It’s true that sometimes an outsider can offer a fresh perspective. From where you sit, there might be a solution you can’t see. The nearest exit might be in the row behind you.
Maybe this applies more often when the one giving advice has more experience than the one receiving it, or when the person who is stuck has habituated a narrow perspective or some form of learned helplessness.
But I recoil at something I think I see more often, which is when several people stand around pointing out the obvious and congratulating each other on their fresh ideas and wondering what’s so hard for the guy who has lived the situation and would love to find a way forward if there were the right resources or the right change in policies or the right change in politics. The peanut gallery loses interest pretty quickly when faced with questions about the real constraints and it turns out their answers are not fresh at all.
But now we have someone who’s “marinating in the stuck,” surrounded by people who still agree with each other that they know how it should all be done but have now also been embarrassed.
It’s an ugly, toxic cycle that bottoms out at everyone constantly having their knowledge and competence questioned over things they know and can do, by people who don’t and can’t.
If someone is stuck, ask if you can help, sure. Ask what seems to be the trouble. Ask what has been tried so far. But maybe don’t lead with your advice.
As you say this can cut both ways. A good example would be the US where people constantly wonder whether $thing-that-29-out-of-30-developed-countries-do-since-decades could truly work. Yeah it works, we have seen it work, it is currently working.
Now imagine you are a software developer entering the offices of a group of bueraucratic clercs that keep an intricate fax-and-scanner-based system of bullshit just barely afloat. Of course as a person that is specialized on thinking about the storage, transformation, santitizarion, transmission and deletion of data you are going to probably have a slightly more sophisticated take on information processing than them. They might know the law better or which combinations of checkboxes a person is allowed to tick on a form, but they suck at the meta task of organizing the efficient, fast and error free flow, storage, deletion, etc of information. And sure now one could argue about the merrits of paper (and I routinely argue it's merrits for democratic elections, where correctness and traceability are more important than speed), but that would be like arguing for making doctors use medival hand tools in the age of the scalpel.
Now it is true that outsiders to a system won't see what reasons there are for a certain thing being shaped a certain way, but this can sometimes even happen to insiders if the information handover is bad enough.
The argument from what other countries have done can often be used simplistically. Yes, it’s important to learn from other countries. However, when you look into it, it sometimes turns out that the other 29 countries have all done things in somewhat different ways, that their solutions are somewhat path-dependent and culture-specific, that they have problems too, and your country has some unique problems of its own that are hard to overcome.
Yeah, sure. You cannot translate what works in Sweden one to one to the US and expect the same success. But here is what you could do: realize that the cultural differences between Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Finland, UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Belgium and so on are very likely not less than the difference between the US to all of these countries. And yet, some things US citizens claim can't ever work do so in very different cultures, under various right or left wing governments and in different climate zones.
But keep on telling yourself the story that the US is so exceptional that reasonable conservative policies that work everywhere else can't work. This is likely just going to work out great in the long run.
The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan... It's a really foolish opinion or disregard the immense diversity of 350,000,000 people, and (unfortunately) it's made all over the internet.
"Why don't you just do X", totally papers over the extent of what just needs to happen.
"Everyone should just do Y" is always bad policy. Just look at what happened with something as simple as wearing masks.
>The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan
This is just so obviously not true on the surface. We all speak the same language at the very least, which isn't true for a single one of those countries you listed.
Each government in the world is for the most part presented with the same set of puzzles. Then they spend good money trying to solve it in isolation as if they are all unique and special.
Some countries are just 1000 years behind in some areas, or 1000 years ahead. The US is no exception in both.
I am aware that the US is not one monolithic block. To assume otherwise is a very US-thing to do. The rest of the world literally drowns in news about the US internal conflicts.
But maybe I sould give an example: guns. I grew up in an European region where the percentage of gun owners is close to US levels, yet our last school rampage was a decade ago. The rural town I grew up in is famous for it's traditional gunsmiths and home of a Glock factory, so not what some in the US would call big city liberals.
The reason gun crime is low here is because we have commons sense gun laws of the type most gun owners in the US supporr as well. Yet you have US politicians claiming "it is a slippery slope" and it "can't possibly work".
Yeah, look at the numbers, it works, it also works in comparable regions to mine with totally different social and cultural circumstances. Of course if you'd like to you could also implement it in a way so it doesn't work, but that would be evil on a comic book villain level right?
The problem in the US is that corporations are really damn effective there to trick a sizable amount of the population into believing all kind of excuses that fall apart the second you look elsewhere.
E.g. given our gun laws many US citizens would say our freedom has been taken away, yet somehow 10 year old me managed to go shooting on empty cans with my hunter grandfather. We had a god damn shooting range in the cellar of our school. It is just that our guns are stored safely and people who shouldn't have guns don't have them. E.g. because they issue threats, have a history of violence, drug abuse, mental illness, or showed otherwise that they act irresponsible with the lives of their neighbours.
But maybe you know more about why the world I live in can't work and have a good explaination that for some reason keeps benefiting certain corporations, while it kills the kids of your population.
Spoken by a cretin disqualified by their own disability to add substantial points to a debate.
Pro-Tip: If you aim to critique the points someone made, a sure way to come across like a total fool is to call the person names instead of saying anything useful. This is one of the things that says more about you than the person you attacked ; )
while I agree we need some sort of nationalized health care and should learn from the countries that have implemented it, I'm not sure thats the strong success you think it is?
Just recently we had a bunch of comments here on HN about how bad candian health care can be if you live in the 'wrong' area. UK has had issues with NHS for decades at least (hell, they ALSO have 'private' insurance which seems to be almost a requirement). And several other EU countries have hit issues with healthcare lately (charge fat people/smokers more since they use more resources was fairly divisive recently.
Personally - I think it all boils down to scale. As these systems grow, it becomes harder to sustain them. That doesn't bode well for the US with 10x the population of Canada :-(
It sucks because I'd really like it, and I'd love not having my health care tied to my job ...
As a Canadian who has lived in the United States and in the United Kingdom, I can say without a doubt that both Canada and the UK beat the US "system" by a mile. While their universal healthcare can have problems, the problems in the US system are far worse.
Yeah - I have family in both countries (parents: mom & family from Leeds, dad and family from London cousins: I don't actually know where in Canada they are now)
Obviously, there is a lot of good stuff we can copy/learn from both countries. The thing is to make sure we can iron out as many issues as possible (large population and geographic area mostly) before we attempt something and having politicians claim it "doesn't work".
Seem my response to isleyaardvark above for my (stupid) idea to try to us the VA hospitals to test bed some of this.
Not too long ago I saw an article from a Canadian source about how bad Canadian healthcare was getting, and complaining Canada had or was about to drop out of the top 10 rankings.
It had a scatter chart showing the metrics, and while Canada was shown as lower than many of the other countries, the gap between all those countries and the US was enormous.
When other countries complain about their healthcare, they're complaining about complaining about sane systems not performing to their standards, and that doesn't make the US any less of a dumpster fire.
I agree, single payer/universal health should be a table stakes. And I wasn't picking on Canada - it seems to be a better system all around. But all systems can be improved (as you mentioned). If we're going to this from scratch, shouldn't we look at all the systems and try to follow the 'best practices' from all of them ?
One reason I look at Canada so much is the population is almost 1/10th of the U.S. population - so I would expect (naively) all issues would be magnified 10x. Also, the pain points with Canada's healthcare seems to be in scaling and funding as the population grows? Scaling up the number of doctors/hospitals available - to cut wait times, and providing consistent funding not based on where you live. Definitely solvable and much better then the issues the US healthcare system has.
For the US, I think good way to start might be to actually fund the VA Hospitals and see what it takes to properly run a national health organization in the US. How many doctors does it require? How many hospitals? What sort of budget? etc. If we can scale up the VA to provide quality healthcare without the under staffing, waits, long distances between facilities, etc across the entire country - then we can use those lessons to scale up to true universal healthcare? The last thing we want to do is introduce some half-assed 'designed to fail' system that lets politicians just say 'yeah, we tried that...Didn't work'
> It’s an ugly, toxic cycle that bottoms out at everyone constantly having their knowledge and competence questioned over things they know and can do, by people who don’t and can’t.
That rings so true in my head. Being too open and transparent got me quite a lot of misery already. More than once, I got the work of months discarded, because some other (shiny or new) approach was deemed to provide a better solution -- only to the effect that it was later discovered that it was the worse approach.
Apparently it is very easy to miss in the pursuit for the best solution, in unfortunate favor of one's preconceived notions.
