All problems exist on a continuum, from the most immediate local effects at the bottom, up to their true source at the top. We've been told to focus on doing what good we can with what's directly in front of us, but why? Is it because this materially changes the problem, or merely because it's the most soothing balm we can apply on ourselves? Consider a river flowing down from the mountains, polluted with mining runoff. You can treat the water where it meets the village below, but this process will never end. Each gallon you purify will help a villager that day, but they will need you just as much the next. You must go upstream and stop the runoff, and that is where you will meet the true resistance, because that is where someone benefits from the way things are. This too is where our system fails, because it is far too easy for those with control to entrench themselves deeper. And the more they shore up their defenses, the more powerful of a force will be needed to remove them. I fear we have already passed the point where the mechanisms that exist within the system are inadequate for the task. Something more radical will be required, though as of yet, no one has been willing to step outside of what is to find what could be. But someone must.