I don’t know what I believe, anymore.

When things were going south, I admit I didn’t think at all about god or religion or anything like that. All I could think about was humanity, and how different things were going to be. But since then I think about a god every day. I don’t know how one couldn’t after all that.

With so many dead, the contemplation originally started with the afterlife. What happened to all of those that didn’t make it? Were they all up there looking down on the disgusting state of affairs they’d left behind? Did they resent us, or pity us? But those thoughts quickly faded, because ultimately what did it matter what they thought?

But now most of my god thoughts are prompted by the more mundane. When I find something interesting that really shouldn’t have survived the collapse, was it provenance that brought it to me? In that way sometimes it brings me some hope. But more often than not, I find god in the negative. I usually confuse it with bad luck. Maybe it’s not a confusion.

It’s random stuff, like when I stab my hand on a tree branch while cleaning the yard or dropping something on my foot not once, not twice, but three times in one day. Roof starts failing a day before the rain arrives.

Like I said, at first I was like man, this is just really bad luck. But then it became months of bad luck. I remember my therapist used to say that we recognize these patterns when our brains are primed. So maybe it was just easier to consider all the cascading bad luck when in reality it was just normal life. Or was it god, continuing to take it out on me?

Maybe it wasn’t just me. Looking around at what’s left of us, I realize a lot of us probably thinking we were and still are the unluckiest ones. Maybe that’s the punchline: the whole time, we were all privately convinced our burdens were singular, when in truth they were just the early tremors of the same collapse.

I remember my grandfather would often reveal that he felt life an unfair slog. He was often depressed and felt like everything was against him. I used to think he was unbearably bleak, like someone who’d forgotten joy. But now I’m beginning to wonder if he simply saw the world clearly, without the layers of noise and convenience that kept us numb. Maybe he wasn’t depressed; maybe he was just ahead of the curve.

The truth is, I don’t want to believe in God. I don’t. It feels like surrender, like admitting defeat after a life of insisting everything was random. But how else do you explain the strange symmetry of our misfortunes? How whole nations slid into the same pit, how families failed in parallel, how the sky itself seemed to conspire with our mistakes. It’s hard to call it chaos when it moved with such eerie coordination. Especially when it feels specific to you.

Maybe it’s only now without screens, schedules, and constant clatter of a world pretending it was on the right track, that I can sense something like the divine quietly humming underneath everything. We used to say religion was invented to explain natural phenomena, that ancient people filled in gaps with stories. But what if they weren’t naive? What if they just knew how to listen? What if they understood nature better than we did because they actually experienced it.

Sometimes I wonder: if we had to start religion over, what should it look like? It wouldn’t be a list of rules or threats in a book. It wouldn’t be a competition for whose god has the best real estate in the afterlife. I think it would begin with humility. Like an admission that we’re small, that we’re just guests here. It would teach people how to live with the world instead of on top of it. It would maybe sanctify patience, and kindness, and the quiet work of tending to what remains and what could be again.

I suppose it also means an appreciation of these cycles. Growth, stagnation, decay, rebirth seems a natural thing to revere.

I don’t know. Maybe this is just the mind involuntarily chaining my frustration and reaching for comfort while in a time when comfort is scarce.

But since then, I’ve realized, whether I’d like to admit it or not, we do in fact need a community, and that community imposes certain expectations.

In the immediate aftermath, some people were incredibly supportive of me and my wife. They called daily to check in on us. They commiserated with us. They drove a 1.5 hours to see us at our temporary home. They brought us food and shared happy memories of the home we lost. Someone we had only met once gave $15k to our GoFundMe. A few friends, and even strangers, went above and beyond in ways I’ll never forget.

But that didn’t last long.

The reality is that a lot of “help” offered was what I would consider pleasantries. Bags of clothes from the back of a closet, moral support via text messages, a quick “let me know if you need anything.” They were basically empty offers of assistance that were impossible to count on or expected to be fulfilled. By the time our shock had faded, so had most support.

And that bothered me, but not because I’m entitled to endless support. I realize there are lots of people in this world who have gone through worse and more frequent tragedies than this. But this highlighted something I didn’t want to admit: I didn’t have real community to begin with.

Individualism, meet reality

This hit especially hard because I’ve always been an asshole libertarian. Not the adolescent “don’t tread on me” version, but the idealistic type that believes people should coordinate their lives voluntarily without any obligation or imposed duty. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll worry about coming together when we have to. This is the libertarian ideal, which is delusional when confronted with the reality of modern society.

Voluntary cooperation works when things are normal. But when things actually collapse, voluntary goodwill is not enough. It’s too fragile. Too sporadic. Too conditional. It’s useless if it’s only considered an expectation when it is necessary.

A real community has expectations and requires commitment. Real community means you don’t have to ask, since it’s not a favor economy.

And I didn’t have that because I never invested in it.

What actual community looks like

Most relationships today are digital first; messages, memes, likes, photos, group chats are our main modes of interaction. What is now obvious to everyone is that the more connected we get online, the less rooted we become offline.

My “community” was mostly people whose company I enjoyed, not people whose lives were meaningfully intertwined with mine. There was no shared vision, destiny, triumphs or challenges. Just dinner and drink partners, really.

Going way back, if someone in your tribe needed a home built, everyone showed up and just built the house. No sign-up sheet, no GoFundMe, no moral performance. They did this because they knew if the harvest was coming up, that dude with the new house would be the first to help out. And if they didn’t, they were probably ostracized. Community wasn’t an optional accessory to individual existence.

Even in more “modern” times, when civilization exploded in size, religion, trade associations, unions, fraternal organizations, immigrant communities, and professional guilds all acted as local community proxies. You belonged to one or two groups that gave you a shared identity, a shared story, and a shared future. That was enough to bind people into a “we”.

But we’ve winnowed all of that down. Religious affiliation has cratered. Professional groups are transactional now (basically being nothing more than lobbying groups). Unions are hollowed out. Neighborhoods are collections of houses, not networks of people. And digital life tricks us into thinking ideological proximity is the same as connection.

So if we want an actual community, we have to rebuild the expectations:

• Showing up in person: Not just for parties, but for work: fixing a fence, helping move furniture (no matter how much that sucks), childcare swaps, shared gardens, launch days for big personal projects.

• Lending without being asked: Tools, time, a truck, an extra room.

• Sacrifice: If someone’s dealing with illness, disaster, or burnout, the rest of the group steps in. We should expect that from each other, not treat it as an extraordinary favor.

• Expectation of reciprocity: Not “you owe me,” but “we all know it’ll be someone else’s turn next month, next year, next decade.”

• Shared identity: Not ideological. Lived. “We take care of each other here.”

This isn’t utopian. It’s literally how humans survived every century up until the hyper-bizarre present.

Here are myriad recent examples where I regret not being a good member of my communities.

• Not inquiring more when someone says they’re fine when I know they’re not.

• Sent calls to voicemail when it was someone I didn’t want to talk to, even though it ended up being important.

• Crossing the street or avoiding eye contact when I don’t want to talk to someone, even though they’ve been nothing but friendly to me.

• Not visiting a friend in the hospital after (cancer!) surgery.

• Not offering my neighbor a hand when they were struggling get furniture and dog out of the car.

• Not even checking on some of my previous neighbors, who went through the same exact fire and lost the same exact life that I did.

Where this leaves me now

If you want community, you have to build it. And that sucks. Sometimes it means hanging out with people when you’d rather watch Netflix. Instead of being on your phone, you need to actually listen to the people you’re with. It means actually going out of your way to check in on people. Even if you’re eager for community, it takes time and effort that is easier dismissed in favor of staying mad online.

