The risk is that things 'just work' for extended periods of time and the maintainers are optimised out of the system because they aren't needed in the short term.
My personal guess at why civilisations can collapse so slowly (100s of years for the Romans, for example) is that the people who maintain the political systems do too good a job, and so the safeguards are forgotten.
For example, after WWII the Europeans learned some really scary lessons about privacy. The Americans enjoyed greater peace and stability, so the people with privacy concerns are given less air time in places like Silicon Valley or Washington. The two-step process at work here is that when things are working, standards slip and the proper response to problems are forgotten. Then when things don't work, people don't know what to do and the system degrades.
Basically there are norms and unwritten understanding, deeply understood ideas about what is not acceptable. Rulers don't push their power to full extent. Then someone comes along and starts to push them and gradually what is acceptable changes.
My personal guess at why civilisations can collapse so slowly (100s of years for the Romans, for example) is that the people who maintain the political systems do too good a job, and so the safeguards are forgotten.
For example, after WWII the Europeans learned some really scary lessons about privacy. The Americans enjoyed greater peace and stability, so the people with privacy concerns are given less air time in places like Silicon Valley or Washington. The two-step process at work here is that when things are working, standards slip and the proper response to problems are forgotten. Then when things don't work, people don't know what to do and the system degrades.