There’s a question I keep coming back to whenever another scandal breaks, another powerful man is exposed, another institution quietly shrugs and moves on:

How did we build a world where harm can be this obvious—and accountability this rare?

The story of Jeffrey Epstein isn’t just about one man. It’s about what happens when wealth, power, and prestige move faster than care, consequence, and repair. He wasn’t protected by genius. He wasn’t protected by secrecy. He was protected by systems that prioritize reputation over people, efficiency over empathy, and silence over truth.

And the most unsettling part is this:

Epstein isn’t an anomaly. He’s a symptom.

So instead of asking “How did he get away with it?”

I’m more interested in asking:

What would our systems look like if getting away with harm wasn’t possible anymore?

The Core Problem We Refuse to Name

Our current systems—corporate, governmental, economic—are optimized for:

• growth

• profit

• speed

• scale

• abstraction
  

They are not optimized for care.

Harm is treated as an externality.

Grief is treated as weakness.

Lived experience is treated as anecdote.

And accountability only appears when damage becomes too public to ignore.

This is why powerful people don’t need to conspire.

They only need to operate inside systems that don’t require them to feel, see, or repair the harm they cause.

So what if we changed that requirement?

The common thread across these failures isn’t individual evil—it’s distance. Decision-makers rarely face the people affected by their choices. Harm is filtered through lawyers, metrics, and PR until it becomes abstract. The system redesign below is about restoring proximity—forcing power back into relationship with consequence.

A World Where Power Must Face the People It Affects

Imagine a system where proximity is non-negotiable.

Mandatory Public Grievance Assemblies

Four times a year, every major corporation, institution, and government body is required to participate in public grievance assemblies.

Not PR events.

Not shareholder calls.

Not closed-door hearings.

Public. Mandatory. Recorded.

Who must attend:

• CEOs

• board members

• senior executives

• major shareholders

• regulators and policymakers
  

No representatives. No proxies.

If you make decisions that shape people’s lives, you must sit in the room.

What Happens in These Assemblies

These gatherings function like a cross between:

• a truth and reconciliation commission

• a restorative justice circle

• a civic courtroom without elite insulation
  

The public is invited to present:

• personal testimony

• medical and psychological impacts

• environmental data

• workplace injury records

• expert analysis

• photos, videos, documentation
  

Not just what happened—but how it affected bodies, families, communities, and futures.

This is grief as evidence.

This is harm as data.

Outcomes, Not Optics

These assemblies don’t end with “thank you for sharing.”

They end with findings.

If harm is substantiated, the institution receives:

• a formal harm ruling

• a required reparative plan

• a 12-month window to resolve the issue
  

Reparations are not limited to money. They can include:

• healthcare and long-term treatment

• environmental restoration

• policy changes

• labor protections

• leadership removal

• public acknowledgment and memorialization

• community-controlled resources
  

If the harm is not repaired within the year:

• sanctions escalate

• leadership faces removal

• operations can be restricted or suspended
  

No endless delays.

No “we’re looking into it.”

Repair becomes mandatory infrastructure.

Harm Accounting: What We Actually Measure

In this world, companies don’t just publish profits.

They publish harm ledgers.

Every institution must track and disclose:

• worker injury and burnout

• stress-related illness

• environmental exposure

• community displacement

• racialized and gendered impacts

• long-term health outcomes
  

These ledgers are audited independently and reviewed publicly.

Because what we refuse to measure, we allow to continue.

Power That Doesn’t Get to Hide Forever

Leadership is no longer permanent insulation.

In a care-centered system:

• power has time limits

• repeated harm disqualifies leadership

• golden parachutes are abolished

• decision-makers must periodically return to ordinary life
  

Power becomes a temporary responsibility, not a lifelong shield.

How This System Actually Works
(And Why It’s More Than Public Forums)

When I first imagined mandatory public grievance assemblies, I was thinking primarily about institutions—corporations, governments, agencies, and powerful organizations being forced to face the harm they cause.