I used to believe voluntary association was enough. I don’t anymore. Not because people are bad, but because life is hard and getting harder.

I’m grateful beyond measure for every person who helped, even the ones whose help came in small or imperfect ways. But I’m also recognizing that I want and need something deeper than what I had. I want relationships that don’t vanish when the smoke clears. I want a life where I’m not just surrounded by people, but embedded among them.

We’re not meant to, and we will not, survive alone.

Reclaiming this city feels as weird as it probably looks, and I didn’t have an answer beyond the obvious, “destroying stuff”.

I told him I think the first one was my neighbor’s ADU. He had been building that thing for over a year, arguing back and forth with the city for permits on this or that. It wasn’t that big, but it was hideous. I guess the construction crew was using his lot for storage or something, because they had some jackhammers, generators, things like that scattered in the backyard. Even a small backhoe thing.

While everything was going south, some people moved into that ADU. My neighbor had left early on and they showed up a few days later. I don’t know why they chose the ADU over the front house. I was wary at first, but they minded their own business. People weren’t as aggressive as I thought they would be. They didn’t do much, just stayed inside. At some point, they must have left because I stopped seeing them going about.

My generator ran out of gas, so I went over to see if there was any there I could siphon. But then I saw all of the tools just lying there. It just entered my mind that no one would miss this house, and if it stood, then it might invite others that weren’t so chill as the last squatters. So I picked up the sledgehammer and just had at it. Smashed the drywall and the finishings. Took down the facade. I just kept swinging until my arms were tired, but progress was slow. Then I got in the backhoe and tore down the rest.

After the place came down, it was weirdly better. Yeah, it was dusty, but the sunlight actually reached the yard. A breeze moved through where rooms used to be. It made the street look a little less dead, even though it was emptier. So I kept going. Over a month, I took out all of the abandoned houses on the block. Nature did its part, too. Tree saplings pushing through gaps in the sidewalk, raccoons building nests, coyotes wandering the night without fear, constant birdsong. I figured I should help them along.

The few families remaining on the block saw and heard me at some point. They didn’t comment. I know some at least had already ransacked the vacant homes before I destroyed them. The people who are still in Monrovia, we don’t ask each other questions. Don’t get me wrong, we’re friendly and all. But we don’t really ask questions like “why are you doing that?” I think people had had enough of butting into each other’s business before things got bad. We’re all doing the best we can with what’s left; we don’t need to create more problems by caring about what so-and-so is doing or why.

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That’s why it was so surprising when this guy asked me what I was doing and why.

Now it’s a way to pass the time, really. It got fun when I picked up some stuff at the tool rental shop. I guess looting heavy machinery wasn’t a priority. I usually demolish the buildings that I don’t like first. Some of them are memories, like the liquor store I went to before getting my DUI. Sometimes they’re styles I don’t like, like Victorian trash. Thankfully, there aren’t many of those. Churches.

The hardest part is the asphalt.

Buildings you can pry apart. Wood rots. Concrete cracks with enough pressure. But asphalt clings. It’s like the city itself is trying to maintain its previous importance. But I keep going. Hammer drill, jackhammer, backhoe, repeat. Sometimes I work for a whole afternoon and only break up a few slabs.

The thing is, once it cracks, the earth takes it back pretty fast. Grass pushes through. Even weeds look beautiful now. Nature has patience that we didn’t. I’m just speeding up the process, and it feels good.

The city looks different now. I used to know every street. I used to walk my dog down these blocks. He was a rat terrier, wiry fur, always wagging, even old and slow. He’s buried in the backyard under the jacaranda at my mom’s place. I visit him sometimes.

I think about my mom a lot while I’m working. She was a single parent, always tired, but she made a good home. She would’ve said what I’m doing is “a project,” like something to focus the mind. I think she’d understand. When I was going through her stuff after she died,

Most nights I just sit outside after the sun goes down. No lights. No electricity. But you don’t need it because the stars came back once the city got quiet, and we didn’t need to light the night. Then I wake up and do it all again.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing this. There’s no endpoint. Just me, the tools, the sun, and whatever’s left of Monrovia.

It’s strange, but dismantling this place feels like taking care of it. Like giving it back.

Like letting it rest.

Ten years ago, I would have guessed only 5% of people — the fringes of the far-right and far-left — truly believed that neutralizing their opponents was the best way forward. But in the last decade, that percentage has ballooned. What was once fringe is now common, at least in the everyday rhetoric people share. And it’s not just my impression. Research backs it up.

The vast majority of people think that “the other side” is a “clear and present danger” and that it is capable of destroying America.

The growth of hostility

Pew Research has found that the share of Americans with fixed political views has doubled over two decades — from about 10% in the 1990s to over 20% by 2014. This ideological division spills over into the treatment of “the other side”. Studies at the Carnegie Endowment show that affective polarization, i.e., the active dislike of “the other side” has risen steadily.

And Americans themselves recognize what this means. According to the AP-NORC Center, 87% of Americans now see political polarization as a threat to the country. We are ideologically further apart, emotionally more hostile, and deeply weary of the division — and that creates fertile ground for contempt.

We see this passive but enthusiastic hatred every day:

• Posting memes that openly cheer when someone they disagree with suffers

• Goading and trolling the misfortunes of the other side

• Consuming media entirely premised on exploiting these divides

• Shunning or detaching from friends or acquaintances who share a different opinion

The effort required for these activities is small, so it’s easy to assume they’re inconsequential. But the fact that they’re happening at all - that someone who is not in politics is taking time out of their life - to deride their political enemies, is a bizarre phenomenon. And these are just the “passive” tier of hostility. And then there are those who cross the final line: turning hate into violence.

From words to violence

This is where the danger becomes undeniable. In the past few years, we’ve seen political violence break into the mainstream of American life:

• January 6, 2021: An attack on the U.S. Capitol, driven by partisan rage, intended to stop the certification of an election.

• The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally (2024): A moment that instantly became political fodder, from martyrdom on one side to mockery on the other.

• The assassination of Charlie Kirk (2025): A murder which, at least some evidence shows, was driven by the assailant’s hatred of the victim’s hatred.

These are not isolated anomalies. They’re the extreme expressions of the same contempt we see every day in online posts and conversations, and among our friends. And just as troubling as the violence itself is the response: each event is immediately politicized. One side calls the victim a hero or martyr; the other insists the attack was deserved, even celebrated. Instead of pulling us together in horror, violence drives us deeper into our trenches, and the next extremist is nurtured.

We probably aren’t going back to the good ol’ days

This is why I don’t believe there’s a way back to civility. Neither political party is incentivized to build bridges. The incentives point only in one direction: demonize the opposition, rally your base, raise money, and consolidate power. Violence reinforces this dynamic.

That’s why I think the idea of a national reconciliation, when we set aside differences for the greater good, is a fantasy. Instead, we’re heading for a future where “us versus them” defines not just politics, but everyday life. It will get worse: more division, more targeted violence, more people openly cheering their opponents’ suffering. Who knows if it ends in collapse. I think it will.

So where does that leave us? If we’re honest, probably in a darker, more fractured place than most of us want to admit. We’re not going to vote or argue our way back to civility. And unless the incentives that drive our politics change, I don’t see a way out.

That doesn’t mean individuals are powerless. On a personal scale, you can resist the cycle. You can refuse to share dehumanizing content. You can call out contempt when you see it. You can choose to treat opponents as people, not as enemies. You can still consider your political opponents friends. You can just be a normal person, like we used to be.

But let’s be honest, will you?

And they are important. Friends are the ones who answer the phone when you need to vent, who show up when you want company, who lend you this or that, or who you invite to events. They share our most intentional acute moments. But as I came to realize, that isn’t the same as community. Friends are activity partners. Community is our foundation.

