74% of Americans believe our political and economic systems need major changes. Not tweaks around the edges – major changes.
We're talking: new ways of organizing society, new relationships with technology, new approaches to everything from healthcare to climate to how we make decisions together. So, if the appetite is massive and the urgency is real – why does it feel like we're getting nowhere?
We default to thinking the problem is that we disagree on solutions. To me, the problem is further upstream: we can't even have coherent conversations about the problems.
Let me show you what this looks like in practice.
Take AI governance. A real issue many are aware of and interested in. Should we speed up development or slow down and regulate? Every week brings new developments — another model release, policy announcement, or expert warning that we “really need to get this right.” But try to follow the conversation and you'll likely hit the same wall I do: a patchwork of insights that never create real understanding. No sense of where we actually stand or what we're moving toward.
Climate change is another one. We get endless updates about (missing) emissions targets, policy battles, and extreme weather events. But somehow it never adds up to a clear picture of our trajectory. Are we making progress? Who even defines progress? The information exists, but it's scattered across think tank reports, advocacy campaigns, and news fragments that are hard to reconcile.
Every issue follows the same pattern. You end up with a browser full of bookmarks, a head full of random details, and no clearer sense of what's actually happening. We're drowning in input but starving for real understanding.
This dynamic is exhausting individually, but it's also preventing us from making progress on anything collectively.
We need people to feel like we’re walking a deliberate path toward a better future. Right now, it feels like we’re all just throttling forward with no one at the wheel. The result? Sky-high anxiety, detachment from the political process, and nihilism are all catching steam.
People who genuinely want to engage feel helpless and check out. I hear this constantly: "I want to care about this stuff, but I don't know where to start or what to do." When smart, motivated people can't find their way into the conversation, that’s a clear signal it’s systemic, not personal.
The cost isn't that we disagree — open societies are supposed to have disagreement. The cost is that we can't disagree productively. Our arguments don't go anywhere because they happen in bits and pieces, without context, without building on what came before.
That 74% who want major change? They feel politically homeless because our conversation infrastructure only supports two modes: tribal cheerleading or detachment.
There's no space for the complex, nuanced thinking that big problems actually require. We end up trying to solve new problems with old thinking. Not because we lack intelligence or innovation — our conversation systems simply weren't designed for the complexity we're facing.
And here's the kicker: time is running out on issues that require long-term coordination. AI development isn't slowing down while we figure out governance. Climate systems aren't pausing while we debate policy. These problems compound while we argue in circles.
Sometimes there’s no grand fix, just the opportunity to get better at the game most are losing. Model different behavior and hope it spreads. A few ideas:
Be the Disarmer
The conversations we need are laced with emotion – someone has to create space for real thinking instead of just reacting. That can be you. The goal isn't to fix everyone's opinions. It's to create pockets where complexity can breathe instead of getting flattened into the latest Fox News or MSNBC talking points. This sounds like: “Help me understand how you’re thinking about this.”
Name the Problem
Start talking about the bigger problem itself. Point out when conversations are happening in fragments. Notice out loud when important connections aren't being made, or nuance is being missed. Help make the fragmentation visible. Once people see the pattern, they can't unsee it. This sounds like: “This feels more complicated than an either/or" or "I think we're missing some nuance here.”
Mind your own filter
The system is probably staying broken — so get better at navigating it. This means choosing what deserves your attention instead of letting the algorithm decide. This looks like: Seeing yourself as an active participant in your content consumption, being deliberate in how and where you engage.
I'm starting to think that fixing our conversation infrastructure might be more urgent than any specific policy win. Not because the individual issues don't matter, but because the meta-problem is keeping us stuck on everything else.
Our capacity to solve big problems depends entirely on our capacity to talk about them coherently. And right now, we can't.
I don't have a magic solution. But I know this: every day we spend talking past each other is a day we're not building the future 74% of us say we want. The conversation infrastructure isn't just broken — it's the bottleneck on everything else.
It's time we admitted that fixing how we talk is more urgent than winning any particular argument.
If not us, who?
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