We are living in extraordinary times. Take the richest country in the world today: the United States of America. It is in the midst of the largest deportation program in its history. Despite that, groceries are still too expensive, housing is still unaffordable, health care costs are still skyrocketing, wages still aren’t keeping up with inflation, and jobs are disappearing.

An estimated 24% of American households are earning less income than their expenses and therefore, getting deeper and deeper into debt, month after month. As jobs hemorrhage, there is no sign that these households will ever dig out of their debt spiral in the foreseeable future. Consequently, in the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey released on Friday, Americans rated current economic conditions as the worst in the past fifty years.

If the richest nation in the world is having such difficulties meeting the basic needs of its people, it does not bode well for other nations seeking to solve similar problems in the same system. Indeed, these problems are not just caused by immigrants or failed policies, but they are a consequence of systemic factors.

Today, the world stands at a crossroads. In addition to our economic, political and societal problems, the collapse of ecosystems, the cries of animals silenced by industries of exploitation, and the apparent disconnection between humans and Nature are not coincidences, but symptoms of legacy human-engineered systems that are operating well past their use-by date. But within these symptoms also lie the seeds of transformation.