the case for a new kind of institution
rebuilding our ability to act together.
The smartest people alive are working on our biggest problems – with more information, more tools, and more resources than any generation before us.
And yet somehow, we’re still stuck. We can’t get on the same page about our toughest challenges or what to do about them.
Every issue gets the same treatment: in-the-moment commentary, recycled takes, and stalled progress as the next news-dominating crisis inevitably arrives.
This isn’t just an information crisis. It’s a coherence crisis – a breakdown in our ability to share the same basic picture of what’s happening – and without it, we can’t effectively solve problems together.
how we got here
To see why collective problem-solving has stalled, you have to understand how we got here.
Problems have always been complex: interconnected, multi-domain, and messy.
The Cold War wasn’t just a geopolitical crisis—it was a mix of ideology, economics, nuclear physics, and cultural competition. The Great Depression wasn’t just an economic fallout—it was agricultural collapse, banking failures, and social upheaval.
But fifty years ago, we had a shared foundation for making sense of them anyway.
A handful of newspapers. A few TV networks. Universities that spoke a common language. These weren’t perfect —they excluded many voices and viewpoints—but they created a singular information environment. A sort of bottleneck that forced relative alignment.
You could disagree with someone about solutions and still be working from the same basic map of reality. Same facts. Same timeline. Same understanding of what was happening and why it mattered.
That world is gone.
Our shared sense-making infrastructure disappeared, and nothing replaced it.
The information bottleneck broke. Media fragmented into a thousand channels, each optimized for engagement over clarity. Algorithms gave everyone their own customizable worldview. Academic expertise fell deeper into specialized silos.
The result? We live in incompatible realities.
Not just different opinions – completely different understandings of what’s actually happening. Differences in interpretation are healthy. What’s new is that we no longer share the same baseline reality to interpret. Two people can see the same event and build totally different stories around it. Those stories shape what each person thinks is urgent and how they believe the pieces fit together – which makes coordination impossible.
It’s not because we’re dumber, care less, or lack resources. We just don’t have the capacity to create collective understanding. And without it, our most capable people pull in different directions.
This is the coherence crisis. We keep trying to solve this by boosting capability — building better tech, hiring smarter people, raising more money. But the issue isn’t capability. It’s coordination.
Building the kind of institution I’m about to pitch won’t be quick or easy. It requires synthesis at the speed of the news cycle. Getting people to trust a common space when trusting anything feels dangerous right now. And going up against every force that profits from fragmentation.
But it has to be built.
the institutions we have aren’t fit for this moment
Think about the institutions we rely on to make sense of the world:
Media → Fast and current, but shallow. Optimized for clicks over clarity, emotion over understanding.
Academia → Rigorous but slow. Papers take years. Expertise lives in silos. There’s no mechanism for rapid or actionable insight.
Government → Well-structured but gridlocked. Misplaced incentives. Can’t move faster than the last election cycle.
Think tanks → Specialized but siloed. Each one sees its own piece of the puzzle. Nobody’s connecting the dots.
None of the above were designed for the speed or complexity of today. They weren’t built for an environment where problems evolve faster than institutions can interpret them.
They can’t synthesize fast enough to present a shared, up-to-date snapshot of reality. Can’t coordinate across domains. Can’t turn information into action at the pace our problems demand. This isn’t about discarding these institutions – they still play an essential role. But they’re being asked to do a job they are simply not equipped for.
building what’s missing
Coherence requires two things working together — a clear version of reality and a structured way to coordinate around it. Here’s a version of how that might look:
Layer 1: The Information Commons
An evolving map of reality that shows where we actually are and where our current trajectories lead – the default future we inherit if nothing changes. Not analysis trapped in academic journals or hot takes optimized for engagement. Disciplined, ongoing synthesis that illustrates how our biggest problems connect and compound.
Think: A living dashboard of our collective predicament. Where policymakers, researchers, and builders can see the same picture of what’s changing, what’s urgent, and what leverage points actually exist. Updated as understanding evolves, not locked in after publication.
This is the missing piece: a clear foundation everyone can reference – same facts, same timeline, same sense of what’s rising, what’s falling, and why it matters.
Layer 2: Structured Coordination
Recurring forums where the people solving problems can actually work together. Not another conference circuit where everyone presents and leaves. Standing infrastructure that creates continuity – where researchers share emerging findings, policymakers surface implementation barriers, and builders identify what’s technically feasible.
Breakthroughs happen when the right mix of expertise stays in sustained conversation — coalitions form around solvable challenges, funding moves toward what is actually working, and the people closest to the problems and those building solutions stay in dialogue long enough to effectively align efforts.
Together, these two layers form the core architecture of the institution we need — permanent infrastructure dedicated to a capability we don’t currently have: coordination at the speed and scale our problems demand.
When both layers exist—a clear picture and a way to act on it—we recover something we’ve been missing: the ability to think together. To solve efficiently.
We stop solving different problems in different realities. Effort starts to build instead of scatter. Strategy becomes coherent because people are finally working from the same understanding.
That’s the infrastructure we need.
And nothing will change until we build it.
the work ahead
This requires a team that can synthesize across disciplines without losing depth. Experts willing to coordinate over time, not just show up once. And believers who understand that this architecture compounds slowly—that the work is restoring society’s capacity to see and solve together, not chasing quick wins.
We’re running out of time on problems that demand real collective action. Climate systems don’t wait. AI development doesn’t pause. Institutions don’t fix themselves.
It won’t be fast. It won’t be glamorous. But it’s what the moment requires.
If not us, who?
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