stop fixing, start building

the case for building around broken institutions

Here’s how we’ve been taught change happens:

Win the debate.

Get the right people elected.

Reform from within until the system bends your way.

That playbook worked when big institutions controlled how we built and shared things. When you needed their platforms to reach people or move resources, you had to play their game — fight for positions, argue for years, slowly accumulate enough power to shift things.

But that playbook assumes something that’s no longer true: that you need institutional backing to build things that matter.

You don’t anymore.

The barriers dropped. The tools to reach people, organize communities, and build alternatives became accessible to anyone. When the infrastructure changes, the strategy has to change with it.

Today, the fastest way to change systems isn’t by fighting them. It’s building compelling alternatives that make the old way seem obviously outdated.

You’ve already seen this happen:

Remote work: unheard of → normalized → inevitable (because people just kept doing it)

Independent creators: dismissed → competitive → dominant (because audiences chose them)

The pattern is simple: when you build something that works better, people switch. No permission needed. No decade-long reform campaign.

And the conditions have never been better for this approach.

Small teams can organize globally in hours. You can reach audiences without gatekeepers. You can fund projects outside the traditional model. New infrastructure exists — what needs to shift is the story we operate from.

When alternatives emerge faster than reform can happen, the only rational move is to stop propping up the old and start building what’s next.

Old story: The system is broken, and we’re stuck in it.

New story: The system is outdated, and we’re building around it.

This isn’t about abandoning every institution. It’s about recognizing where your energy actually creates change.

Ask yourself: Where am I trying to fix something that’s fundamentally obsolete? What could I build instead that makes the old way obviously outdated?

Then start small:

If divisive media exhausts you → Find and support independent creators having a different conversation

If your community feels hollow → Organize the gatherings you wish existed. Host the dinner. Start the book club. Create the space.

If systems at work feel broken → Build and share the alternative

The future isn’t just being decided in boardrooms and ballot boxes anymore. It’s being built by people who stopped asking permission and started playing a different game.

You have influence. The only question is whether you’re using it to renovate a collapsing house — or build on new ground.

If not us, who?

j