The Bottles of Water Problem

When I left MSNBC in 2012, I went to Louisiana to build equipment.

The idea was to turn shipping containers into self-contained resource stations: solar power, water filtration, food production, and wireless connectivity. Linked together, they could form a distributed infrastructure for basic human needs. We built them in Louisiana and Texas, using local manufacturing. The plan was to train returning combat veterans to deploy and maintain them.

The goal was simple: replace dependency with distributed local capacity.

The idea attracted attention. The New York Times wrote about it. Foundations, corporations, and governments met with us. Eventually, I presented it at the State Department.

People consistently liked the concept. Meetings went well. There was interest and encouragement. But no one put it into practice.

It’s possible the technology wasn’t ready or that better systems existed. That would be a reasonable explanation.

What was harder to explain was the outcome: nothing.

More than a decade later, global resource infrastructure still largely revolves around centralized delivery—moving water, food, power, and equipment into places —rather than enabling local production.

One meeting at the State Department sticks with me and may clarify why. I presented the system: power, water, food, connectivity— distributed networks of local resilience, using oil industry expertise for the resource hubs and veterans as the workforce.

A state department official took me aside and explained the problem with my idea.

“If we control peoples access to food, water, electricity and connectivity they need us and we can control them. If we build a distributed network of resource hubs, they don’t -- and we lose power.”

That reframed everything. I had assumed the goal of aid was identical to its stated purpose: to solve the problem. By that logic, the best system would eliminate the need for itself.

But institutions operate under incentives as well.

A corporation gains value from being the controlling provider of resources.

A charity depends on perpetuating ongoing need.

A government program derives influence from administering temporary assistance that can be withdrawn as a punishment for non-compliance, Actually, solving the underlying problem -- removes the institution’s role.

This doesn’t require conspiracy. It simply reflects how incentives align.

It raises a question I’ve thought about since:

Do our systems want to solve the problem?

Often the people inside it do.

But solving a problem -- and managing a problem to accumulate as much power and money as possible are not the same function.