I tend to ask in rapid succession if obvious solutions were used. It gives me warmup time to think about more detail.
Unfortunately people get annoyed when they ask for help and someone offers them 10 solutions they already have tried.
But often one of the obvious was not tried or considered so the person gets quick solution. Otherwise warmup to think more in details and ask follow-up questions why some of “obvious” solutions did not work gives great intro to get up and fix something.
I think it very much depends on the how (as often).
Very different to ask something along the lines of "Why didn't you just do X?" (the unwritten "duh!" being very implicitly present!) vs. "Interesting. Naively I would've have thought that doing X might solve this and seeing you didn't go with that solution I'd be interested to understand the constraints and reasons that make X unviable."
With the first (type of) question you've disqualified yourself already, even though you didn't 'just give the solution' (which is even worse). After that kind of question we're already on adversarial grounds.
The "5 whys" is a great technique but if literally just ask "Why" a lot, you'll get the boot more often than not ;)
Ya the blogger falls for a fallacy that I often see from people who consider themselves smart, especially in tech: that they are somehow more clever/insightful/effective than other people and know how everything should work.
But as I've gotten older and more experienced, I've come to understand that everyone is uniquely talented and brilliant in some way. The vast majority of people are just vulnerable to becoming trapped in situations that are nontrivial to change, due to their own life choices yes, but just as often due to external circumstances and empathy for how following their desires might impact those around them.
This phenomenon presents as survivorship bias, the epitome of which is some rich person or billionaire telling young people that they could afford rent or a mortgage by giving up avocado toast. When the truth is that companies like RealPage formed a price-fixing cartel using algorithms to set rents in most major cities in the US, despite dwellings sitting empty, because it's more profitable to capitalize on a smaller number of high rents. Now they are being sued by attorneys general around the country.
This othering/prejudice extends to homelessness where people blame drugs instead of economic injustice, or mistreatment of the elderly where they think they should have paid more into their retirement rather than seeing that 30% of their life savings got wiped out after the pandemic due to corporate greed inflation and soon stagflation.
This isn't the tech dystopia I signed up for. In my experience, people are wealthy due to their ruthlessness, not their business acumen, but maybe those are the same thing. I think often now about how to stop this algorithm-driven late stage capitalism, but by definition it may be too late. Going off grid via solarpunk might be a great individual strategy, but it's similar to not voting, in that the people profiting from the decline in the human condition do better without the innovators. I feel now that eternal vigilance, mainly through organizing, is the only way that we'll actually reclaim the economic liberty that we used to enjoy.
These broad connections are what I see any time I read these truthy/quippy essays now.
Ironically, most of what you’ve said here is false because it’s government in the driving seat, not business. The infamous avocado toast incident was regarding a mortgage down payment, not rent. That’s due to the post-2008 asset bubble created by central banks.
If you think fentanyl is not a critical component of the US’ homelessness crisis I don’t know what to say - go to Europe, the homeless there are not in a zombie-like state. There’s no compassion in ignoring people’s real problems and instead blaming them on our own political gripes. The festering of this problem is a product of bad government.
As for retirement savings - are you kidding me? Pensions are the most protected assets on this planet - no matter how hard they fail they will be bailed out. That inflation you speak of is, again, due to all that post-2008 money from the government. Interest rates are set by the central bank. (No doubt some unfortunate people had to draw-down their retirement savings but they’re the exception that proves the rule). For the first time in history we will have an economy where money is flowing up from the young to the old, rather than downwards - it is the young people who are being exploited! The children who will pay for this don’t even get a vote.
The real problem I see here is that people vote themselves all the money whenever they get the chance, with governments able to pile on more and more debt to be paid by future generations. Plus a government that is more interested in ideological posturing than solving problems - unless the solution is more government.
It's strange to absolve "business" and then blame the government for problems caused by business.
First the post-2008 asset bubble; why does that exist? Lenders became extremely lax with credit requirements and created an incredibly toxic debt bubble. Sure you can argue the bailouts and subsequent low interest rate environment maybe have been the wrong medicine, but it's easy to say that in hindsight when at the time several people had been wiped out.
>If you think fentanyl is not a critical component of the US’ homelessness crisis I don’t know what to say
Why is fentanyl a problem in the US? I think it's insincere to pretend Purdue didn't have an outsized effect on this problem. They pushed opioids on doctors and flooded rural america with oxycontin. Once addicted Americans could no longer get oxycontin, they turned to heroin, and the increased demand of heroin created the conditions for fentanyl to flood the market.
>Pensions are the most protected assets on this planet
401(k) were almost completely wiped out in 2008. Why focus on pensions when most people's retirement vehicles today are tax-deferred investment accounts?
Businesses are free create deeply systemic issues and when those behind the issues are rich and the problems externalized onto the rest of the country, we are free to turn around and blame the "bad" government.
It's like licking a door handle and blaming the human body in the "drivers seat" for cells dying when it raises the internal temperature to 102 degrees. How about instead of blaming the immune system for the 102 degree fever, we just don't lick door handles?
People often confuse "predictable" with "not at fault". Your drug addict cousin will, very predictably, steal shit when they visit. It's a matter of prudence to keep them away from your valuables, but it's still their fault for stealing. Likewise, corporations will very predictably be astoundingly evil if they can make a buck at it, so the government is obligated to keep them in line, but it doesn't absolve the companies from being at fault.
The inflation is the inevitable result of flooding the economy with trillions of dollars in freshly printed money. It happens every time the printing press is run like that, in every country, throughout history.
> we'll actually reclaim the economic liberty that we used to enjoy
Having the government run the economy is not economic liberty.
Isn't it funny that everyone right of center thinks inflation is due to trillions of dollars added to the economy and everyone left of center thinks inflation is due to people in 3-piece suits and monocles wanting another boat?
Where are the people that think inflation is inevitable because there is always a political push from the most active political constituency (old people/about to be old people/their beneficiaries) to keep asset prices rising to be able to fulfill their demands from labor suppliers (younger, less experienced, less politically active)?
Especially entertaining with the way demographics are going. It wasn’t much of an issue in previous decades due to momentum of population growth.
Some moderate level of inflation is a pretty basic economic principle. Too much and you cause some problems but none or negative and you see a whole host of other issues.
That's like saying the fact the first couple payments on a loan are almost all interest because of a conspiracy among politically active bankers, when in actuality it's because that's how math works.
US property owners enjoyed vast expanses of unexploited resources to tap and legally protected exploitation of whole classes of people to help them do so. I hope you are not claiming that that (limited) prosperity wasn't generated by wiser and more humane policies than today's.
The US saw an enormous improvement in the average standard of living of Americans in its first century. Scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class.
This happens in every country that tries it.
For an example of an economy entirely focused on resource extraction? The Arab oil nations.
For examples of highly prosperous nations that have no resources to speak of? Japan and S Korea. With free markets.
BTW, it wasn't possible in the 19th century to have a 40 hr week and vast welfare payments. The productivity wasn't enough to fund it.
A better example would be $500/box since $20/box is about market rate depending on the exact kind and caliber (assuming 9mm or 45 which is going to cover the overwhelming majority of handguns).
No ad is going to make $500/box for 9mm or 45 handgun ammunition seem reasonable.
This is why it’s critical to provide new angles to the problem itself, not just a bunch of solutions many of which has obviously been considered already.
My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
Thus you can often find communities of people with disabilities who understand the problems and the people from the outside who offer insulting and simple solutions to the problems.
As soon as someone falls from group B into group A the problems stop becoming simple and easily soluble though.
I agree with you, although his first point is a subset of this, I think.
In reality, it's something like "they don't understand the problem space", which includes not just not understanding the problem itself, but also understanding the history, context, and realistic daily details of the problem, and the real or imagined blocks that are created by personal philosophy, mindset, and psychology, plus the impact of relationships, biases, etc...
As an example of "not understanding the problem space" it's mind-blowing sometimes to think about how a disability is only a disability in the context of a particular way of living. If you're confined to a wheelchair and all the work surfaces and other affordances are above neck level for you, then it's a disability. But if those work surfaces are moved and extra space provided it's not a disability in that environment. It's just that people outside of a wheelchair can't identify the little assumptions and design features that accommodate them because they're the default in our culture.
The "better ways" listed in this book were often worse at the metrics the old solution was targeting. They won out because they gained flexibility by loosening requirements. Personal computers were worse than minicomputers, but they were so much cheaper that they largely won out. The book is focused on the solution provider, not the consumer. The old providers lose out because they don't understand what the consumer values. OP is saying that the provider may be misunderstand the problem the consumer has when they offer a simple solution.