Real community is made up of people you may not even consider “friends." In most cases, they're just strangers who happened to share physical space long enough to become acquaintances.

It’s your neighbors who keep an eye on your porch when you’re away. The bartender who knows your usual. The couple you always see walking the same trail at dusk. The retired man who tends roses in his front yard and always waves, even if you don’t know his name.

This kind of community doesn’t announce itself. It grows in the background, quietly binding people together through repetition, proximity, and a shared future.

Shared Space, Shared Stakes

Friends care because they choose you. You share a sense of humor, hobbies, history, and/or outlook that keeps you and them together. Neighbors show up because the situation demands it. When your car battery dies, it’s often the stranger across the street who pulls out jumper cables. There’s something profoundly grounding in this kind of care: you don’t have to “earn” it — you just have to be there.

Neighbors may not choose one another, but they share the same environment and the same risks. When the fire came through, it wasn’t my friends who checked on my house (or us) first — it was someone who lived down the street. In fact, it was a former high school friend of my wife's brother, who had also lived in the neighborhood their entire life. He knew the importance of the neighborhood, even though we had never actually met him. He sent a video to my brother-in-law and told him to forward it to us. He knew he had some duty as a member of the community, even if we never met.

There's an implicit contract whenever a conversation starts with "Nice to meet you, I'm your neighbor." At that point, you know then that you’re in something together.

Shared Future

More important than the implicit contract neighbors enter into, there's the even more implicit future that you are building together.

When you live side by side, you are not just sharing a neighborhood today, you are co-authoring tomorrow. Every tree planted, every fence maintained, every local shop supported is a kind of investment in a shared tomorrow that is better for you and for them. It's the theory behind "shop local" campaigns. You may never name it aloud, but there’s a silent agreement that your lives are being built in parallel, shaping the same landscape in ways that will matter years from now. It's easy to simplify it to something tacky like property values, but it's so much more than that.

Friends can follow you through time but not always through place. Neighbors, however, are companions in a to-be-developed future. That co-presence is what gives a community its depth: it’s not just about surviving the present together, but about inhabiting a future together.

Durational Depth

Friendships thrive on intensity built around deep conversations, common passions, and nights that stretch until dawn. Community thrives on accumulation. The five-second interactions at the mailbox, the nod while walking the dog, the shared commiseration over the terrible state of the sidewalks or streets; the rhythm of seeing the same faces for years builds into one of those photos that is actually made up of thousands of smaller images. These moments seem trivial on their own, but together they weave a sense of belonging.

This applies even to those I would have never considered my community. Like the neighbor who seemed to be running an unlicensed auto shop, with cars continuously coming and going. The annoying guy who would obsessively and obnoxiously blow their leaves with a whiny leaf blower. The young family would host weekly parties with heart-poundingly loud music that would often run into the early morning hours. The hundreds that would flock to the park for a Sunday soccer game which would make traffic and parking impossible. Or that neighbor you'd consider crossing the street to avoid while out for a walk, but don't.

They were all neighbors who, in their own way that I did not appreciate at the time, made the community what it was because they were always there. They added a predictability to life.

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Embodiment of Place

Community is not only about people, but about the place you share. It’s the farmer’s market, the foothills you valued dearly, the park you all walk through. Friends can move to different cities and still be friends but neighbors embody the meaning of home. Even if you don't know, or in my case, constantly forget their name, they represent something subtly foundational to life.

I've come to understand that, despite the loss of homes and belongings, the most pernicious theft is that of the community. Overnight, we lost not only our homes but also the corner of the world where neighbors waved hello, where the dog-walkers passed me with the same nod every morning, and where we could safely make small talk knowing that, beyond being occasionally annoying, was forming a bond that may be invoked in the future when you needed something.

The fire forced me into a new kind of exile — not just from a house, but from a community I hadn’t even realized was holding me. Losing my home to fire stripped away the illusion that community was just about the people I chose. What I found instead was that real community is not chosen, but built implicitly over time. It’s the strangers who slowly stop being strangers, the routines that develop, the neighbors who invest in the subtle, perpetual ways that knit lives together.

Friends may come and go. Community remains — and when crisis strikes, it’s the community that catches you. In some ways, this gives me confidence that things will be okay. The more neighbors who commit to coming back, the more sure I am that things will eventually return to normal. But I'm also plagued by the thought of my elderly, less affluent, or just plain tired neighbors involuntarily leaving the community that was taken from them.

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That's due to one simple fact: the only people who can meaningfully police a group are those within it. Good cops have to call out bad ones. Peaceful protesters have to stop rioters. Honest priests have to expose abuse in the church. Even on a very personal level, we are the only ones who can call out our friends in a way that could get through to them. Outsiders may protest, investigate, or demand change, but lasting reform always depends on insiders leading and sustaining that change.

And that’s incredibly frustrating. Because most of the time, insiders don’t do it.

Across institutions, from police departments and the Catholic Church to Facebook, Hollywood, and the military, meaningful reform often hinges on insiders choosing to hold their own accountable, even at personal risk. Whether it’s officers testifying against a colleague in the George Floyd case, a Facebook employee leaking internal harm studies, or church whistleblowers exposing decades of abuse, outsiders may raise alarms, but only those within the group have the access, authority, and perceived legitimacy to force change. Yet these same insiders are often constrained by loyalty, fear, or complicity, which makes reform both urgently necessary and maddeningly elusive.

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The recent swath of massive failures in natural disaster response has made it clear that institutions are not moved by external forces. In light of the Eaton Fire, displaced residents have asked basic questions:

• How did so many people die in a town that was mostly destroyed, in one of the most heavily taxed counties in the country?

• Why was there only one fire truck in Western Altadena?

• Why did thousands of people receive an evacuation warning hours after their city was on fire?

• Why was the county unprepared for a windstorm that was forecast a week in advance?

• Why has the sheriff failed to police a now depopulated area?

• When will the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors report on the failures of that night and the months after?

The people have been asking these questions for 8 months. Answers, or even promises of answers, have failed to materialize. Institutions have circled the horses and deflected any responsibility to the people who pay them.

Why does this matter so much? Because when insiders fail to act, the system protects itself and the public loses faith. Harm continues. Accountability stalls. And outsiders are left watching institutions defend their worst members while punishing their best, all while neglecting the duties they swore to uphold.

It creates a deadlock: outsiders can’t fix it, and insiders won’t.

Change happens when whistleblowers and do-gooders are protected instead of punished. When the incentives shift culturally, legally, or financially, then silence becomes riskier than speaking up. When insiders stop prioritizing loyalty over justice, we'll see change.

Only the "good ones" inside:

• Cal OES can explain why warnings weren't sent on time

• FEMA can explain why assistance is a facade

• The fire department can explain why there was only one fire truck in western Altadena, and how so many homes were lost despite a week of advance notice

• The sheriff can explain why the sheriff wasn't evacuating residents

• FireAid grant recipient organizations can explain how the money is being used

• The governor's office and the board of supervisors can highlight and mitigate future failures

Until they do, those insiders who maintain the status quo, even though they know something is rotten, are complicit in the corruption. These are not localized failures. Every community in the world is dealing with these or similar institutional challenges - most recently the flood victims in Texas - yet nothing will change until the good in-group members champion goodness internally.

Six months before the fire, I got very into birds. It started at the Kauai bird refuge on the north shore, where I spent hours watching the albatrosses and boobies soar about. I wouldn't say I'm a birder, because I don't like the list-checking aspect of the hobby. I just like the birds. When I returned home, I bought a bird feeder, and every day since, a few dozen birds would attack the bird feeder in the morning and evening. Finches, sparrows, all pretty common birds but nonetheless special.

