5 ms·

If your solution would work except for some reason, then you don’t actually have a solution. A drill that works in space except for all that vacuum and radiatio

If your solution would work except for some reason, then you don’t actually have a solution. A drill that works in space except for all that vacuum and radiation isn’t actually a space drill. It’s a space drill for some alternate reality, meaning the one you’re not actually in. You haven’t solved the problem. You’re not as good of a problem solver as you think you are, sorry. Stop acting like you’ve solved it. You haven’t. In the exact same way, any solution that would work “except humans” is a non-solution. Maybe it’s a near solution, or a solution for a different time. But it’s not one right now. When you find yourself getting angry at the world, it’s worth considering that just maybe you’ve made the approximately easiest mistake in problem solving: underestimating the difficulty of the problem (especially someone else’s problem). If I ranted and raved about how it’s a crime against humanity we don’t already have underground moon bases, you would just think I’m unhinged. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but problems don’t get solved at the speed of my imagination. “But if we had perfect coordination…” yeah, well, if it didn’t take so much energy to leave Earth’s orbit, we’d do it more often. But it does, so we don’t. We also don’t have total software security and all cancers cured. I’m sorry. Everyone is doing their best.

bruce511 3y ago
I hear your point - if humans are part of the problem then an effective solution has to allow for humans in the loop. I'd extend that thought to be more narrow though. Local human political and economic factors need to be allowed for. So, for example, a medical solution will be different in a country that practices medicine for profit over those places where medicine is non profit. Equally the "can't build nuclear energy" problem us solved in places where public opinion counts for nothing, and environmental concerns are, um, less concerning. [1] If one focuses on the profit motive though, then the article is correct (it seems to be written for a US context) - we mostly don't fix the problem because someone is profiting immensely from the problem existing. [1] avoiding for the moment the merits of said concerns, which -may- be over-described for other political reasons.
- bawolff 3y ago
  > So, for example, a medical solution will be different in a country that practices medicine for profit over those places where medicine is non profit. There are some differences, but doctors still need to eat, equipment needs to be purchased, etc. Making medicine non profit isn't going to cure cancer.
  - dawnbreez 3y ago
    "Non-profit" does not imply nobody gets paid. https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/guide-to-nonprofit-salaries https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/guide-to-nonprofit-salar...
    - bawolff 3y ago
      That's my point. Money still has to come from somewhere. Being a non-profit doesn't solve the problem of things costing money.
      - dawnbreez 3y ago
        "Non-profit" also does not imply that money isn't coming in from donations, grants, or fees.
moring 3y ago
The author almost, but not quite, reached the point where they realize they contradict themselves: Claiming that socialized healthcare would cure cancer, but not explaining how to move the US to socialized healthcare (nevermind that countries with socialized healthcare haven't cured cancer either). Claiming that we could lay fiber cable to every house, but not how to actually do it. Claiming that an alternative voting system would improve policits, but not how to move to an alternative voting system. The "solution" presented here is a first step in _mapping_ the problem and doesn't even begin to solve anything.
- Telemakhos 3y ago
  There are two unexamined assumptions in the article: first that the “we” in “we can solve everything” is synonymous with “government,” and next that “we” know the correct answers. The former is a very twentieth century notion. The identification of government with society (“we”) went hand in hand with the idea that government should have power in every domain of human life and co-opt or liquidate every competing authority like academia or media or church. Here, it’s that “we” the government should take over healthcare (although regulatory approval of a cancer treatment was cited as one obstacle) and fiber-laying instead of leaving those to non-governmental authorities. Carl Schmitt in the early twentieth century had a great term for such a totalizing government: the Totalstaat. It’s not clear, however, that a Totalstaat is actually a good idea. Governments have never solved many problems at all—-homelessness comes to mind—-and it’s not clear that a government seeking to expand its power into previously non-governmental domains will serve its own interests best by solving problems rather than by providing treatments that abate problems without solving them. Treating a problem expands a state’s authority while preserving the problem as a reason for further government action; solving a problem would end that authority by ending the reason for it. Winning a war, for example, used to remove the need for a standing army until the twentieth century saw the invention of a “cold war” and “war on terror” and a perpetual standing army to treat the unsolved problem of a lingering threat. It’s not clear that this increase in government power was a good thing. Secondly, the idea that “we” (government) “know” the answers is hubris. The author claims that “we” know it would be good to send everyone to college for free, but is that actually best for everyone? Or does that just turn college to more high school, lower the quality of education, waste a lot of people’s time, slow down the creation of families and negatively impinge on demographic trends, etc? “Knowing” the solution presupposes knowledge of second-order effects, and people are generally very bad at that. Thinking that a total state “knows” the best solutions to problems is a good way to impose lots of (potentially negative) second-order effects without much recourse to do anything about it, since this total state has all the authority and no longer has competing authorities to check its hubris.
QVVRP4nYz 3y ago
Yeah, whole article could be summed up with Mencken quote from 1920: > There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.
- adolph 3y ago
  Reïnvented by South Park as the Underpants Gnomes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/underpants_gnome https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/underpants_gnome
underdeserver 3y ago
Absolutely not everyone is doing their best, and not everyone's best effort is in the common best interest. Healthcare works in Scandinavia, Germany, France and some other places. It doesn't in the US. That's not a law of nature. There are shades of grey between no coordination and perfect coordination, and every step in the right direction makes things better. Care, make changes locally, vote accordingly, and you will move the needle.
reuben364 3y ago
Don't get me wrong, I agree, but aren't all solutions to problems situated in reality conterfactual to some degree. To the extent of my knowledge, isn't it all deterministic. To enact a stategy is to presume a free agent, individual or collective, acts according to that strategy. The act of communicating that strategy is in essence to convince those interests align with the outcome to act accordingly. We deal with imperfect information, it could be possible that someone, or a small group can unilaterally disseminate a strategy that drives wider cooperation, but those are probably unknown unknowns far too complicated to decipher by any cooperating party. Of course this isn't it. Warp drives and luxury space communism seem to be something we could only stumble into.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
I think it’s worthwhile to be able to say “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” so we can talk about why “X” is the way it is. That is, the job of philosophers is not to solve problems, but to articulate a way of looking at problems which may lead to solutions.
- moring 3y ago
  > I think it’s worthwhile to be able to say “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” so we can talk about why “X” is the way it is. Fully agree. But we shouldn't confuse “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” with a solution. It is a starting point to understand the problem better, and a first step on the journey towards a solution.
- travisjungroth 3y ago
  I’d say something similar. But, I don’t think the value is in talking about why X is the way it is. The value is in knowing the next obstacle to overcome. Having a space drill except it needs higher voltage than the station supplies is what I mean by “near-solution”. So now you need to lower the voltage need or increase the supply. Here’s where things go wrong. You’ve identified the next obstacle, and it is likely going to need time and attention to solve. It’s worthy of respect in a “respect your enemy” sort of way. But when the near-solution is engineering and the obstacle is social, people adopt this harumph attitude. Making glib statements like “we could, but we just don’t”. I don’t think that does anything to actually help solve the problem. It reduces a tremendous amount of someone else’s work to an annoyance. This is the exact same as an idea guy coming in and expecting the engineers to “just implement it”. This is not an effective way to motivate people or enact a vision.