> My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
This.
And not just for personal problems. I have a rule when I start working in a new place to not offer any real criticisms or unsolicited advice for the first year. This is because it's very likely that my advice is too naive and is coming from a place of being ignorant of some aspect of the work that is the reason why people are doing something "wrong" in the first place. Being there for a year is enough to clue me in to those hidden variables so that I can make recommendations that have a chance of being useful.
I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes.
Even if there are good reasons why things are how they are, you'll find out much faster why. Contrary to when interacting with people where advice is often simply not wanted, you are pretty much paid to treat an organization's problem as your own. Sometimes problems persist because people simply have stopped caring about them.
I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.
> I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.
This. I am currently facing such a problem having very recently joined a new company. They recently had a very expensive incident and would like to not repeat it. I was handed an analysis task for the system that caused the incident with the expectation for me to make recommendations to improve the reliability. And, so far, my recommendation would be to refactor/rewrite large chunks of it (reduce cyclomatic complexity, greater test coverage and from the perspective of use cases, strict exception handling, fully documented state chart with all transitions validated, etc). When I gave a status update on my analysis that isn't finished yet, my manager was concerned that I would recommend exactly what I am going to recommend.
So now I am kinda stuck. Do I openly say exactly what they don't want to hear even if I was tasked to do exactly that? Luckily, I don't really give a shit about "career" nonsense, I am too old for that. But at the same time, I do want to build credibility and social capital in this org. My experience in building highly scalable, resilient systems says that the current implementation is sub par, and it shows with amount of break-fix work the team is constantly doing. I don't really want to be Cassandra and say "If you don't do this, the risk of another catastrophic error is really high". And I don't have enough data or time in the org to know what kind of persuasive arguments tend to find sympathetic ears.
So I have to gamble a bit, follow my principles, and honestly explain why their system is shit, in palatable terms, and hope they don't give me the boot.
> I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes.
They absolutely can, and I make note of my thoughts during my early employment so I can revisit them once I'm more familiar with the context that things are done in.
I wait, though, because it's more effective to bring these things up once you're no longer so green. If my criticisms are legitimate, I can refine them to better match the circumstances in the workplace and so be of greater usefulness. Also, nobody likes or listens to the new guy telling everyone how they're doing everything wrong. The (legitimate) defense is "you don't understand the big picture". So I like to get the big picture.
None of this is to say that I keep completely silent. I'll totally question my colleagues about things that look off to me. I just won't press about them or push for change until I am standing on more equal ground.
But this changes depending on the nature of the employment. I've been talking about being a permanent employee. If I'm a temp or contractor, I am much more vocal about this stuff because very often, that sort of thing is what the company hiring the contractor is wanting.
This is my thought as well. The author means well but doesn't know what he doesn't know. Simple answers look good from the outside because it's hard to explain (and understand) all the constraints on a good solution.
It goes both ways. And some times it is simple that the insider cannot see for a host of reasons. Outsider can spot a simple solution because they dont have self imposed constraints that come from being on the inside for long.
The insider constraints are real, though. Sometimes they're self-imposed, and that can be for good reasons (value system, long-term goals) or bad reasons (emotionally stuck, a disproportionate fear of small risks, etc.).
>Thus you can often find communities of people with disabilities
I find it odd to immediately distill this down to "group A with disabilities" and "group B without". Both groups have problems, maybe just different ones. I also don't see what is insulting about making a sincere attempt to help, whether it ends up being helpful or not.
> I also don't see what is insulting about making a sincere attempt to help, whether it ends up being helpful or not.
It's the equivalent of people wanting to escort you across a road without getting run over. They don't think you're capable of understanding the risks of crossing a road.
Or giving someone in a wheelchair tips on how to walk normally.
Or your completely tech illiterate grandparent telling you how to write code. (Yes, this has happened to me.)
A lot of people I've dealt with have no interest understanding the problem. They just want to do the easy thing that feels good to them. When what they expect doesn't happen, they feel bad and expect me to make them feel better.
Similarly, this pattern always happens around food. It's not uncommon I can't eat any of the food at a social event. I'm used to that and I'm not bothered by it. But everyone else feels bad for me and decides to tell me so. No matter how much I say I'm fine, they keep apologizing because they feel guilty. Of course, I can't tell them to stop making their feelings my problem.
I don't consider any of your extreme examples as "a sincere attempt to help". Maybe I should rephrase it as "sincere, reasonable attempt to help".
I guess there is also a distinction to be made between problems to be solved, and currently acceptable, non-problematic situations where you receive unsolicited advice on how to improve it.
4. I have stop everything I'm thinking about to figure out how to respond to them in a way that doesn't make them feel bad.
This seems grossly unfair to me. Social norms that don't come naturally to me. They are allowed say anything they want and I'm not allowed to reject it.
Deeply analyze why they’re wrong and they know it. In front of them, where they can hear you do it.
You’ll get hate, but what else is new?
You could also just lie, say ‘oh that’s good advice’ and then ignore it like most normal people.
Or, figure out what painful personal failure they are trying to warn you about from their side, with no real solution they’ve been able to figure out. And see if there is some lesson you can learn from it.
I understand what neurotypical people feel but I am unable to predict it without logical analysis.
Thus,
I fully understand social norms but I am not capable of following them in realtime.
Absolutely none of your unsolicited advice is even remotely useful to me because my current strategy of building logic trees and memorizing appropriate responses is far superior to anything you suggest. :P
I am not happy I have to play by social norms. However, playing by those norms is the optimal solution in maintaining important relationships with people I care about.
Ah, but it is directly applicable no? Showing the issue, even.
Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc?
Because #2 then is not actually optimal or perfect then for that stated goal, correct? It isn’t playing to social norms.
#3 and #4 tend to produce better outcomes in that sense. And #4 also can provide useful contextual information on a person, which is necessary for having a real relationship with them.
So isn’t hating these kinds of interactions, actually hating the difficulty you have in meeting emotional/relationship needs naturally? Instead of having of do exhausting rational work all the time while emotionally disliking (or even hating) it for reasons that are nearly impossible to see?
And this discussion is me demonstrating that. Because now you hate me, eh? But not because I’m wrong. But because it’s a truth you don’t know how to change or make better, and for which knowing makes it more painful - as it strips away the comforting self image.
Interestingly, despite what folks say, this also appears to be why a lot of people get so angry when someone offers unsolicited advice.
Because it’s often a solution that could work, if it wasn’t for the problem they had that they can’t seem to fix - because it hurts too much even seeing it.
> Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc?
Because I care about people as people. They have their own lives. Their existence isn't defined by their utility to me.
I just can't instinctively navigate verbal communication and social norms. I had to learn everything through logical analysis, which is very slow and difficult to apply in real time.
It's no different than if I had a significant speech impediment. My dislike of social norms is solely due to the barriers it creates to communication.
And no, I don't hate you. I'm just frustrated with the assumptions you're making.
Then I’m deeply sorry, as you’re disconnected from a deep well of non-rational (really ‘not ok to acknowledge socially’ but rational) protective instincts. It makes everything much harder. That’s why you’re having to compensate with relatively expensive rational analysis.
Personally, I’ve found EMDR to be helpful to reconnect, but it’s not an easy road. And it may not be applicable here either.
Often, the problem is with the persons offering the solution not seeing things from the perspective of the people receiving them. The helper felt that they were sincere in their intent, but their intentions aren't always desirable. Related:
> It's not uncommon I can't eat any of the food at a social event. I'm used to that and I'm not bothered by it. But everyone else feels bad for me and decides to tell me so.
The insulting bit comes when people with an insufficient understanding of the problem come in and offer "solutions" that anyone could have dreamed up in 5 minutes, thereby implying that the new person either thinks the group with the problem is stupid for not coming up with such an obvious solution themselves.
It's often the grown-up equivalent of a child learning about a longstanding religious conflict and offering "why don't they just all be friends instead" as a solution.
Insulting is a emotional judgement, and j=such judgements may be specific to certain communities who are especially disadvantaged, or maybe receive such 'advice' very regularly?
---
To take the emotions out, I had witnessed an interesting exchange a while back.
A startup dealing with removing plastic from the oceans posted on LinkedIn about their work, and highlighted the difficulty of sorting the different types of plastic (so they could be subsequently dealt with appropriately). Their current method was simply humans sorting the plastic manually, by sight.