Though we have a new bird feeder, the birds don't come that often. I have actually noticed more variety of birds in the Inland Empire, where we're currently getting through the bumbling recovery. We chose Rancho Cucamonga because we wanted to be away from the awful rebuilding. Seeing the trucks cart away people's crumbled lives, the RV encampments that have replaced neighborhoods, and the struggling businesses attempting to survive was not my idea of mental recovery. We do go back every week to meet up with friends, support some businesses, and survey the neighborhood.

This last visit, while taking soil samples of my neighbor's lot, I noticed plenty of surprises. I saw a California native gray squirrel, which I'd only rarely seen before. In a tree above was a kestrel, which I've never seen in the city. There was a sizable bone (a vertebrate, if I had to guess), on the front yard, leading me to wonder what bigger animal could have had a feast. In the ~10 minutes I had Merlin running, it registered 15 different bird species, about double what it normally would during my previous morning survey of the bird feeder. Recent news has highlighted coyotes and bears already reclaiming their territory, even forming a joint enterprise. No doubt these creatures were eager to explore without the threat of gutter cats roaming and terrorizing, or humans setting traps or mowing them down in their cars. My neighbor's yard, always an oasis, still was. Despite three months without rain or irrigation, her yard was still remarkably green. Even the passionfruit vine had plenty of fruits.

Peace in the absence of us

It was so peaceful.

Our emptiness was their peace.

In a short half year, nature without humans had already found a new normal.

Of course, nature's return is actually a signal itself that things are not right. They've only returned because humans burned what little habitat they've had left.

And the San Gabriel Valley isn't the only place destruction has led to rehabilitation.

The fortified border between North and South Korea is now one of only accidental wildlife refuges in the world. The DMZ has become a sanctuary for species that struggle to cohabitate with humans, including the endangered red-crowned crane, the Amur leopard, Asiatic black bears. In the absence of farming, roads, or development, non-human life has returned. The land doesn’t care why we left. It just needed us to leave.

In 2020, as cities locked down and highways emptied during the COVID-19 pandemic, nature returned to some cities. Skies cleared in Delhi and Los Angeles. Dolphins swam into empty harbors. Wild goats wandered through Welsh towns. Even coyotes, common in other southern California cities, started to roam as far as Marina del Rey. Hanauma Bay showed tremendous recovery, since reversed by returning tourists. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to show what’s possible when we pause.

When the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced a mass evacuation in 1986, scientists feared the land would be biologically dead for centuries. Wolves, bison, moose, lynx, and eagles now roam the exclusion zone in greater numbers than before the meltdown. The radiation still lingers, but the absence of logging, hunting, traffic, and agriculture gave ecosystems room to breathe. Even the worst man-made disaster created the conditions for nature to heal, not because it was safe, but because it was finally alone.

When humans "thrive", the rest of nature falls apart. This is reality.

Last year, while passing through the Phoenix airport, I saw a sign that accusingly asked "Can we save the vaquita?" The vaquita is an almost extinct porpoise native only to Mexico. I hate to skip to the end, but there's zero percent chance we save an animal that 99% of the population hasn't heard of, 0.9% don't care about, and 0.1% who is actively trying to save cuter or closer animals. The vaquita is as good as dead, as are most of the remaining animals in the next 50-100 years.

Our track record is poor. We've practically holocausted the birds, between pesticides destroying their food source, deforestation destroying their homes, hunters shooting them for sport, or accidental poisoning while we try to kill some other species. We can't even let them roost on our precious eaves, setting up spikes that keep them from taking a rest.

Even when we pretend to do good, we do bad. Ask the native bees that have been sidelined to make room for your local honey.

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Healing requires destruction

The Eaton Fire was destructive, but we are the destruction. Every car, every Amazon package, every AI prompt, every single-use plastic spoon that we don't even end up using, brings us closer to the tipping point.

The modern environmentalist approach is focused on hopeful solutions in the same failed vein as recycling (or the pitiful appeals to guilt, like the vaquita). Maybe we can reduce our impact incrementally via education and conservation. Maybe we can coordinate top-down solutions like "carbon credits". Maybe we can kickstart a grassroots initiative like the failed degrowth movement. Live with less, slow down consumption, shrink the economy, reconnect with earth; you know, all of the things that cannot happen in the modern American economy. I've tried putting it into practice. In rebuying my life, I've opted for fewer things, used where possible. But even that's not enough. Every package that comes probably kills some living organism directly, never mind the indirect impacts.

Degrowth is anti-us. It's counter to how we are conditioned to live, with consumption, speed and comfort. Even if it did catch on on a small scale, none of our modern economic and political institutions (including socialism, ironically), will shrink voluntarily. Most people are struggling, can we really ask them to go with less? The level of restraint and forethought required is foreign to modern society, and so the degrowth movement is a failed premise.

And so we'll continue with our current trend. We'll consume and consume and consume until the vaquita and ʻIʻiwi and black rhino and Florida yew all die, and old-growth forests are clear-cut to make room for Fart AI's data centers, and the last bird flies into a high-rise or wind turbine. We'll keep going until nature can't.

The only real hope is after collapse

I am confident now that the only hope nature, and consequently humans, have is in round 2 of this whole interface. We need to understand that round 1, our current state, will end in failure for both the systems we depend on, and ultimately, ourselves. Instead of dragging this miserable state on, it's better to let the terrible stampede of human desecration continue unabated and begin preparing for how we would approach our next chance.

Nature will recover as soon as humanity reaches the point of non-viability. Whether due to population collapse, environmental collapse, or even nuclear war, civilization will be destroyed, but other species will survive. They've done it this long with us actively and passively trying to kill them. Nature will rebuild. The humans who survive must remember the misery we've created for ourselves by disrupting the natural order of systems.

So let it collapse. When the Eaton Fire destroyed indiscriminately, life returned eagerly. That is the only true hope we have. Humans need to depopulate. Other species will again multiply, and order will be restored.

It’s not that I want collapse. It’s that I’ve seen what comes after—and it’s beautiful in its own way.

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I originally wrote this for a friend’s substack on January 4th, a few days before the Eaton Fire destroyed my home and that of thousands of my neighbors. It rings more true now after having witnessed the local, national, and global failures since then.

By most metrics, we are living in the best era of human history.

And yet, everything feels terrible.

My social circle and I are among the most privileged middle class to have ever lived, yet we’re overwhelmingly pessimistic about the future. Interwoven with rising living standards, soaring salaries, and more social and technological conveniences than we could have imagined, we have also witnessed wars, pandemics, government ineptitude, and crisis after crisis. We have more than any generation before us, yet so much still feels out of reach. For many, the autopilot of work and consumption has become a welcome distraction from the looming uncertainty of the future.

Maybe we’re just overreacting. Surely, the dread is fueled by an overabundance of inflammatory news coverage. Maybe we’re just caught in a temporary populist moment, a global political fluke. The environment is crashing? Well, that’s just an excuse to travel more before it gets worse. Maybe we’re not exercising enough, or we’re consuming too much Instagram. It’s our fault that we’re anxious, not the world’s. And besides, we should stop complaining because our problems aren’t that bad, right?

But we can’t stop. And we don’t.

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The dread is unavoidable for every generation younger than Gen Z. Those who feel secure in one area of life are terrified in others. Some have stable jobs but have never been in a serious relationship. Some have loving families but struggle with health issues that evade the very healthcare system we’re constantly told is the “best in the world.” Some have jobs, health, and love but know it’s all for naught because they believe the planet will collapse before they do. Most work jobs they despise and escape into digital avatars living better lives than they ever will.

