This old saw gets trotted out every other day without fail. Look, it's simple. The "right" problems tend to be hard problems, otherwise they wouldn't be probl

This old saw gets trotted out every other day without fail. Look, it's simple. The "right" problems tend to be hard problems, otherwise they wouldn't be problems anymore. Hard problems are hard to solve not because they require a lot of focus, otherwise spending more money on solving cancer would have solved the problem a long time ago. Hard problems are hard to solve because the solutions are not obvious, and they require serendipity. Quote from Matt Ridley: "Gutenberg made printed books cheap, which triggered a rise in literacy, which created a market for spectacles, which led to the invention of microscopes and telescopes, which led to the discovery that the earth went round the sun." If the path to the solution to those problems was obvious, yeah, it would make sense to criticize "superfluous" stuff. Until then, find more interesting subjects for your op-eds.