An LinkedIn acqaintance thought he had a solution for them, and tried to get in touch with the startup. He was gently but firmly rebuffed, and was very upset that the organisation didn't "give him anyone senior" to deal with. His ego was bruised. The funny thing was, the startup was totally correct. This guy is a marketing consultant with (I know) zero domain knowledge of anything related to plastics, recycling, computer vision, robotics, etc. He was just an arrogant guy who absolutely didn't understand anything relevant in the problem space.. and yet still thought he needed to get involved and offer his opinions and ideas.
Was his approach insulting? Not in this case, but potentially so, in more sensitive areas. More than anything, it was a powerful example of the Dunning-Kreuger effect in action. :)
"Communities of people with disabilities" sounds like a self-identified group whose members share common experiences of dealing with people without disabilities. "Immediately distilling it down to..." is an interesting way to describe someone sharing an example while making a broader point.
Whether something is insulting depends on the particular interaction and how the recipient of the 'help' feels about and perceives the attempt to help.
I've been learning the importance of consent in any intervention. Without consent, my attempts to help a person may be perceived as an act of taking control, overriding the other person's will.
> Both groups have problems, maybe just different ones.
So my problem might be a lack of perspective that is characteristic of privilege, and their problem might be me; sincerely, innocently & naively making their situation worse.
> My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
There's an old H. L. Mencken quote:
"There’s always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
And another one of my faves:
"The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."
we, as a third party, don't have the extra stress associated with having the problem (or having to deal with the consequences of any potential solution). So we can think without those anxieties and more impartially.
Sure, like my sister in law who moved all the yellow books together. Fiction, all different non-fiction, different series - all over the place, but the shelf looks nice by color even though I can't find anything without reading every title.
Maybe, but that is a lot of overhead vs a well organized bookshelf where I don't need reach for some app(s) on my phone just to find a book. This story is from several years before chatgpt, I've organized my bookshelf since so I won't have to find out.
Nailed it. That's why imagining what you'd say if someone else had the same problem - or what they would suggest if you explained your problem - are effective problem-solbing techniques.
This is amazing. It starts with rightly understanding that problems aren't actually as simple as they might seem from outside. But then it bizarrely seems to take that to conclude that our friends aren't trying for inertia or fear or something else, and so they just need to get unstuck.
It seems to me that the far more reasonable and understandable conclusion is that our friends are much like us. Things aren't as easy as they may seem from the outside.
And also a counter point, just because things are simple, doesn't mean it is easy.
Those two things are separate and we often get them confused, when things are hard, we think it must be more complex than it is, which is not usually the case.
As a person with problems: “just do the thing” would solve about 90% of them. Unfortunately I’m spending all my time on other priorities/problems that I also have.
Just do the thing is a lot more powerful than people realize. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it is often simple.
> If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just...” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At no time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.
that's cute, and it is often true. but not "always".
sometimes when a group gets "wrapped around the axle" and the proposed thing is spiraling out of control (usually due to hallucinated requirements or group anxiety feeding on itself), "Just <simple option>" is EXACTLY what is needed, especially from a confident leader.
Yes, but <simple option> is not <action>. "Just implement it" may be said in spite of required complexity, "Implement just this one option out of many" is typically already defined and is a narrowing of scope.
I agree. Grammar matters. "Just do this one thing" is worthless blather while "do just this one thing, then consider next steps" is a necessary call to focus.
Reddit advice threads are famous for this. Just quit your job and get a new one. Just divorce your SO of 10 years and try again. Just pick up sticks and move somewhere else. Easy-peasy, right?
There was a thread yesterday which was on /r/getmotivated, the typical word spew from a teenager who had started a newsletter.
Advising people that all they had to do is outlast everyone and that was easy because everyone else quit.
They didn't seem to understand the difference between simple and easy, when I mentioned that was the hard part and the reason everyone else was quitting was because it was hard, there response was that 'they just needed discipline, which is easy'.
So glad we have genius level thinking out there that has solved all of life's issues.
Talking to yourself by Name or in second person like you are talking to a friend seems to have a positive way of changing your perspective and allowing you to regulate your emotions and deal with something more rationally.
There are funny videos of Swedish people advocating for immigrants and then balking when being asked to commit to taking an immigrant into their home.
I've found people are long on advice and short on actual help. When people offer me advice, I usually turn it back around on them to see if they are willing to help.
Recently I was taking care of some shared property repairs and received a lot of complaints that the cost was too high. I asked people for their help on finding a better price and , just as expected, they couldn't.
Everything seems trivial and deterministic until you actually embark on the solution. The hard part is actually completing the task.
Lesson: the world is short on help. If you want to help, pick up a broom. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
It's always some undefined "somebody". Somebody should do something. Somebody should pay the costs. They never suppose that they might be that somebody though. Challenge them to actually be somebody, they disappear into thin air.
I'll forever think of Douglas Adams and the Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) field[1]:
>An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.
Local maxima and sunk costs should not in reality be ignored. For example, I could find a better job, but with opportunity costs of paying less attention to my health or my family for a couple of years, and it may be difficult to fully recapture these opportunities later. Or say, I made an effort to get to know my current coworkers well. New job may have better pay and more respect from higher ups, but that's still one thing where I would have to start from scratch with no guarantee of equally good results.
It's one thing to look at each problem in isolation, it's another to live a good life overall, which may entail many tradeoffs between different problems.
The way I’ve been thinking about this is that you shouldn’t jump on every idea you have.
You can acknowledge the ideas, but if you jump on every one that comes to mind, your life ends up being extremely chaotic.
However, if you find yourself thinking about a certain idea a lot of times, it might be worth considering it, because your subconscious might be trying to tell you something.
It's sort of related, but too often other people's problems end up forced into being my problem.
Other people's problems are fun to solve when you're like "hey, I've seen that before / I know something about your problem", and I think I can advance you in your pursuit of a solution. Fun, win/win for everybody.
But too often you try to use some product or service, either of another company, or of another team at your company, and it doesn't work. And the other team is just "but I don't waaaaannnna" about figuring out why their shit is broken. And so it becomes your problem, because you're probably trying to do something that isn't shaving this teams yak, but here you are, blocked on them. So it's either "do their job for them" or be blocked by them.
And managerial chains are just, IME, utterly ineffective at dealing with this. My current boss does not want to handle these, ever. He wants me to fix the problem. Problem is I have no authority over others teams, so I can't get them to act, and so … now it's my problem! And soon I'm doing the work of 3 teams, it feels like, and shaving yaks all day.
Google, internally — at least way back in the day; I've got no idea if this is still a thing — had a philosophy at several levels of "it's our problem", and in internal team-to-team stuff, that meant if a customer of your team's junk was having a bad time, that was your problem. Not your "customers'", internal or external. One of the many things I think that led them to being a FAANG.
I love solving other people's problems. If I succeed, they are usually happy. If I fail, it is, after all, someone else's problem. It's a proposition you cannot lose.
Because when you try to solve people’s problems, you imagine this simplified rule set, but in reality the rules you don’t see is what makes it difficult for the actual bearer.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but make sure you are not insulting someone’s intelligence by over simplifying the problem. This means you need to really get to understand their issue before chirping.
Yet other reason is that it is super easy to imagine you solved your friends problem and that the friend is just stupid or weak for not trying. You just simplify the situation in your head, apply simple solution and it works - in your head.
It is much harder to actually solve that problem back in the real world.
And THIRD. Real problems are really hard to solve. If they weren't, then everyone would solve them and you couldn't make any money on your solution. So while I'm midway working my way through a solution, everyone decides to stop by my desk and say, "Why don't you just do X? Problem solved!" Funny, X is the very first thing I thought of myself, but it's more complicated than that. So I keep working through my solution, casually nodding at the peanut gallery as it cycles by.
It’s easy to tell people how to solve their problem, as it doesn’t include the burden of actually doing the work.
The classic example would be that it’s easy to solve someone else’s weight problem. Tell them to eat a proper diet of X, get enough sleep, get to the gym X times per week, etc. Saying all these things is very easy, but overcoming the barriers to actually implement each one in a life isn’t already doing these things, is much harder.
Providing a path is much more difficult than walking the path.
I'd generalize burden to cost. Difficult problems usually have no good solution. Every option has some cost. Sometimes the cost of continuing to suffer from the problem is (or appears to be) lower than that of solving it.
> Loosening the constraints always makes a problem easier to solve.