bruce511 3y ago

I hear your point - if humans are part of the problem then an effective solution has to allow for humans in the loop. I'd extend that thought to be more narrow though. Local human political and economic factors need to be allowed for. So, for example, a medical solution will be different in a country that practices medicine for profit over those places where medicine is non profit. Equally the "can't build nuclear energy" problem us solved in places where public opinion counts for nothing, and environmental concerns are, um, less concerning. [1] If one focuses on the profit motive though, then the article is correct (it seems to be written for a US context) - we mostly don't fix the problem because someone is profiting immensely from the problem existing. [1] avoiding for the moment the merits of said concerns, which -may- be over-described for other political reasons.

bawolff 3y ago
> So, for example, a medical solution will be different in a country that practices medicine for profit over those places where medicine is non profit. There are some differences, but doctors still need to eat, equipment needs to be purchased, etc. Making medicine non profit isn't going to cure cancer.
- dawnbreez 3y ago
  "Non-profit" does not imply nobody gets paid. https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/guide-to-nonprofit-salaries https://donorbox.org/nonprofit-blog/guide-to-nonprofit-salar...
  - bawolff 3y ago
    That's my point. Money still has to come from somewhere. Being a non-profit doesn't solve the problem of things costing money.
    - dawnbreez 3y ago
      "Non-profit" also does not imply that money isn't coming in from donations, grants, or fees.

moring 3y ago

The author almost, but not quite, reached the point where they realize they contradict themselves: Claiming that socialized healthcare would cure cancer, but not explaining how to move the US to socialized healthcare (nevermind that countries with socialized healthcare haven't cured cancer either). Claiming that we could lay fiber cable to every house, but not how to actually do it. Claiming that an alternative voting system would improve policits, but not how to move to an alternative voting system. The "solution" presented here is a first step in _mapping_ the problem and doesn't even begin to solve anything.

