I think a lot of what's broken right now isn't a people problem. It's a design problem.
We build systems that incentivize certain behavior and then act surprised when the system produces exactly the behavior it was built to reward.
When we blame the individual, we only fix the current manifestation of the problem, not the problem that produced that manifestation.
Take economic freedom and the economy. Most people would aspire to an economy that lets people flourish, not just function. Most people also hear "economic freedom" and think "freedom to transact, freedom from regulation."
I agree with that, and I also believe economic freedom means the full cost of a thing must be made obvious, because a system that hides its true costs isn't free.
The same structural lens applies to institutions, which lose legitimacy if forced into a monoculture.
The institutions that are supposed to referee our shared reality only work if the people inside them have real input into how they're run, not just the appearance of process. Self-determination isn't a nice bolt-on to a working institution; it's close to the definition of one. Take it away and even a well-run system starts to feel like a cage.
But none of that works without people who can actually think straight under pressure, which is where the individual piece comes back in.
Your brain has a threat-detection system built to keep you alive, and a slower system built for judgment, connection and holding complexity.
Fear runs the first one. Wisdom and love run the second.
Most (but not all) of what looks like bad character is just a whole lot of people stuck in the first system because the conditions around them keep triggering it. That's not a flaw to be shamed out of someone. It's a trainable capacity, and it compounds outward.
If we get it right in ourselves, it shows up in our family, then our community, then the wider systems we are a part of.
These are my observations from working as an activist, a counselor, a coach and an AI tool builder. An odd combination, I know.
And as fun as it is to build theses around the current issues of the day, the urgency and potential of these times encourage us toward honest inquiry, a hope that we leave with more questions than answers, the humility to understand how our hopes and fears overlap more than we might believe, and an openness to work enthusiastically across old divides.
That is why, when Scott McIntosh sent out the pledge for Human Flourishing, a non-partisan civic movement, I don't think I had ever signed my name on anything faster. Despite the vitriol, I have had enough experience with actual people to know that there are more who are hungry for this than for continuing the spiral we find ourselves in.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what I think or what you think. The power and the promise is what comes out of what we think.