In a vacuum, I disagree quite strongly with this although I understand what the author is getting at. It is easy to get stuck with arbitrary and unnecessary constraints. Dropping those is great.
On the other hand, I find that adding constraints is one of the absolute best things you can do to enhance creativity. True freedom can only be found in the presence of immutable constraints.
tangential, but this reminds me of the "Somebody Else's Problem field" in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy:
> An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.
> The Somebody Else's Problem field... relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else’s Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.
"Loosening the constraints always makes a problem easier to solve."
Due to job deformation, I cannot agree. Tight constraints make for easy solving. However, loose constraints allow more change. And ultimately, change is what people are looking for.
Additionally, when looking at others we see them as their own free agent, but looking at ourselves we see us as constrained in a system.
I've also seen this phenomenon. I wonder if hopelessness and hopefulness is relevant since the focus seems to be the difficulty of coming up with solutions.
I suppose this just shifts the question to.. are we typically more hopeful for others than of ourselves and if so why?
If we have a problem ourselves, we sometimes block out, often obvious, solutions! I read somewhere : what can help is, ask yourself, what advice would I give if that problem were a problem of a friend. And that works! Suddenly you have, at least, a less biased view on the problem, or even the solution!
The devil is in the details and, at the end of the day, the person with the problem is the one who has to solve it. Even armed with great advice that's not an easy task or it wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
Related: volunteering is a good way to get out of your own head. Putting your concerns to the side and helping the community can do wonders for your mental health (not to mention gain new friends with similar interests).
The ramifications of dependencies and the trivial and hidden costs of modifying (refactoring) these are why is "easy" for one and "hard" for the other one.
Most problems are hard to "solve" because we entertain the delusion of solutions that don't exist — solutions which tie everything together with a nice bow and require no discomfort or negative emotions of any kind.
Alex Hormozi says "the life you want is on the other side of a few hard conversations."
I would channel that to say, "the solution you're looking for is on the other side of a few uncomfortable feelings."
And usually, it's just the fear of the feelings, not the feelings themselves.
My experience was that if you successfully help people they will come back with new problems. Hell, they wont come back until they have new problems for you.
Helping people is hard, I found a much easier approach. You have to make it worse for them: You won't solve your problem because it isn't in your nature. I'm convinced you will never find a new partner or a new job, you wont be able to pay your bills, you will be out on the street soon! If they are old I go with: If only you paid more attention in school.
Then they run out the door in rage and go do all of the things they should have done years ago. Ill pay for stuff if money gets in their way but ill remind them it is pointless, I might as well set fire to the money.
Sometimes they come back to pay me and to tell me what an asshole I am. Sometimes they come back with new problems for me to make fun of and to tell me what an asshole I am but then I at least know they need help since there is nothing convenient about my "help".
Or, perhaps we could entertain a fantastical explanation: what if no one has free will and thus someone else's problems seem easy to us because our deterministic movements solve them easier than the deterministic movements of the person with the problem?
But the claimed phenomenon here is that it's (almost) always easier for you to come up with a solution to someone else's problem than for them to do so, not just that some problems are easier for one person than another. There are problems with this claim, I think, but the absence of free will is not an explanation, or at best just reduces it to the question of why, granting the claim, the determinism (almost) always leads to this bias.
(For that matter, nothing in the linked article depends on whether or not we have free will.)
Selection bias: people tend to talk about the problems that are hard, and we tend to see the ones that we can solve. (Okay, this has nothing to do with free will I guess...)
It’s true that sometimes an outsider can offer a fresh perspective. From where you sit, there might be a solution you can’t see. The nearest exit might be in the row behind you.
Maybe this applies more often when the one giving advice has more experience than the one receiving it, or when the person who is stuck has habituated a narrow perspective or some form of learned helplessness.
But I recoil at something I think I see more often, which is when several people stand around pointing out the obvious and congratulating each other on their fresh ideas and wondering what’s so hard for the guy who has lived the situation and would love to find a way forward if there were the right resources or the right change in policies or the right change in politics. The peanut gallery loses interest pretty quickly when faced with questions about the real constraints and it turns out their answers are not fresh at all.
But now we have someone who’s “marinating in the stuck,” surrounded by people who still agree with each other that they know how it should all be done but have now also been embarrassed.
It’s an ugly, toxic cycle that bottoms out at everyone constantly having their knowledge and competence questioned over things they know and can do, by people who don’t and can’t.
If someone is stuck, ask if you can help, sure. Ask what seems to be the trouble. Ask what has been tried so far. But maybe don’t lead with your advice.
As you say this can cut both ways. A good example would be the US where people constantly wonder whether $thing-that-29-out-of-30-developed-countries-do-since-decades could truly work. Yeah it works, we have seen it work, it is currently working.
Now imagine you are a software developer entering the offices of a group of bueraucratic clercs that keep an intricate fax-and-scanner-based system of bullshit just barely afloat. Of course as a person that is specialized on thinking about the storage, transformation, santitizarion, transmission and deletion of data you are going to probably have a slightly more sophisticated take on information processing than them. They might know the law better or which combinations of checkboxes a person is allowed to tick on a form, but they suck at the meta task of organizing the efficient, fast and error free flow, storage, deletion, etc of information. And sure now one could argue about the merrits of paper (and I routinely argue it's merrits for democratic elections, where correctness and traceability are more important than speed), but that would be like arguing for making doctors use medival hand tools in the age of the scalpel.
Now it is true that outsiders to a system won't see what reasons there are for a certain thing being shaped a certain way, but this can sometimes even happen to insiders if the information handover is bad enough.
The argument from what other countries have done can often be used simplistically. Yes, it’s important to learn from other countries. However, when you look into it, it sometimes turns out that the other 29 countries have all done things in somewhat different ways, that their solutions are somewhat path-dependent and culture-specific, that they have problems too, and your country has some unique problems of its own that are hard to overcome.
Yeah, sure. You cannot translate what works in Sweden one to one to the US and expect the same success. But here is what you could do: realize that the cultural differences between Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan, Finland, UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Belgium and so on are very likely not less than the difference between the US to all of these countries. And yet, some things US citizens claim can't ever work do so in very different cultures, under various right or left wing governments and in different climate zones.
But keep on telling yourself the story that the US is so exceptional that reasonable conservative policies that work everywhere else can't work. This is likely just going to work out great in the long run.
The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan... It's a really foolish opinion or disregard the immense diversity of 350,000,000 people, and (unfortunately) it's made all over the internet.
"Why don't you just do X", totally papers over the extent of what just needs to happen.
"Everyone should just do Y" is always bad policy. Just look at what happened with something as simple as wearing masks.
>The difference between California, Texas, South Dakota, Maine, Ohio are as different as Turkey, France, Australia, Ireland, Japan
This is just so obviously not true on the surface. We all speak the same language at the very least, which isn't true for a single one of those countries you listed.
Australia and Ireland certainly speak the same language as much as Maine and Texas do.
They speak French in Louisiana, German in Amish Country, Gullah in North Carolina... Your ignorance doesn't make you correct.
while clearly the Amish language is related to German, it is not German spoken in Germany. Btw, all these people can speak English.
So can many of the people in Turkey, France, Japan, etc.
Tangentially related, but how long can languages really be considered a barrier when AI translations are ubiquitous.
Each government in the world is for the most part presented with the same set of puzzles. Then they spend good money trying to solve it in isolation as if they are all unique and special.
Some countries are just 1000 years behind in some areas, or 1000 years ahead. The US is no exception in both.
If you never did leg day the gains will be easy.
I am aware that the US is not one monolithic block. To assume otherwise is a very US-thing to do. The rest of the world literally drowns in news about the US internal conflicts.
But maybe I sould give an example: guns. I grew up in an European region where the percentage of gun owners is close to US levels, yet our last school rampage was a decade ago. The rural town I grew up in is famous for it's traditional gunsmiths and home of a Glock factory, so not what some in the US would call big city liberals. The reason gun crime is low here is because we have commons sense gun laws of the type most gun owners in the US supporr as well. Yet you have US politicians claiming "it is a slippery slope" and it "can't possibly work".
Yeah, look at the numbers, it works, it also works in comparable regions to mine with totally different social and cultural circumstances. Of course if you'd like to you could also implement it in a way so it doesn't work, but that would be evil on a comic book villain level right?
The problem in the US is that corporations are really damn effective there to trick a sizable amount of the population into believing all kind of excuses that fall apart the second you look elsewhere.