Things are broken and they have been for longer than we realize. All available system indicators are lagging, and we’re coasting on the financial, intellectual, and social capital of the few short generations that preceded us. It feels like things are fine, but that’s only because the gas gauge hasn’t hit empty yet. The problem? We’re still speeding away from the gas station. Every civilization before us probably thought the same, right before their decline. They became so accustomed to prosperity that they forgot the struggles that made it possible.

Civilizations always fall, we’re no exception

The optimists are correct about one thing: we are not special.

Every civilization has followed a predictable cycle of growth, prosperity, complacency, and decline. Things start well. Social organization, cooperation, and culture bring about an era of expansion. Trade and knowledge flourish. Premature death, disease, famine, and war retreat into history as society advances. But as progress compounds, we begin to forget the dangers we once overcame. We grow confident that we can solve any challenge. The future seems permanently bright.

Then, the growth stops.

A challenge, or a cascade of them, proves insurmountable. Societies collapse for many reasons: war, cultural stagnation, environmental destruction, disease, and economic instability. Sometimes, it’s one catastrophe. More often, it’s all of them, feeding into each other in an unstoppable downward spiral.

After collapse, new societies rise. They may even occupy the same land, composed of the same people. But one thing remains clear: the old civilization has ended.

What’s the tipping point? It’s hard to say. But one thing seems certain: the loss of institutional legitimacy accelerates the collapse.

Institutions promise solutions, but their greatest flaw is the false belief that every problem can be managed. As societies grow, so do their institutions; they expand, consume, and govern more. Each victory builds faith in these systems until they are seen as infallible. Then, the cracks form. The complexity of problems outpaces the institutions’ ability to solve them. The weight of managing an increasingly fragile system becomes too much. The facade crumbles.

And by the time we notice, it’s already too late.

The systems we built are now destroying us

No political or economic system is immune to collapse.

Capitalism, socialism, feudalism, and despotism have all suffered from the same blind faith in progress. Institutions, whether governmental, corporate, or religious, follow the same trajectory. The thread connecting them all? A misplaced, misjudged, or ill-timed trust in systems that are far less stable than we assume.

As the topmost institution in most civilizations, the government takes the ultimate blame for societal decline. Governments create the rules that shape society, driving incentives that influence everything from economic policy to social order. But while their reach is global, their motivations are narrow: maintain the status quo for a select few. They don’t need to guide civilization effectively to hold power, so many don’t.

The main feedback loop (elections) is slow, flawed, and manipulated by in-group biases. Any form of direct political engagement requires more time than most people are willing (or able) to give. And so, we leave decision-making to a ruling class whose primary goal is staying in power, even if it hastens our collapse.

Meanwhile, capitalism promises self-correction. As a libertarian, I once believed that free markets would regulate themselves, preventing companies from running amok. But history has proven otherwise. Any honest observer, even a libertarian, can see that markets are as extractive as governments. The very mechanisms meant to regulate the economy - stock prices, competition, public opinion - are easily manipulated to benefit the powerful.

Corporations don’t care about long-term sustainability. They will undercut, overbuild, extract, and pollute without hesitation. The consequences? Someone else’s problem.

At least they give us jobs.

Or so we were told. My generation was promised the American Dream, wherein a house, vacations, financial security were all achievable through hard work. That dream is dead. Housing is unaffordable. Food is either overpriced or toxic. Healthcare is a deferred medical bill. And ambition has been replaced with distraction.

Our collapse is close

The future does not look bright.

Optimism is vanishing at record speed. The world is broken, and fixing it feels impossible not because the problems are unsolvable, but because history has shown that societies rarely reverse their decline. The powerful will not relinquish control for the greater good.

Will politicians implement a real rules-based order?
Will corporations stop extracting and polluting?
Will people suddenly regain faith in institutions?
Will we find values that work for both now and the future?

No. Because our systems are failing.

And we are failing with them.

The crushing weight of the world isn’t the result of some shadowy deep state. It’s the organic, inevitable evolution of complex societies. Systems, once stable, have gone awry. Change is impossible not because we lack solutions, but because thousands of years of institutional momentum have locked us into this trajectory.

We are quick to recognize systems in their tangible forms like a circuit board, a factory line, a household plumbing system. But we struggle to recognize the intricate, interconnected systems that govern our daily lives. Politics, economics, social structures all have their own feedback loops, actors, and metrics.

And all of them are failing.

It’s too late to change course. But at the very least, we should understand how we got here.

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There are two types of revolutions. In the first type, revolution is intentional and active, driven by a novel force that cannot be adopted easily into the existing structure. Socialism is a good example. Socialism couldn’t be adopted piecemeal or incrementally over time into capitalist or mercantilist systems. It could only be enacted by the destruction of the existing system and the imposition of a new system. The second type of revolution is passively born out of exhaustion and frustration. Up until the turmoil, reformers believe that the system, however flawed, can be fixed from within — until they realize it simply can’t. America is rocketing toward this type of revolution.

I mean, who would jump to revolution? It’s just been the last resort for those fed up with the direction of their country. They petition. They protest. They negotiate. They join bands of like-minded individuals and attempt to exert influence on those who actually hold power. They cling to the belief that change can happen without collapse. And then some random dude does something dramatic like set himself on fire.

But do institutions even pay attention to dudes setting themselves on fire anymore? Apparently not. When the institutions are resistant to change — when elites obstruct reforms, when courts and legislatures grow paralyzed or corrupt, when peaceful dissent is punished rather than heard — the reformers transform from passive drones to calling for heads on a stick. Often reluctantly, they embrace revolution, not because they craved upheaval, but because no other option remains. The remaining options are comically and obviously limited.

France before 1789 is the most well-known example of where this leads. The French people, burdened by inequality and economic crisis, initially turned to the centuries-old institutions they could count on. They sent representatives to the Estates General. They drafted the Cahiers de Doléances, formal grievance petitions intended to guide peaceful reform. But the privileged estates and the monarchy resisted change, dismissing the Third Estate's concerns. Within months, the path to revolution opened, driven not by radicals, but by frustrated reformers who happened to be decent woodworkers.

The lessons learned must have faded in the 200 years following the French Revolution, since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc decided to perform a hard restart in 1989. For decades, people across East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and beyond tried to reform their authoritarian systems from within. They joined underground movements, signed petitions, and engaged in limited protests, holding out hope for change. But as the decades dragged on and promises of reform were repeatedly broken, a deep exhaustion set in. When Soviet power weakened, the facade crumbled rapidly. It wasn't driven by new ideology—it was driven by collective fatigue and a recognition that the system could not and would not change.

If Europe seems far from home, America itself was also born in the second type of revolution. The American Revolution began with legal appeals and peaceful protests. Colonists organized the Stamp Act Congress, the First Continental Congress, and the Olive Branch Petition in attempts to redress grievances within the British imperial framework. Only after years of rejection and repression did rebellion become inevitable. We’re now apparently on the way to our second revolution of exhaustion.

But Americans have so many effective political outlets, right? People organize protests once per year, join political groups of like-minded individuals, pour their hopes into electoral participation, and champion figures they believe will challenge the status quo, whether populists or “wildcard” idealists like Trump, Sanders, or recently, Mamdani. But over and over, these movements collide with the entrenched machinery of political inertia, corporate influence, and institutional gatekeeping. Electoral victories prove fleeting or symbolic, real structural change remains elusive, and frustration only deepens. When was the last time the loser you voted for accomplished what you sent them to do?

Voting doesn’t work. We vote on what they allow us to vote on. We vote on issues at the fringes, never on the foundations. They let us choose our local judges, but not whether America should start another war. We can vote on a new gas tax, but not on how more than a trillion dollars is spent every year. They count on us voting for “the lesser of two evils.” The illusion of choice masks the reality of impotence.

