How Things Break (Long Before They Break)

On noticing the drift before things break

Most big failures don’t arrive with sirens.

They don’t announce themselves as disasters.
They show up quietly — as shortcuts, excuses, and phrases that sound reasonable if you don’t stop to examine them.

We like to imagine history as a series of villains and heroes.
In reality, it’s usually something far less dramatic — and far more dangerous.

Overconfidence.
Groupthink.
A growing tolerance for bullshit.

That’s how things actually unravel.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how humans have repeated the same mistakes for thousands of years. Not because we’re uniquely evil — but because we’re remarkably consistent.

We overestimate our judgment.
We excuse behavior we’d once have questioned.
We confuse confidence with competence.

And we don’t notice the drift until the consequences are unavoidable.

This is why panic is such a bad guide.

Panic skips the important part — noticing how we got here.
It jumps straight to fear, blame, and spectacle.
And spectacle is where bad ideas thrive.

What actually protects ordinary people isn’t outrage or strongman rhetoric.

It’s boring things:

Rules.
Process.
Restraint.

People who know what they’re doing and respect limits.

Those aren’t exciting.
They don’t go viral.
But they’re the difference between stability and chaos.

Here’s the part worth remembering:

When leaders start excusing rule-breaking “just this once,”
when language softens around aggression or abuse of power,
when people stop asking “by what authority?” —

that’s not strength.
That’s the early warning system flashing.

You don’t need to panic when you see that.
You need to pay attention.

This porch exists for that reason.

Not to tell anyone what to think…
but to slow things down enough that we can see what’s actually happening before it’s too late.

— Fred

#ThePorch