What annoys me is that the assertion "there are no easy solutions" has become a slogan itself, often with the practical meaning that you shouldn't even attempt

What annoys me is that the assertion "there are no easy solutions" has become a slogan itself, often with the practical meaning that you shouldn't even attempt to understand the problem (let alone think about solutions) and instead let the people in power handle it. In the same sense, "its a complex issue" becomes a weird sort of chiffe for "it's so intractably complex that it's impossible for any mortal human to understand, so you shouldn't even try". Another implication is also that there is no way at all to solve any of those problems, the best we could hope for is to manage them and mitigate the effects. I think this line of thinking is ultimately authoritarian and paradoxically increases "simple solution" thinking or avoidance to think about political topics at all - because that would be all that's left to think about. I like the approach of the OP much more, who argues that we should embrace the complexity of our currently world and try to understand it, instead of shying away from it. That's what I'd understand as "thinking for yourself". I believe, the "simple solutions" can even have a useful role in this - as starting points. E.g. "why can't we just get more water from the Pacific to put out the fires?", "why can't the people in Gaza just go somewhere else?", "why can't we just build more housing?" etc. could be interesting questions to start tackling that complexity.