That layer still exists.
But it isn’t enough on its own.

Because harm doesn’t usually begin at the institutional level.
It begins interpersonally, quietly, and deniably.

So the system I’m proposing actually has three connected layers, each solving a different failure in how accountability works today.

Layer 1: Local Public Accountability Offices (LPAOs)

Where individuals bring harm early

The LPAO is the first point of contact for people who’ve been harmed.

This is where:

• a teenager reports sexual exploitation

• a worker reports coercion or retaliation

• a tenant reports unsafe living conditions

• a patient reports medical harm

• a community member reports environmental exposure

Crucially, this is not police and not a courtroom.

It’s a public office designed for:

• early reporting

• protection from retaliation

• documentation of harm

• pattern recognition across time

The LPAO exists so individuals don’t have to:

• be certain they were abused

• prove criminal guilt

• confront the person who harmed them

• go viral to be believed

Its job is simple but radical:
make harm cumulative instead of isolated.

Layer 2: Regional Public Grievance Assemblies (RPGAs)

Where patterns become public and power is summoned

When harm stops looking like a one-off and starts looking like a pattern, it escalates.

That’s when a case moves from the LPAO to a Regional Public Grievance Assembly.

This is where:

• alleged harm-causers are required to appear

• institutions connected to the harm are summoned

• testimony, medical evidence, and expert analysis are presented publicly

• responsibility is assigned not just to individuals, but to systems

This is not a criminal trial.
It’s a harm determination forum.

Its purpose isn’t punishment first—it’s:

• acknowledgment

• restriction of further harm

• mandatory repair

• and institutional accountability

This is the layer that makes silence, delay, and reputation management stop working.

Layer 3: Quarterly Public Grievance Assemblies

Where institutions answer for systemic harm

This is the layer I imagined first.

Quarterly assemblies focus on macro-level harm:

• corporate practices

• government policy failures

• environmental damage

• labor exploitation

• healthcare and housing crises

CEOs, boards, shareholders, regulators, and senior officials are required to sit in public, hear grievances, and respond with concrete repair plans.

This layer ensures institutions can’t:

• outlast outrage

• bury harm in settlements

• treat accountability as a one-time event

Why All Three Layers Matter

Without LPAOs:

• early harm stays private

• victims stay isolated

• abuse doesn’t look “systemic” until it’s too late

Without RPGAs:

• patterns stay quiet

• power avoids proximity

• repair remains optional

Without quarterly assemblies:

• institutions pretend harm is resolved

• leadership escapes long-term responsibility

Together, they create a closed loop:

• individuals have somewhere to go

• harm accumulates instead of disappearing

• power is forced to face consequence

• repair becomes ongoing, not symbolic

The Difference This Makes

Under our current systems, harm has to be extreme, undeniable, and public to matter.

In this system, harm matters early.

Not because everyone becomes good.
But because structure no longer allows harm to hide.

The sentence to carry forward

This system doesn’t rely on bravery, perfection, or exposure.

It relies on proximity, pattern recognition, and mandatory repair.

Why This Changes Everything

This system doesn’t eliminate harm.

Nothing human ever will.

But it makes harm:

• visible

• undeniable

• costly

• repairable
  

It restores the feedback loop abstraction broke.

When individuals and decision-makers must look at the people they affect—listen to them, answer to them, repair what they break—behavior changes.

Not because people suddenly become saints.

But because care is finally built into the structure itself.

This Is What Progress With Care Looks Like

Slower.

More relational.

Less spectacular.

Far more humane.

Fewer billionaires.

Fewer monsters.

Fewer scandals we pretend are shocking.

More repair.

More trust.

More rest.

More life.

The Question We Have to Answer

Epstein forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth:

The problem isn’t just bad people.

It’s systems that don’t require goodness.

So the real question isn’t “How do we stop the next Epstein?”

It’s:

What kind of world makes it impossible for harm to hide behind power ever again?

This is my answer.