As it turns out we DO NOT vote for judges.
Exactly! In idle America, Judges vote for the singers.
I think however, SCI-FI authors *should* write about distopias
Of course but there needs to be balance.
I like to think of it in terms of the brain as a planning machine: it evaluates both positive and negative plans, and chooses accordingly. Thus, thinking about suicide is not a sign that you need therapy -- the sign is the thought, "that seems like a good idea" following a thought about ending it.
Which is something every parent should teach their children. I have an ultra-religious aunt who yelled at me to "stop playing my daughter that suicide music!" when I tried to introduce my cousin, who played flute, to the beautiful melodies in Jethro Tull's "Moths", which starts with the (innocent, I thought) lyrics "Oh the leaded window opened, to move the dancing candle flame, and the first moths of summer, suicidal came." It very neatly describes a pattern in nature, that of moths seeking light and being destroyed by their quest. This aunt also destroyed property, burning an audio tape that my sister had given her daughter. To me, this is horrific; she was terrorizing her child, instead of teaching her.
We should be prepared for all eventualities, or at least as many of them as we can adequately prepare for, given time and resources. Thinking about danger, and ways to mitigate the danger, seems like a good use of our societal time left to think. (Last four words from a They Might Be Giants song, "It's not My Birthday", "As I walk I think about a new way to walk, as I think I'm using up the time left to think.")