Dealing with systemic problems

The problems we deal with in everyday life is an entirely different beast compared to the problems we're trained to solve in schools: even those problems you're trained to solve in school like programming, transform into something much more complicated, with many unknown factors, when they become projects in real world.

All the real world problems that vexes you are systemic problems and you'll never find a solution that completely rectifies the issue by treating its root cause. To adapt in the real world you'll have to make compromises and lower your standards.

There are many systemic problems which probably have shaped your life more than you realize: like school education with its myriad of issues, but the example which I want to talk about today is about craniofacial development: the most apparent way this problem manifests itself is in crooked teeth, but undersized jaws could also result in more concerning problems like sleep apnea because the there's not enough room for the tongue in the jaws and it falls backward and obstructs the airway, especially during sleep when all the muscles relax.

The solution offered to crowding, which is widely accepted despite it only exacerbating the root issue, is extraction of teeth and orthodontically rearranging the rest of the teeth with the space made available from extraction. Another solution works for adults is MSE or Maxillary Skeletal Expansion. It addresses the root cause in that it creates space but it does so by splitting the maxilla laterally, yet this isn't a complete solution either because it ignores the mandible.

The root cause is said to be our diet, which only has soft food which doesn't stimulate the jaws enough, but it goes even further: supposedly the jaw doesn't develop because mothers don't breastfeed their babies and just bottlefeed them. Bottlefeeding makes the baby suck the milk while breastfeeding makes the baby push the nipple against their maxilla in order to draw out the milk. The former sucking movement leads to narrowing of the jaw while the latter motion leads to expansion of maxilla.

So how far do the roots of these problems go?? This is just one kind of problem that plagues our society but there are others like poverty which too have deep roots and solutions that address just the symptoms.

Our emotions are woefully inept at solving the systemic problems of civilizaiton. Against systemic problems, anger is not just fleeting source of power, but unable to make out who or what its target even is. You could try your best to direct anger at the people that deserve it but in the end you only feel conflicted.


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