We blog and post, circulating frustration and outrage among people who already agree with us, without ever making inroads with those who need to listen. The elite don't read our messages and even if they did, they wouldn't care. They're not working for us. They're working for other elites.

Modern-day America is walking the same well-worn path as other declining nations. The warning signs are everywhere. Gallup polling shows that trust in major institutions like Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the media has hit historic lows. Pew Research finds that nearly 80% of Americans are dissatisfied with how democracy is working in the U.S. A longer lens shows even deeper pessimism: 58% of Americans say life for people like them is worse today than it was 50 years ago, compared to just 23% who say it's better. Do you really think we as a country, can reverse this trajectory?

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Probably not, because the anger is directionless. While Americans are deeply frustrated, many cannot articulate concrete policy changes that would restore their faith in the system. Instead, their frustration takes the form of cultural grievance, identity-driven animosity, and a growing belief that the system itself is irredeemable. Even if they could pinpoint the cause of their issues, their frustration can’t be channeled effectively. Instead, it will fester.

The only channel we’ve pretended to have - political parties - are failing fast. One is neutered, and the other is basically a single person. They have different definitions of reality itself. Political scientists have termed this "affective polarization," where people don't just disagree — they actively hate and distrust the other side. They’re unsalvageable. Each side sees the other as a threat. We’re no longer one country.

And so we continue, recognizing the steep decline America is on but knowing that there’s no way for us to turn the ship around. It reminds me of Nathan Fielder’s recent season of The Rehearsal covering preventable plane crashes. The automated safety systems are screaming, “pull up, pull up,” but our pilots are instead trying to push each other out of the plane while we careen toward the earth. We can’t vote or advocate or compromise our way into stability. We just have to brace for impact.

Revolutions expose the raw, latent divisions that institutions are meant to manage and soften. Class, race, ideology, religion — these fractures, long buried or papered over by political mechanisms, eventually erupt into the open. Sometimes they are resolved through new constitutions or governments. Other times, they metastasize into prolonged conflict, civil war, or authoritarian rule. The aftermath of the French Revolution spiraled into the Reign of Terror and then the rise of Napoleon. The 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe led to new governments, but not without social upheaval, displacement, and in some cases, the painful birth of new nationalisms.

The truth is sobering: we need novel ideas, credible reformers, and a collective willingness to transcend tribalism.

But you and I both know that we will not get that. Whether our eventual destiny is revolution, collapse, or slow institutional decay remains uncertain. But the trajectory is clear.

My Independence Day featured more than a few half-joking conversations on how this might be our last. These are people with kids, good jobs, 401ks, and Teslas i.e., people who don’t want revolution but feel America is on the brink of something cataclysmic.

How much time do you think America has left to figure this out?

The purview of government is naturally expansive. Giving ambitious subhumans — who think they’re superhumans — power only makes them hungry for more. In short order, they expand their dominion horizontally and vertically, seeking to control more, from ever-higher levels of authority. Instead of focusing on the tasks that got them elected, they chase pet projects and exert greater control over things they have no business touching. It’s why nothing gets done at the local level, and the wrong things get done at the national level.

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Local disaster recovery

Let’s start with an example that’s painfully personal for me — wildfire recovery. Relying on the federal government for disaster response has been, unsurprisingly, ineffective. California's involvement has been minimal, though arguably a bit better. But the real failure has been at the county level — the layer of government closest to the people actually living through this disaster.

The county, representing millions of diverse people with wildly divergent interests, has proven incapable of meaningfully improving Los Angeles in at least my semi-aware adulthood. With so many issues and so few brain cells, it’s no wonder wildfire recovery isn’t their top concern.

But it’s everything to me and my neighbors. This is the first — and hopefully last — time all of us have needed to rely on the beneficence of an inept government. So much depends on their ability to waive fees, raise money, expedite processes, and hold others (and themselves) accountable. We need leadership urgently. Instead, they’ve operated business as usual.

What if accountability, policy decisions, and the rebuilding process were pushed even further down — to the city level? Recovery would likely be faster, more responsive, and better tailored to those affected. The obvious counterpoint is that Altadena is too small — and too poor — to recover on its own. That’s true. Creative strategies to mitigate those limitations are probably a topic for another blog. But the principle is simple:

The level of government closest to encapsulating those most affected by an issue should exercise the greatest jurisdiction.

Yes, that’s federalism.

Greater local autonomy in situations like this just makes sense. The federal government still has a role to play — providing resources, maybe even funding — but management and decision-making should be as local as possible. If necessary, cities should be empowered to borrow directly from the state to fund their recovery, repaying over time, rather than waiting for some distant bureaucracy to figure it out.

The important caveat here is that Altadena isn’t even a city. I hope it will be. Someone needs to step up and fill the leadership void we’ve suffered under for the last six months.

State immigration policy

Yes, crossing a national border is a federal crime — but immigrants don’t really use federal services. Where do they ultimately live? In specific states and cities. Unable to utilize most federal benefits, their impact is felt almost entirely at the state and local levels, not in some abstract "national" sense.

In reality, states are affected differently. California, with its massive economy, benefits from immigration — legal and otherwise — far more than it pays. Yes, there’s a cost on hospitals, schools, and some social services. But immigrants' contributions to the tax base and the economy more than offset that. They pay non-payroll taxes. They fill the need for low-wage work. They drive demand in local economies. Their benefit would be doubled if their status allowed them to contribute even more to the services they utilize.

Contrast that with states like Oklahoma or Arkansas — economically stagnant, with far less need for additional labor. It’s reasonable to assume their immigration policies, if left to them, would look much the same as federal immigration policy today.

And under true federalism, that would be okay. California can decide to welcome immigrants, and Arkansas can do… whatever Arkansas wants to do.

If states had real authority over immigration — the ability to set their own rules within certain federal frameworks, and the responsibility to fund the services immigrants use — the system would function far better. The state is the lowest level of government that actually encompasses those affected.

At the very least, it would be preferable to the chaotic mess we have now, where immigration policy is a political football, enforced (or not) depending on who occupies the White House, then wantonly imposed on the states that actually bear the economic and cultural consequences.

Federal military policy

Should the federal government attack Iran?

Well… should they? Probably not, because policing the world offensively has, on net, been a losing endeavor for the last 70 years.

But if there were a legitimate, imminent threat to the American homeland, then yes — the federal government should be the one to engage militarily. If we apply the same principle as above — that the government closest to the all-encompassing group of constituents on a specific issue should take responsibility for that issue — then of course, it’s the federal government’s job.

Why, then, shouldn’t they attack Iran (or defend Israel, if you prefer)?

Because America is not the world government. And since the United States doesn’t represent the full group of people affected by such an action, it shouldn’t be granted the task of supervising that group.

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But they just don’t care

Whether it’s disaster recovery, immigration, or foreign policy, America suffers when the wrong level of government — or authority — calls the shots. And in some cases, non-Americans suffer too.

We need to return to a more functional version of federalism:

• Local governments are empowered to handle local crises.

• States have meaningful authority over issues that primarily affect them, namely immigration, environment, and economics.

• A federal government focused on genuine national concerns, not global policing or internal politicking.

It’s not perfect. It never will be. But it’s a hell of a lot better than the centralized, bureaucratic mess we have today — the one that leaves wildfire victims stranded, immigration policy in shambles, and our military embroiled in endless conflicts that have nothing to do with defending Americans.

The founders, per usual, were onto something.

Unfortunately, all political will has taken us in the opposite direction. The leeches we elect seek more power. The bureaucrats they designate seek dominion over further reaches of their purview. They neglect what their constituents say they care about in favor of more notable pet projects.

