Understanding the Failure of Poor System Design: The Consequences we continue to experience

Why Everything Feels Like It’s Falling Apart: The Hidden Cost of Bad System Design
By Chuck Woolery (not the TV guy) and Steven Jay

Every day, we’re hit with stories that make us feel overwhelmed—mass shootings, collapsing public systems, social media disasters. It can feel like the world is spiraling out of control.

But what if these things aren’t just random events or separate issues?

What if they’re all connected symptoms of a much bigger problem?

These ongoing crises aren’t isolated problems to be solved one by one. They’re consequences—outcomes of a deeper failure in how our systems are designed and how our society thinks.

After the Great Depression and World War II, something started to shift. The idea of the “common good” faded from public conversation. America turned toward individualism, competition, and fear of anything that sounded like socialism. This change went mostly unquestioned, but it shaped our politics, values, and priorities in powerful ways.

As time went on, technology made it easier to spread division and fear. Instead of working together, people became more focused on their own narratives. The result? We’re now living with the consequences.

Donald Trump isn’t the core issue—he’s a symptom. Climate change isn’t just a problem—it’s the result of decades of poor decisions and unchecked systems. The same goes for mass shootings, the opioid crisis, obesity, and suicide. These aren’t random or isolated—they’re all signs of something deeper that’s broken.

Even environmental disasters—like poisoned water in Flint, collapsing bee colonies, or Florida’s red tide—aren’t just “environmental problems.” They’re consequences of how we’ve structured our society and ignored the long-term impacts of our actions.

Look around the world at the violence in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. These conflicts didn’t just happen—they’re the result of choices made without considering long-term consequences. The same goes for economic inequality, the rise of fake news, and the erosion of privacy. These aren’t new “problems” popping up—they’re the fallout from flawed systems.

Until we’re willing to step back and see the bigger picture—to recognize the root causes—we’ll keep spinning our wheels, treating symptoms while the real issue continues to grow.