Let me start by saying this. I won’t be able to in this one blog post, cover the totality of the situation confronting our societies today. But I can certainly begin to open your eyes, even just a little bit. If the information I present to you today is foreign to you, then please, just hold on.

December 7th, a day which will live in infamy. The attack on Pearl Harbor took two waves of Japanese planes (around 300 units) armed to the teeth. And generated tremendous damage to the United States Naval capability at the time. Including inflicting a few thousand casualties against the unprepared forces. Only a few years later, a single bomber crew would take out an entire city. Technology, as it advances, brings to us tremendous power. Now, nearly everyone knows this. There aren’t many people who aren’t aware of humanity’s ability to destroy the world multiple times over in less than an hour. What people often don’t think about, or aren’t aware of, are the ramifications of technological advancement in other fields.

Sure, we all know that bombs can be made from household items. And used to dangerous effect. We all (should) know that chemical weapons are easy to create given the correct knowledge. Or that biological weapons are becoming easier and easier to create (see: CRISPR). That is is possible to build nuclear reactor in your garage; and that the threat from a nuke is dwarfed in terms of risk (danger X likelihood) by the threat of a dirty bomb. However, looking beyond the category of “WMDs”; we must consider the imminent threats facing us every day.

The Islamic State has launched two separate assaults in Paris just this year alone. And not one of those attacks has required a WMD in order for it to be carried to completion. All it took for the attackers to be able to create chaos and destruction on a bastardly scale, was guns, a few explosives, and some balls. All it took for the hijackers on 9/11 was pilot training.

The reality is, that the bad guys don’t need nukes to cause wanton destruction. And heaven help us if they ever do acquire something so dangerous. Because we are not ready. But they will attack, and cause tremendous damage without the need for such things. The problem is our world.

We are far more vulnerable than we realize. And our security apparatuses are only adding to the problem. In a way akin to the operation of anti-virus against malware. Our ability to detect and thwart attacks against us from a centralized position is as juvenile. We will detect and stop those silly basic attacks with ease. If someone storms into a theater to shoot it up after alerting the world on their Facebook, we might have a chance to avert the crisis. If a terrorist attempts to smuggle a bag of hand grenades through an airport scanner, we might stop them.

But any competent adversary is going to respond to our static defenses, and security theater by doing what malware does in the virtual world. Changing their appearance. Blending in. Acting normal. Until one day, they are ready to strike. The reality of our world, and our future; is that our security apparatus is quickly falling behind in its ability to detect and counter advanced threats. And the ability of these threats to cause tremendous damage to our soft underbelly is only growing.

What can we do?

There is only one answer. In a rapidly evolving world, with constantly evolving threats; we must evolve. Our ability to interdict threats is rapidly decreasing as they increase in complexity. We must shore up our defenses through a new philosophy. We must Secure by Default. Gas masks, filtration systems, citizen self defense forces, CRISPR killing anti-bodies; we must make ourselves hard targets.

Many people still think that it is the job of the police to come and save them in times of crisis. If they can get there in time, they certainly will do everything in their power to defend you. But their capabilities only extend so far. The same rule applies nearly universally in the philosophical game of attack v. defense. How many more people have to die before we’ll finally get it? We must become hard targets. It is on us to evolve to meet the threats in the world.

Make no mistake, the world we once knew is gone. We’re passing into a crazy time, one that can make or break us as a species. A world in which an attacker will soon be able to 3D print a gun to attach to his drone; before sending it out to autonomously kill a target using facial recognition software. All while he sits in his home, entirely untraceable.

We must evolve. We must secure our world by default. Not by counter-attack.