Until we demand that each level of government stay in its lane, we will continue to be disappointed.

For the last month we’ve started to talk to architects and builders, and things are not looking good. Architects want $80k to design a 1400 sq ft home that builders say will cost up to $1,000/sq ft. All this to replace a house which, until a month before the fire, could have sold on its best day for maybe $1.2m to a westside expat looking for a quieter life who just heard a Homestate opened nearby. (I do love Homestate, also). How does rebuilding make sense with this math?

Like many of our neighbors, we’re underinsured. Depending on which estimate proves accurate, we’re between $200 - $500k underinsured. Which leaves me considering alternative models for rebuilding that is financially doable. We’ve considered alternate building materials, prefabs, and buying a home and moving it to Altadena.

In between swearing at my insurance, cursing California, and dreading the multi-year rebuilding process, I remembered a chapter in Civilized to Death (pretty sure this is where it’s from), where the author recounts the anecdote of an indigenous Australian telling an urban Australian that when someone in their tribe needs a house, the tribe simply builds the house. There’s no bank, no mortgage, no payment - someone needs a house, and the community comes together to build the house.

Understanding of course that Los Angeles plays by a different set of rules, I still wondered:

Can we rebuild our neighbor’s houses? Can we volunteer to save on labor costs, preferably with a benevolent general contractor who is willing to oversee our work?

The goal: save money, stay legal, and get back home faster.

It turns out, in Los Angeles County, the answer to the above is maybe—with the right structure in place.

What we're proposing

• A licensed general contractor (GC) pulls permits, ensures code compliance, and supervises the site.

• Licensed trades (electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs) do their jobs—no shortcuts here. I’ve already electrocuted myself three times; I’m not eager to do it again.

• Volunteers—friends, neighbors, community members—help with legally allowed work like:

  • Framing

  • Flooring

  • Painting

  • Insulation

  • Landscaping

  • General labor

  • Finishing touches

We wouldn’t try to avoid the system. We'd work with it—just in a more community-powered way. Conversations I’ve had with general contractors estimated ~40% savings (“just under half”, “about half”). That’s a decent chunk considering the shortfall most of us will have to fill.

What we still need to solve

While this model is possible (according to me, the non-lawyer who should not be trusted for any legal advice), there are some caveats:

1. Volunteer liability

If someone gets hurt on-site—even if they’re volunteering—there could be legal consequences.

Possible solutions:

• Draft strong liability waivers (but these don’t protect against everything)

• Get volunteer accident insurance as a policy add-on (I don’t even know if we’ll have insurance by the time we rebuild)

• Confirm the GC’s insurance covers unpaid labor on-site (Who knows?)

2. Safety & OSHA compliance

Even unpaid volunteers must be protected under Cal/OSHA rules.

So homeowners will need to:

• Provide PPE (hard hats, gloves, etc.)

• Use only safe, code-compliant tools

• Offer site orientation and daily supervision

3. Permit & role clarity

The GC or the owner (as an "owner-builder") must pull permits, supervise work, and ensure trades are licensed. Volunteers can’t be used for anything requiring a license.

Possible solutions:

• Maintain clear task lists of what volunteers can and cannot do

• Keep tight coordination between volunteers and licensed trades

• Designate a safety or volunteer coordinator

A better model for community recovery?

This isn’t just about rebuilding a single home. With enough volunteers, we could rebuild each other’s homes. The first few will take some practice, as people learn the skills necessary to frame, floor, etc. But we’re a motivated town, and the last few months have shown me that we stick together when things get tough.

But we need help pressure-testing this idea.

We’re looking for insight

If you’re a:

• General contractor familiar with LA County

• Owner-builder who’s gone this route

• Construction attorney or permit specialist

I would love to hear your thoughts.

What are we missing? What are the traps to avoid? How can we make this safer and more replicable?

If you have experience, warnings, suggestions, or stories, please share. Leave a comment or reply to this post directly.

This is a conversation we want to have out in the open, because we’re going to need to get creative.

Since the founding of the nation, there has been growing skepticism about the ability of large bureaucratic systems to govern effectively. A review of the confidence in institutions trends shows that it has since gotten worse. Even those with legitimate goals and claims may serve people well for a generation or two before the cracks begin to show. Many don’t even make it that long, lasting only a few budget cycles before they prove useless. As systems age and demographics change, the mismatch between what governments provide and what communities need expands. At some point, usually far beyond the point at which it becomes ineffective, people take notice. That is now the realization for many in Altadena.

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Altadena represents the civic failure of abstracting local government to progressively larger, more distant overlords. The fire exposed a profound rot in Los Angeles County’s ability to manage emergencies, allocate resources, and respond to localized needs. There are, of course, many failures that have destroyed Altadena. But focusing on county “leadership”, the closest governing body to Altadena, is a good place to start.

LA County attempts to govern nearly 10 million racially, socioeconomically, demographically diverse people spread across a wide geography. Montrose, Newhall, Marina del Rey, Altadena, Castaic, Hacienda Heights - these cities do not share the same values, needs, or constraints. Is it fair to expect that a government pool resources from all of these distinct communities and come up with a single master plan that addresses all of their needs? Each city, if given the opportunity, may differentially choose to focus on crime, homelessness, wildfire prevention, urbanization, education, or some combination. Each of these alone would demand individualized attention and action, but now must be combined for hierarchical coordination and budgeting of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. The result is a persistent misalignment between their policies and local priorities.

Let’s say this overpaid Board of Supervisors could conceivably combine our disparate priorities into a single comprehensive set of policies, they would still be ineffective. Can you find a single meaningful success story in LA County politics for the last 20 years? I’m not talking about opening a new park, but actually shifting communities in a positive direction. Public safety during the Eaton Fire is but one example of the myriad failures of the LA County Board of Supervisors. Improper funding, poor management, low accountability, and questionable personnel standards have given us safety services (e.g., sheriff, fire department, emergency response) that are paid too much and deliver too little.

All departments seem to operate without urgency or connection to the communities they’re supposed to serve, resulting in boondoggles, corruption, and stagnation; it has taken over a decade to connect the Metro to LAX, a sheriff and a supervisor were recently found guilty of forms of corruption, and home ownership is out of reach for most. These are just acute examples of their failure, but we feel the pervasive failures every day when we pay too much for basic things, have to fend off catalytic converter thieves on our own, have subpar transportation, or, in the case of Altadena, have to do everything ourselves.

The Board of Supervisors has directed billions of dollars toward high-profile initiatives—mass transit expansions, homelessness programs, social justice efforts—which have and will continue to underwhelm. Look at their budgets and decide for yourself whether you’d agree with their priorities. They appear designed to satisfy a small, politically active subset of the county’s population, while leaving core responsibilities like emergency preparedness underdeveloped. Then decide if you have seen any measurable change in these priority areas.

So, should places like Altadena continue to rely on the LA County Board of Supervisors for essential governance?

No.

There is an obvious argument for incorporation—turning Altadena into a city with its own leadership and budget, accountable to local needs and priorities. More broadly, it raises the case for subsidiarity: the principle that governance should happen as close to the people as possible. When a single board of career failures governs neighborhoods with vastly different social, environmental, and economic conditions, the result is misallocation of resources and loss of local agency. Residents in both affluent and underserved areas end up with less than what’s needed for their specific conditions.

I won’t hide that I’d prefer the abandonment of most involuntary collective systems. I know that won’t happen. But it should be clear that we need to reassess which institutions deserve trust and budget, and which must be replaced. Public safety, disaster response, school systems—these should be managed locally, by people who understand the objectives, the risks, and the culture. The further decision-making is removed from the people it affects, the worse the outcomes become.