E.g. given our gun laws many US citizens would say our freedom has been taken away, yet somehow 10 year old me managed to go shooting on empty cans with my hunter grandfather. We had a god damn shooting range in the cellar of our school. It is just that our guns are stored safely and people who shouldn't have guns don't have them. E.g. because they issue threats, have a history of violence, drug abuse, mental illness, or showed otherwise that they act irresponsible with the lives of their neighbours.
But maybe you know more about why the world I live in can't work and have a good explaination that for some reason keeps benefiting certain corporations, while it kills the kids of your population.
You, sir, are an idiot. Keep playing victim, though; I'm sure that'll work out for you.
Spoken by a cretin disqualified by their own disability to add substantial points to a debate.
Pro-Tip: If you aim to critique the points someone made, a sure way to come across like a total fool is to call the person names instead of saying anything useful. This is one of the things that says more about you than the person you attacked ; )
while I agree we need some sort of nationalized health care and should learn from the countries that have implemented it, I'm not sure thats the strong success you think it is?
Just recently we had a bunch of comments here on HN about how bad candian health care can be if you live in the 'wrong' area. UK has had issues with NHS for decades at least (hell, they ALSO have 'private' insurance which seems to be almost a requirement). And several other EU countries have hit issues with healthcare lately (charge fat people/smokers more since they use more resources was fairly divisive recently.
Personally - I think it all boils down to scale. As these systems grow, it becomes harder to sustain them. That doesn't bode well for the US with 10x the population of Canada :-(
It sucks because I'd really like it, and I'd love not having my health care tied to my job ...
As a Canadian who has lived in the United States and in the United Kingdom, I can say without a doubt that both Canada and the UK beat the US "system" by a mile. While their universal healthcare can have problems, the problems in the US system are far worse.
Yeah - I have family in both countries (parents: mom & family from Leeds, dad and family from London cousins: I don't actually know where in Canada they are now)
Obviously, there is a lot of good stuff we can copy/learn from both countries. The thing is to make sure we can iron out as many issues as possible (large population and geographic area mostly) before we attempt something and having politicians claim it "doesn't work".
Seem my response to isleyaardvark above for my (stupid) idea to try to us the VA hospitals to test bed some of this.
Thanks!
Not too long ago I saw an article from a Canadian source about how bad Canadian healthcare was getting, and complaining Canada had or was about to drop out of the top 10 rankings.
It had a scatter chart showing the metrics, and while Canada was shown as lower than many of the other countries, the gap between all those countries and the US was enormous.
When other countries complain about their healthcare, they're complaining about complaining about sane systems not performing to their standards, and that doesn't make the US any less of a dumpster fire.
I agree, single payer/universal health should be a table stakes. And I wasn't picking on Canada - it seems to be a better system all around. But all systems can be improved (as you mentioned). If we're going to this from scratch, shouldn't we look at all the systems and try to follow the 'best practices' from all of them ?
One reason I look at Canada so much is the population is almost 1/10th of the U.S. population - so I would expect (naively) all issues would be magnified 10x. Also, the pain points with Canada's healthcare seems to be in scaling and funding as the population grows? Scaling up the number of doctors/hospitals available - to cut wait times, and providing consistent funding not based on where you live. Definitely solvable and much better then the issues the US healthcare system has.
For the US, I think good way to start might be to actually fund the VA Hospitals and see what it takes to properly run a national health organization in the US. How many doctors does it require? How many hospitals? What sort of budget? etc. If we can scale up the VA to provide quality healthcare without the under staffing, waits, long distances between facilities, etc across the entire country - then we can use those lessons to scale up to true universal healthcare? The last thing we want to do is introduce some half-assed 'designed to fail' system that lets politicians just say 'yeah, we tried that...Didn't work'
Thanks!
> It’s an ugly, toxic cycle that bottoms out at everyone constantly having their knowledge and competence questioned over things they know and can do, by people who don’t and can’t.
That rings so true in my head. Being too open and transparent got me quite a lot of misery already. More than once, I got the work of months discarded, because some other (shiny or new) approach was deemed to provide a better solution -- only to the effect that it was later discovered that it was the worse approach.
Apparently it is very easy to miss in the pursuit for the best solution, in unfortunate favor of one's preconceived notions.
I tend to ask in rapid succession if obvious solutions were used. It gives me warmup time to think about more detail.
Unfortunately people get annoyed when they ask for help and someone offers them 10 solutions they already have tried.
But often one of the obvious was not tried or considered so the person gets quick solution. Otherwise warmup to think more in details and ask follow-up questions why some of “obvious” solutions did not work gives great intro to get up and fix something.
I think it very much depends on the how (as often).
Very different to ask something along the lines of "Why didn't you just do X?" (the unwritten "duh!" being very implicitly present!) vs. "Interesting. Naively I would've have thought that doing X might solve this and seeing you didn't go with that solution I'd be interested to understand the constraints and reasons that make X unviable."
With the first (type of) question you've disqualified yourself already, even though you didn't 'just give the solution' (which is even worse). After that kind of question we're already on adversarial grounds.
The "5 whys" is a great technique but if literally just ask "Why" a lot, you'll get the boot more often than not ;)
I dislike "other people's solutions", because frequently they are shallow.
It's sort of like internet relationship advice.
It tends to lack nuance, like "if you can't agree on a couch to buy, you should leave the relationship".
> But maybe don’t lead with your advice.
Unsolicited advice is a pretty big relationship friction generator.
Ya the blogger falls for a fallacy that I often see from people who consider themselves smart, especially in tech: that they are somehow more clever/insightful/effective than other people and know how everything should work.
But as I've gotten older and more experienced, I've come to understand that everyone is uniquely talented and brilliant in some way. The vast majority of people are just vulnerable to becoming trapped in situations that are nontrivial to change, due to their own life choices yes, but just as often due to external circumstances and empathy for how following their desires might impact those around them.
This phenomenon presents as survivorship bias, the epitome of which is some rich person or billionaire telling young people that they could afford rent or a mortgage by giving up avocado toast. When the truth is that companies like RealPage formed a price-fixing cartel using algorithms to set rents in most major cities in the US, despite dwellings sitting empty, because it's more profitable to capitalize on a smaller number of high rents. Now they are being sued by attorneys general around the country.
This othering/prejudice extends to homelessness where people blame drugs instead of economic injustice, or mistreatment of the elderly where they think they should have paid more into their retirement rather than seeing that 30% of their life savings got wiped out after the pandemic due to corporate greed inflation and soon stagflation.
This isn't the tech dystopia I signed up for. In my experience, people are wealthy due to their ruthlessness, not their business acumen, but maybe those are the same thing. I think often now about how to stop this algorithm-driven late stage capitalism, but by definition it may be too late. Going off grid via solarpunk might be a great individual strategy, but it's similar to not voting, in that the people profiting from the decline in the human condition do better without the innovators. I feel now that eternal vigilance, mainly through organizing, is the only way that we'll actually reclaim the economic liberty that we used to enjoy.
These broad connections are what I see any time I read these truthy/quippy essays now.
Ironically, most of what you’ve said here is false because it’s government in the driving seat, not business. The infamous avocado toast incident was regarding a mortgage down payment, not rent. That’s due to the post-2008 asset bubble created by central banks.
If you think fentanyl is not a critical component of the US’ homelessness crisis I don’t know what to say - go to Europe, the homeless there are not in a zombie-like state. There’s no compassion in ignoring people’s real problems and instead blaming them on our own political gripes. The festering of this problem is a product of bad government.
As for retirement savings - are you kidding me? Pensions are the most protected assets on this planet - no matter how hard they fail they will be bailed out. That inflation you speak of is, again, due to all that post-2008 money from the government. Interest rates are set by the central bank. (No doubt some unfortunate people had to draw-down their retirement savings but they’re the exception that proves the rule). For the first time in history we will have an economy where money is flowing up from the young to the old, rather than downwards - it is the young people who are being exploited! The children who will pay for this don’t even get a vote.
The real problem I see here is that people vote themselves all the money whenever they get the chance, with governments able to pile on more and more debt to be paid by future generations. Plus a government that is more interested in ideological posturing than solving problems - unless the solution is more government.
It's strange to absolve "business" and then blame the government for problems caused by business.
First the post-2008 asset bubble; why does that exist? Lenders became extremely lax with credit requirements and created an incredibly toxic debt bubble. Sure you can argue the bailouts and subsequent low interest rate environment maybe have been the wrong medicine, but it's easy to say that in hindsight when at the time several people had been wiped out.
