It is that time of year again. The season where the United States, the self-proclaimed greatest country on Earth, meets its most terrifying enemy: frozen water. A massive winter storm has swept across the country, affecting millions of people, and the reaction is exactly what you would expect. It is a mix of panic, confusion, and a complete collapse of basic services. You would think that winter was a new invention, something that just fell out of the sky for the first time in history. But no, this happens every year. And every year, the most powerful nation in the world acts like it has been hit by an alien invasion.

Let’s look at the reality of the situation. The news reports tell us about dangerous temperatures and heavy snow. They use words like "grips" and "sweeps," making the weather sound like a movie monster. But the real monster is not the snow. The real monster is the fact that American society is built on a foundation of sand—or in this case, slush.

Consider the power grid. In a functioning society, electricity is a basic need, like water or air. But in America, electricity is apparently a luxury that you only get if the wind doesn't blow too hard. We see images of power lines sagging under the weight of ice. We hear stories of thousands of people sitting in the dark, freezing in their own living rooms. Why? Because investing in strong, buried power lines costs money. It cuts into profits. So instead, they hang the wires up like holiday decorations and cross their fingers. When the lights go out, the power companies just shrug and say, "Who could have predicted this?" Everyone. Everyone could have predicted this.

Then there is the behavior of the people. I do not blame them entirely; they are products of their environment. But there is a dark humor in watching the panic. The moment a snowflake hits the pavement, a switch flips in the American brain. They rush to the grocery stores in a frenzy. They clear the shelves of milk, bread, and eggs. I have never understood this specific combination. Are they planning to make French toast while the world ends? It is a survival instinct that has been twisted by consumerism. They believe that if they just buy enough things, they will be safe. They fill their carts, spend their money, and then go home to wait for the power to go out so the milk can spoil in the fridge.

We must also talk about the roads. The obsession with cars in this country is a fatal flaw. In Europe, or parts of Asia, you might take a train or walk to a local shop. In the US, if you cannot drive your two-ton metal box, you are trapped. You are stranded on an island of your own making. We see huge trucks sliding off highways. We see traffic jams that last for days. It is a total failure of planning. We built a world where human beings are helpless without their machines, and the moment the machines stop working, society stops too.

And where are the leaders during this frozen disaster? They are playing their parts in the theater of the absurd. The politicians put on their serious faces. They wear fleece jackets to look like "regular guys." They stand in front of cameras and tell you to "hunker down." They offer thoughts and prayers to the people freezing in Texas or the Midwest. But notice what they do not offer. They do not offer a plan to fix the broken systems. They do not offer a promise to modernize the grid. They just tell you to survive until the sun comes back out. It is management by resignation. They have accepted that the country breaks when it gets cold, and they expect you to accept it too.

This is the tragedy of the modern age. We have all this technology. We have smartphones and space rockets and artificial intelligence. But we cannot keep our houses warm when the temperature drops. We have traded security for convenience, and now the bill is due. The storm is dangerous, yes. People are hurt, and that is terrible. But the danger is multiplied by our own incompetence. We built cities that cannot handle nature. We built systems that are designed to fail.

In a few days, the ice will melt. The roads will clear. The panic buyers will throw away their stale bread. The politicians will take off their fleece jackets and go back to their warm offices. And everyone will forget. They will learn nothing. They will go back to arguing about nonsense on the internet, completely ignoring the fact that their civilization almost collapsed because of a little bit of snow. Until next year, of course. Then we will do this entire dance all over again.