Telemakhos 3y ago
There are two unexamined assumptions in the article: first that the “we” in “we can solve everything” is synonymous with “government,” and next that “we” know the correct answers. The former is a very twentieth century notion. The identification of government with society (“we”) went hand in hand with the idea that government should have power in every domain of human life and co-opt or liquidate every competing authority like academia or media or church. Here, it’s that “we” the government should take over healthcare (although regulatory approval of a cancer treatment was cited as one obstacle) and fiber-laying instead of leaving those to non-governmental authorities. Carl Schmitt in the early twentieth century had a great term for such a totalizing government: the Totalstaat. It’s not clear, however, that a Totalstaat is actually a good idea. Governments have never solved many problems at all—-homelessness comes to mind—-and it’s not clear that a government seeking to expand its power into previously non-governmental domains will serve its own interests best by solving problems rather than by providing treatments that abate problems without solving them. Treating a problem expands a state’s authority while preserving the problem as a reason for further government action; solving a problem would end that authority by ending the reason for it. Winning a war, for example, used to remove the need for a standing army until the twentieth century saw the invention of a “cold war” and “war on terror” and a perpetual standing army to treat the unsolved problem of a lingering threat. It’s not clear that this increase in government power was a good thing. Secondly, the idea that “we” (government) “know” the answers is hubris. The author claims that “we” know it would be good to send everyone to college for free, but is that actually best for everyone? Or does that just turn college to more high school, lower the quality of education, waste a lot of people’s time, slow down the creation of families and negatively impinge on demographic trends, etc? “Knowing” the solution presupposes knowledge of second-order effects, and people are generally very bad at that. Thinking that a total state “knows” the best solutions to problems is a good way to impose lots of (potentially negative) second-order effects without much recourse to do anything about it, since this total state has all the authority and no longer has competing authorities to check its hubris.

QVVRP4nYz 3y ago

Yeah, whole article could be summed up with Mencken quote from 1920: > There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

adolph 3y ago
Reïnvented by South Park as the Underpants Gnomes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/underpants_gnome https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/underpants_gnome

underdeserver 3y ago

Absolutely not everyone is doing their best, and not everyone's best effort is in the common best interest. Healthcare works in Scandinavia, Germany, France and some other places. It doesn't in the US. That's not a law of nature. There are shades of grey between no coordination and perfect coordination, and every step in the right direction makes things better. Care, make changes locally, vote accordingly, and you will move the needle.

reuben364 3y ago

Don't get me wrong, I agree, but aren't all solutions to problems situated in reality conterfactual to some degree. To the extent of my knowledge, isn't it all deterministic. To enact a stategy is to presume a free agent, individual or collective, acts according to that strategy. The act of communicating that strategy is in essence to convince those interests align with the outcome to act accordingly. We deal with imperfect information, it could be possible that someone, or a small group can unilaterally disseminate a strategy that drives wider cooperation, but those are probably unknown unknowns far too complicated to decipher by any cooperating party. Of course this isn't it. Warp drives and luxury space communism seem to be something we could only stumble into.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

I think it’s worthwhile to be able to say “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” so we can talk about why “X” is the way it is. That is, the job of philosophers is not to solve problems, but to articulate a way of looking at problems which may lead to solutions.

moring 3y ago
> I think it’s worthwhile to be able to say “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” so we can talk about why “X” is the way it is. Fully agree. But we shouldn't confuse “we could solve the problem if it weren’t for X” with a solution. It is a starting point to understand the problem better, and a first step on the journey towards a solution.
travisjungroth 3y ago
I’d say something similar. But, I don’t think the value is in talking about why X is the way it is. The value is in knowing the next obstacle to overcome. Having a space drill except it needs higher voltage than the station supplies is what I mean by “near-solution”. So now you need to lower the voltage need or increase the supply. Here’s where things go wrong. You’ve identified the next obstacle, and it is likely going to need time and attention to solve. It’s worthy of respect in a “respect your enemy” sort of way. But when the near-solution is engineering and the obstacle is social, people adopt this harumph attitude. Making glib statements like “we could, but we just don’t”. I don’t think that does anything to actually help solve the problem. It reduces a tremendous amount of someone else’s work to an annoyance. This is the exact same as an idea guy coming in and expecting the engineers to “just implement it”. This is not an effective way to motivate people or enact a vision.