We can’t rebuild Altadena with the same inadequate leadership that we’ve had. We survived in spite of their failure, not because of their oversight.

If LA County is structurally incapable of protecting its residents in moments of crisis, then it may be time to stop expecting it to. The future of local governance—at least for communities like Altadena—may depend not on reforming the county, but on outgrowing it.

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It’s been months since the fire, and you’ve learned that “recovery” is a tidy word for a chaotic, grinding, and deeply frustrating process. What started as an acute crisis quickly became a drawn-out, all-consuming slog through a bureaucratic nightmare. What appears from the outside to be help from the inside is a never-ending maze.

You spend hours each day on hold, resending forms, chasing down people who either can’t or won’t help. One department blames another. Systems don’t sync. People don't call you back. You check websites that never seem to be updated. You rely on a confident answer one day, then the next discover it was a complete fabrication. Despite their failures, you're the one who needs to deal with the consequences.

You’re expected to act fast—submit this, sign that, meet every deadline. But when you need answers, the same urgency doesn’t apply. Delays stretch on. Updates vanish. There is no accountability. Your elected, well-paid public officials tell you that recovery is progressing better than expected. This might be the most seamless recovery in all of history. Your insurance pays you $0.40/dollar for your possessions and fights you even for that.

You can't think about rebuilding your actual house. You first have to worry about replacing a lifetime of stuff, one item at a time. Every object demands a decision: What brand? What model? Does it even still exist? Soon you realize: you’re not rebuilding your life. You’re staging a cheap imitation of it. The weight and meaning behind what was lost are irreplaceable, but you still need the basics anyway. Yet this is easier than remembering you're waiting to return to a home that will never be the same.

Support fades fast. In the beginning, there were recovery centers, donations, promises of speedy recovery. That generosity felt good—for the donors. The hope of seeing those donations fades by the day. You’re still here, waiting. Applying. Following up. Grieving quietly as friends move on and systems leave you behind.

But you survived the disaster, right?

The theater of recovery

Recovery, it turns out, is mostly performative—an endless maze of paperwork, hold music, and Kafkaesque systems that pretend to help while actively slowing you down. Take our application for the right of entry process: submitted early, untouched for 60 days, and after countless calls where we were assured that "everything is fine", we were eventually told it was “awaiting our action” due to “missing documents.” This despite having confirmation that everything was received successfully. The only answer that the helpful bureaucrat could offer: “Sometimes the electrons get mixed.”

And that moment perfectly captures the quality of help we’ve encountered. We wait hours to talk to the "right person", who ends up either guessing the answer, telling you the wrong answer, or uttering some absolute nonsense. They read from scripts, bounce you between departments, and ultimately leave you more confused than when you started. Or worse, leave you believing you've got the right answer, only to learn later it's the exact wrong answer. On the rare occasion that they do have the right answer, they have no authority to resolve anything. Everyone who hears about how our insurance has treated our claim says it shouldn't need to be that difficult, but there's nothing they can do about it.

The truth is, managing recovery has become a part-time job. On good weeks, I spend two to three hours a day dealing with it. On bad ones, four to five. It’s a grind of emails, voicemails, forms, follow-ups, and resubmissions. It's preparing documentation three different ways for three different agencies, all while navigating systems that seem deliberately designed to keep you out.

You don’t get paid for this work. You don’t get recognition for doing it well. And it never ends. This is what recovery really looks like— the slow erosion of your time, energy, and faith that the system is capable of helping people when it matters most.

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The one-way expectation of responsibility

Every institution involved—banks, mortgage companies, insurance—moves with lightning speed when they need something from _us_. Submit this affidavit. Fill out that form. Return this by Friday. But when we need something? Expect weeks of delay, vague updates, and repeated follow-ups.

For example, our insurance company took over a month just to process our itemization of a single room. Updates are inconsistent, timelines evaporate, and every step forward seems to require three follow-ups and a week of waiting.

And yet, there’s no accountability. No apologies. Just more forms, more waiting, and more polite indifference. If you're late on _your_ paperwork, there are consequences. But if _they_ are late—if their delay costs you weeks of progress and hope—there's no recourse. You're told to be patient, to understand that they're “handling a high volume of cases,” as if you’re supposed to be comforted by the fact that you're not the only one being ignored.

The invisible grief of rebuilding

Rebuilding a house is one kind of hard. Replacing what was _inside_ it is another—and it’s deceptively brutal. You don’t realize just how much you’ve accumulated over a lifetime until it’s gone. Suddenly, you're staring at a blank slate and tasked with recreating 30 years of living, comfort, and personal taste in a matter of months.

You think it will be as simple as going to a store or shopping online. It isn’t. Every item requires a decision: What did we have? What brand was it? Do they still make it? And that’s just for a toaster. Now multiply that by every object in your kitchen, your bedroom, your garage, your closet, your living room, your bathroom—every drawer, every shelf, every cabinet.

You’re forced into a corner. Either you compromise—buy whatever’s available, the fast fashion equivalent of home goods—or you spend hours scouring outdated product listings, review forums, and secondhand sites, trying to find something that even remotely resembles what you lost. And when you do find something, it’s often more expensive, lower quality, and backordered.

And even when you _do_ replace something, the results are disappointing. Everything now feels flimsy, mass-produced, temporary. You're surrounded by objects that look like your old life but feel hollow by comparison.

There’s no joy in it. What should be a process of rebuilding a life starts to feel like furnishing a stage set. It’s all surface. The weight, the familiarity, the meaning—those are gone. Even things you didn’t realize you loved until they weren’t there anymore, like the exact curve of a handle or the perfect fit of an old mug in your hand, can’t be replicated.

And underlying it all is a quiet but relentless pressure: buy fast so you can move on, or slow down and stay stuck in limbo. But the truth is, you can’t buy your way back to normal. Not when the market only offers slightly shinier versions of broken.

The vanishing act of support

The first thing we noticed is how quickly people and institutions move on. In the immediate aftermath, there were recovery centers, non-profits, massive public outpourings of support, and promises to cut the red tape. Trust me, the red tape is redder than ever and support is actually very limited. That which we did apply for is still pending, with the exception of nominal assistance from FEMA and the Red Cross. Then there were benefit concerts, donations, and high-profile pledges for “the victims.” Where did that money go? We and our neighbors haven't seen even a sliver of those funds. It's hard not to feel like those efforts were more about making donors feel good than helping those actually affected.

Even more disheartening was how quickly friends disappeared. I didn’t expect everyone to keep life on hold while we had to, but the silence from people we once considered close has been harder than we thought. It’s a strange kind of grief to realize that everyone else is able to go on with their lives.

A better way?

I don’t have all the answers, but I know this: the way we do recovery now is broken.

Some ideas:

• A community-based insurance pool. Something like a credit union for disasters. Something with a distributed risk pool, initially funded by a very high premium placed into very conservative investments, and with very firm rules and payout criteria. Something that doesn’t force you to itemize every fork in your burned-down kitchen.

• Transparency mandates for public-facing systems. No more “two views” where the bureaucrats see something different than the public. The system should show the same data to both sides.

• Service-level agreements for insurers and mortgage companies. If we’re required to meet deadlines, so should they. There must be standardized response times and accountability for delays.

• Better consumer protections. Rebuilding should not rely on navigating 15 fragmented agencies, each with their own broken process and outdated tech.

The bottom line

Recovery doesn’t end when the fire is extinguished. That’s when it really begins. But the systems we’ve built aren’t designed to support people. They’re designed to preserve appearances and manage liabilities.

If we really cared about disaster survivors, our county supervisor, fire department, emergency services, and Army Corps of Engineers would stop patting themselves on the back after permitting one new home and start asking how the other 9,000 homes are going to make it.