>If you think fentanyl is not a critical component of the US’ homelessness crisis I don’t know what to say
Why is fentanyl a problem in the US? I think it's insincere to pretend Purdue didn't have an outsized effect on this problem. They pushed opioids on doctors and flooded rural america with oxycontin. Once addicted Americans could no longer get oxycontin, they turned to heroin, and the increased demand of heroin created the conditions for fentanyl to flood the market.
>Pensions are the most protected assets on this planet
401(k) were almost completely wiped out in 2008. Why focus on pensions when most people's retirement vehicles today are tax-deferred investment accounts?
Businesses are free create deeply systemic issues and when those behind the issues are rich and the problems externalized onto the rest of the country, we are free to turn around and blame the "bad" government.
It's like licking a door handle and blaming the human body in the "drivers seat" for cells dying when it raises the internal temperature to 102 degrees. How about instead of blaming the immune system for the 102 degree fever, we just don't lick door handles?
People often confuse "predictable" with "not at fault". Your drug addict cousin will, very predictably, steal shit when they visit. It's a matter of prudence to keep them away from your valuables, but it's still their fault for stealing. Likewise, corporations will very predictably be astoundingly evil if they can make a buck at it, so the government is obligated to keep them in line, but it doesn't absolve the companies from being at fault.
> due to corporate greed inflation
The inflation is the inevitable result of flooding the economy with trillions of dollars in freshly printed money. It happens every time the printing press is run like that, in every country, throughout history.
> we'll actually reclaim the economic liberty that we used to enjoy
Having the government run the economy is not economic liberty.
Isn't it funny that everyone right of center thinks inflation is due to trillions of dollars added to the economy and everyone left of center thinks inflation is due to people in 3-piece suits and monocles wanting another boat?
Where are the people that think inflation is inevitable because there is always a political push from the most active political constituency (old people/about to be old people/their beneficiaries) to keep asset prices rising to be able to fulfill their demands from labor suppliers (younger, less experienced, less politically active)?
Especially entertaining with the way demographics are going. It wasn’t much of an issue in previous decades due to momentum of population growth.
Some moderate level of inflation is a pretty basic economic principle. Too much and you cause some problems but none or negative and you see a whole host of other issues.
That's like saying the fact the first couple payments on a loan are almost all interest because of a conspiracy among politically active bankers, when in actuality it's because that's how math works.
Yes, small positive inflation is better than any negative inflation. But the inflation in land/education/healthcare is quite a bit more than that.
> Some moderate level of inflation is a pretty basic economic principle
The US had zero net inflation from 1800 to 1914, and fantastic prosperity.
US property owners enjoyed vast expanses of unexploited resources to tap and legally protected exploitation of whole classes of people to help them do so. I hope you are not claiming that that (limited) prosperity wasn't generated by wiser and more humane policies than today's.
The US saw an enormous improvement in the average standard of living of Americans in its first century. Scores of millions of people moved up from poverty into the middle class.
This happens in every country that tries it.
For an example of an economy entirely focused on resource extraction? The Arab oil nations.
For examples of highly prosperous nations that have no resources to speak of? Japan and S Korea. With free markets.
BTW, it wasn't possible in the 19th century to have a 40 hr week and vast welfare payments. The productivity wasn't enough to fund it.
Edit timer expired before I noticed and could correct "wasn't" to "was" here.
Why can't it be both?
The Law of Supply and Demand.
For example, open a lemonade stand in your neighborhood. Charge $20 a cup. See how it goes.
How about I run a bunch of fear ads and sell ammo for $20/box instead. I think we both know how it will go on that one.
A better example would be $500/box since $20/box is about market rate depending on the exact kind and caliber (assuming 9mm or 45 which is going to cover the overwhelming majority of handguns).
No ad is going to make $500/box for 9mm or 45 handgun ammunition seem reasonable.
Go right ahead! Let us know how it turns out.
Been working out quite well even without the ads, actually.
Another poster said $20 was about market rate, so the example does not demonstrate that people will pay whatever you ask.
It was half that pre-Covid.
‘Market rate’ is exactly what I’m talking about.
This is why it’s critical to provide new angles to the problem itself, not just a bunch of solutions many of which has obviously been considered already.
You're so right. Thanks for this perspective
"Just get more sleep."
I'm skipping avocado toast!
I've skipped skipping avocado toast, I just look for good deals on avocado and buy limes no matter what their price is.
No matter the price? No wonder we're drowning in limeflation!
I would sooner not buy the bread and just eat avocado+lime+salt! Limeflation be damned.
My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
Thus you can often find communities of people with disabilities who understand the problems and the people from the outside who offer insulting and simple solutions to the problems.
As soon as someone falls from group B into group A the problems stop becoming simple and easily soluble though.
I agree with you, although his first point is a subset of this, I think.
In reality, it's something like "they don't understand the problem space", which includes not just not understanding the problem itself, but also understanding the history, context, and realistic daily details of the problem, and the real or imagined blocks that are created by personal philosophy, mindset, and psychology, plus the impact of relationships, biases, etc...
As an example of "not understanding the problem space" it's mind-blowing sometimes to think about how a disability is only a disability in the context of a particular way of living. If you're confined to a wheelchair and all the work surfaces and other affordances are above neck level for you, then it's a disability. But if those work surfaces are moved and extra space provided it's not a disability in that environment. It's just that people outside of a wheelchair can't identify the little assumptions and design features that accommodate them because they're the default in our culture.
> often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem
May I suggest the book "The Innovators Dilemma". Sometimes people who don't understand the problem manage to solve it in a much better way.
https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Manag...
The "better ways" listed in this book were often worse at the metrics the old solution was targeting. They won out because they gained flexibility by loosening requirements. Personal computers were worse than minicomputers, but they were so much cheaper that they largely won out. The book is focused on the solution provider, not the consumer. The old providers lose out because they don't understand what the consumer values. OP is saying that the provider may be misunderstand the problem the consumer has when they offer a simple solution.
> My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
This.
And not just for personal problems. I have a rule when I start working in a new place to not offer any real criticisms or unsolicited advice for the first year. This is because it's very likely that my advice is too naive and is coming from a place of being ignorant of some aspect of the work that is the reason why people are doing something "wrong" in the first place. Being there for a year is enough to clue me in to those hidden variables so that I can make recommendations that have a chance of being useful.
I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes.
Even if there are good reasons why things are how they are, you'll find out much faster why. Contrary to when interacting with people where advice is often simply not wanted, you are pretty much paid to treat an organization's problem as your own. Sometimes problems persist because people simply have stopped caring about them.
I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.
> I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.
This. I am currently facing such a problem having very recently joined a new company. They recently had a very expensive incident and would like to not repeat it. I was handed an analysis task for the system that caused the incident with the expectation for me to make recommendations to improve the reliability. And, so far, my recommendation would be to refactor/rewrite large chunks of it (reduce cyclomatic complexity, greater test coverage and from the perspective of use cases, strict exception handling, fully documented state chart with all transitions validated, etc). When I gave a status update on my analysis that isn't finished yet, my manager was concerned that I would recommend exactly what I am going to recommend.
So now I am kinda stuck. Do I openly say exactly what they don't want to hear even if I was tasked to do exactly that? Luckily, I don't really give a shit about "career" nonsense, I am too old for that. But at the same time, I do want to build credibility and social capital in this org. My experience in building highly scalable, resilient systems says that the current implementation is sub par, and it shows with amount of break-fix work the team is constantly doing. I don't really want to be Cassandra and say "If you don't do this, the risk of another catastrophic error is really high". And I don't have enough data or time in the org to know what kind of persuasive arguments tend to find sympathetic ears.
So I have to gamble a bit, follow my principles, and honestly explain why their system is shit, in palatable terms, and hope they don't give me the boot.
It is stressful and I hate it.
> I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes.
They absolutely can, and I make note of my thoughts during my early employment so I can revisit them once I'm more familiar with the context that things are done in.
I wait, though, because it's more effective to bring these things up once you're no longer so green. If my criticisms are legitimate, I can refine them to better match the circumstances in the workplace and so be of greater usefulness. Also, nobody likes or listens to the new guy telling everyone how they're doing everything wrong. The (legitimate) defense is "you don't understand the big picture". So I like to get the big picture.
None of this is to say that I keep completely silent. I'll totally question my colleagues about things that look off to me. I just won't press about them or push for change until I am standing on more equal ground.
But this changes depending on the nature of the employment. I've been talking about being a permanent employee. If I'm a temp or contractor, I am much more vocal about this stuff because very often, that sort of thing is what the company hiring the contractor is wanting.
