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These "most urgent problems" aren't addressed because they're not urgent enough. I work with antimicrobial resistance and phage therapy, and everyone keeps com

These "most urgent problems" aren't addressed because they're not urgent enough. I work with antimicrobial resistance and phage therapy, and everyone keeps complaining that regulatory frameworks aren't adapting to our needs fast enough, there's no funding, etc. That's all true, because there's no urgent need to move faster. COVID-19 came along and all those obstacles evaporated. If AMR actually killed 10M+ people a year, in Western / wealthy countries, you bet it would become an "urgent problem" real quick. I consider these "urgent" problems "aspirationally urgent" in the same way that "we should probably eat less red meat and drink less alcohol and go to the gym more" kind of urgent. It's in the pile of things we should be doing... but we put off. It's not "urgent" as in "step off of the train tracks or I'll get hit" kind of urgent.

Loquebantur 4y ago
The point of the article is exactly people in the west like yourself, comparatively rich and well-educated, applying an ill-informed subjective standard of urgency? You apply a model of reality formed in the western bubble essentially and assume, it applies to the whole planet equally, errors negligible. That is incorrect. Not "only" do multitudes suffer needlessly because of such an attitude being common where decisions are made, "mid- and long-term" consequences are obviously closing in and mounting to unmanageable levels. It is not enough to just imagine one's model of reality to be correct and feel confirmed by people in the same bubble, prone to the same errors of judgement.
- yawnxyz 4y ago
  Right, my point being I'm working in this field and it's incredibly difficult to get any kind of grant funding for this kind of work. Gov't funding drives this kind of work, and we spend a lot of time writing grants and getting scant money in this field. I'm a research software engineer making less than I made at my first tech job out of school — is that really what it takes , for people like me to give up making a nice salary at a tech company, to solve these "urgent" problems?
  - walleeee 4y ago
    similar role with a similar experience > is that really what it takes, for people like me to give up making a nice salary at a tech company, to solve these "urgent" problems? after a lot of thought and soul searching I've reluctantly come to think yes, this is at least a start given pathological incentives some number of people must elect not to be guided by them if anything is to change
bayraktar 4y ago
It's not "urgent" as in "step off of the train tracks or I'll get hit" kind of urgent. The article specifically puts climate change at the top of its concerns, which is a "step off of the train tracks or you'll get hit" problem if there ever was one -- but in slow motion, of course. The point of the article, as I read it, was that these problems really are urgent, but our brains and our politics trick us into not seeing them that way because they are either (1) slow moving or (2) call for tedious, fat-tail responses (rather than sexy, exciting, silver bullet fixes). Rather than "yeah, I should get out to the gym more" a better analogy would be: "Okay, it's time to face it -- I'm definitely an alcoholic. If I don't change my ways, it may not kill me tomorrow, but it's definitely going to catch up with me soon enough. So I better start figuring out a way to turn this boat around, before it heads over the edge." Which is categorically different from the "aspirational" sense of urgency you seem to be describing. The ability to discern that certain problems are, in fact, "urgent" (despite their being slow-moving or incremental in their effect) is one of the highly valuable traits that enables some genes (read: species or individuals) to succeed, while others fail.

Loquebantur 4y ago

The point of the article is exactly people in the west like yourself, comparatively rich and well-educated, applying an ill-informed subjective standard of urgency? You apply a model of reality formed in the western bubble essentially and assume, it applies to the whole planet equally, errors negligible. That is incorrect. Not "only" do multitudes suffer needlessly because of such an attitude being common where decisions are made, "mid- and long-term" consequences are obviously closing in and mounting to unmanageable levels. It is not enough to just imagine one's model of reality to be correct and feel confirmed by people in the same bubble, prone to the same errors of judgement.

yawnxyz 4y ago
Right, my point being I'm working in this field and it's incredibly difficult to get any kind of grant funding for this kind of work. Gov't funding drives this kind of work, and we spend a lot of time writing grants and getting scant money in this field. I'm a research software engineer making less than I made at my first tech job out of school — is that really what it takes , for people like me to give up making a nice salary at a tech company, to solve these "urgent" problems?
- walleeee 4y ago
  similar role with a similar experience > is that really what it takes, for people like me to give up making a nice salary at a tech company, to solve these "urgent" problems? after a lot of thought and soul searching I've reluctantly come to think yes, this is at least a start given pathological incentives some number of people must elect not to be guided by them if anything is to change

bayraktar 4y ago

It's not "urgent" as in "step off of the train tracks or I'll get hit" kind of urgent. The article specifically puts climate change at the top of its concerns, which is a "step off of the train tracks or you'll get hit" problem if there ever was one -- but in slow motion, of course. The point of the article, as I read it, was that these problems really are urgent, but our brains and our politics trick us into not seeing them that way because they are either (1) slow moving or (2) call for tedious, fat-tail responses (rather than sexy, exciting, silver bullet fixes). Rather than "yeah, I should get out to the gym more" a better analogy would be: "Okay, it's time to face it -- I'm definitely an alcoholic. If I don't change my ways, it may not kill me tomorrow, but it's definitely going to catch up with me soon enough. So I better start figuring out a way to turn this boat around, before it heads over the edge." Which is categorically different from the "aspirational" sense of urgency you seem to be describing. The ability to discern that certain problems are, in fact, "urgent" (despite their being slow-moving or incremental in their effect) is one of the highly valuable traits that enables some genes (read: species or individuals) to succeed, while others fail.