would expect the rate of new amendments to slow overtime so the average of a new amendment about every 15-20 years seems about right.

New and shiny is not always better. Science has spoiled us in the last century, but it has little to say about how a good government should operate.

Many of us have a popular set of ideals that we think are superior and have attempted to overlay those on every aspect of modern life, but they have little to no data behind them and are ultimately just beliefs that make us feel good. As such, there is no reason to expect they are optimal for governing either.

> "The framers didn't realize that most changes would be blocked by at least one party, out of fear that it would advantage the other guys."

Check out some of the founders' essays. This is no accident, or oversight. It's absolutely intentional and for good reason.

The Constitution grants power to all three branches of government, which is the same as granting power to none of them. The more they disagree, the less power they have. In this way power can only be wielded through cooperation (selflessness).

It's a honey pot for the power hungry.