This is my thought as well. The author means well but doesn't know what he doesn't know. Simple answers look good from the outside because it's hard to explain (and understand) all the constraints on a good solution.
It goes both ways. And some times it is simple that the insider cannot see for a host of reasons. Outsider can spot a simple solution because they dont have self imposed constraints that come from being on the inside for long.
The insider constraints are real, though. Sometimes they're self-imposed, and that can be for good reasons (value system, long-term goals) or bad reasons (emotionally stuck, a disproportionate fear of small risks, etc.).
Agree, valid points.
>Thus you can often find communities of people with disabilities
I find it odd to immediately distill this down to "group A with disabilities" and "group B without". Both groups have problems, maybe just different ones. I also don't see what is insulting about making a sincere attempt to help, whether it ends up being helpful or not.
> I also don't see what is insulting about making a sincere attempt to help, whether it ends up being helpful or not.
It's the equivalent of people wanting to escort you across a road without getting run over. They don't think you're capable of understanding the risks of crossing a road.
Or giving someone in a wheelchair tips on how to walk normally.
Or your completely tech illiterate grandparent telling you how to write code. (Yes, this has happened to me.)
A lot of people I've dealt with have no interest understanding the problem. They just want to do the easy thing that feels good to them. When what they expect doesn't happen, they feel bad and expect me to make them feel better.
Similarly, this pattern always happens around food. It's not uncommon I can't eat any of the food at a social event. I'm used to that and I'm not bothered by it. But everyone else feels bad for me and decides to tell me so. No matter how much I say I'm fine, they keep apologizing because they feel guilty. Of course, I can't tell them to stop making their feelings my problem.
I don't consider any of your extreme examples as "a sincere attempt to help". Maybe I should rephrase it as "sincere, reasonable attempt to help".
I guess there is also a distinction to be made between problems to be solved, and currently acceptable, non-problematic situations where you receive unsolicited advice on how to improve it.
The problem with unsolicited advice is:
1. I didn't ask for it.
2. They didn't bother to understand the problem.
3. Now I am socially obligated to talk to them.
4. I have stop everything I'm thinking about to figure out how to respond to them in a way that doesn't make them feel bad.
This seems grossly unfair to me. Social norms that don't come naturally to me. They are allowed say anything they want and I'm not allowed to reject it.
You could also go the ‘autistic’ route -
Frown, and walk away while they’re talking.
Or
Deeply analyze why they’re wrong and they know it. In front of them, where they can hear you do it.
You’ll get hate, but what else is new?
You could also just lie, say ‘oh that’s good advice’ and then ignore it like most normal people.
Or, figure out what painful personal failure they are trying to warn you about from their side, with no real solution they’ve been able to figure out. And see if there is some lesson you can learn from it.
Wait, am I giving unsolicited advice now?
I would like to point you to #2. :)
I understand what neurotypical people feel but I am unable to predict it without logical analysis.
Thus,
I fully understand social norms but I am not capable of following them in realtime.
Absolutely none of your unsolicited advice is even remotely useful to me because my current strategy of building logic trees and memorizing appropriate responses is far superior to anything you suggest. :P
And yet....
You're not happy, because you're here complaining about it. So perhaps it isn't as superior as you want to believe? QED.
(As someone who does the same sometimes, like apparently right now. Sorry.)
That has no bearing on this entire discussion.
I am not happy I have to play by social norms. However, playing by those norms is the optimal solution in maintaining important relationships with people I care about.
Ah, but it is directly applicable no? Showing the issue, even.
Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc?
Because #2 then is not actually optimal or perfect then for that stated goal, correct? It isn’t playing to social norms.
#3 and #4 tend to produce better outcomes in that sense. And #4 also can provide useful contextual information on a person, which is necessary for having a real relationship with them.
So isn’t hating these kinds of interactions, actually hating the difficulty you have in meeting emotional/relationship needs naturally? Instead of having of do exhausting rational work all the time while emotionally disliking (or even hating) it for reasons that are nearly impossible to see?
And this discussion is me demonstrating that. Because now you hate me, eh? But not because I’m wrong. But because it’s a truth you don’t know how to change or make better, and for which knowing makes it more painful - as it strips away the comforting self image.
Interestingly, despite what folks say, this also appears to be why a lot of people get so angry when someone offers unsolicited advice.
Because it’s often a solution that could work, if it wasn’t for the problem they had that they can’t seem to fix - because it hurts too much even seeing it.
> Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc?
Because I care about people as people. They have their own lives. Their existence isn't defined by their utility to me.
I just can't instinctively navigate verbal communication and social norms. I had to learn everything through logical analysis, which is very slow and difficult to apply in real time.
It's no different than if I had a significant speech impediment. My dislike of social norms is solely due to the barriers it creates to communication.
And no, I don't hate you. I'm just frustrated with the assumptions you're making.
Then I’m deeply sorry, as you’re disconnected from a deep well of non-rational (really ‘not ok to acknowledge socially’ but rational) protective instincts. It makes everything much harder. That’s why you’re having to compensate with relatively expensive rational analysis.
Personally, I’ve found EMDR to be helpful to reconnect, but it’s not an easy road. And it may not be applicable here either.
Yeah, but your advice is actually useful :-)
Often, the problem is with the persons offering the solution not seeing things from the perspective of the people receiving them. The helper felt that they were sincere in their intent, but their intentions aren't always desirable. Related:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Verschlimmbesserung
> It's not uncommon I can't eat any of the food at a social event. I'm used to that and I'm not bothered by it. But everyone else feels bad for me and decides to tell me so.
Being vegetarian seems to generate this problem.
I think that celiac disease diagnosis is far more limiting than being vegetarian for social events, based on my experience.
The insulting bit comes when people with an insufficient understanding of the problem come in and offer "solutions" that anyone could have dreamed up in 5 minutes, thereby implying that the new person either thinks the group with the problem is stupid for not coming up with such an obvious solution themselves.
It's often the grown-up equivalent of a child learning about a longstanding religious conflict and offering "why don't they just all be friends instead" as a solution.
Why can't they (we) though? :(
There are exceptions, though. For example, my advice is always welcome and apropos.
Insulting is a emotional judgement, and j=such judgements may be specific to certain communities who are especially disadvantaged, or maybe receive such 'advice' very regularly?
---
To take the emotions out, I had witnessed an interesting exchange a while back.
A startup dealing with removing plastic from the oceans posted on LinkedIn about their work, and highlighted the difficulty of sorting the different types of plastic (so they could be subsequently dealt with appropriately). Their current method was simply humans sorting the plastic manually, by sight.
An LinkedIn acqaintance thought he had a solution for them, and tried to get in touch with the startup. He was gently but firmly rebuffed, and was very upset that the organisation didn't "give him anyone senior" to deal with. His ego was bruised. The funny thing was, the startup was totally correct. This guy is a marketing consultant with (I know) zero domain knowledge of anything related to plastics, recycling, computer vision, robotics, etc. He was just an arrogant guy who absolutely didn't understand anything relevant in the problem space.. and yet still thought he needed to get involved and offer his opinions and ideas.
Was his approach insulting? Not in this case, but potentially so, in more sensitive areas. More than anything, it was a powerful example of the Dunning-Kreuger effect in action. :)
"Communities of people with disabilities" sounds like a self-identified group whose members share common experiences of dealing with people without disabilities. "Immediately distilling it down to..." is an interesting way to describe someone sharing an example while making a broader point.
Whether something is insulting depends on the particular interaction and how the recipient of the 'help' feels about and perceives the attempt to help.
I've been learning the importance of consent in any intervention. Without consent, my attempts to help a person may be perceived as an act of taking control, overriding the other person's will.
> Both groups have problems, maybe just different ones.
So my problem might be a lack of perspective that is characteristic of privilege, and their problem might be me; sincerely, innocently & naively making their situation worse.
> My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem.
There's an old H. L. Mencken quote:
"There’s always an easy solution to every human problem; Neat, plausible and wrong."
And another one of my faves:
"The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."
"""people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem"""
This is called [The Dunning–Kruger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect).
He forgot one of the most obvious reasons:
we, as a third party, don't have the extra stress associated with having the problem (or having to deal with the consequences of any potential solution). So we can think without those anxieties and more impartially.
It is easier to help someone else organize their house than to organize your own.
Sure, like my sister in law who moved all the yellow books together. Fiction, all different non-fiction, different series - all over the place, but the shelf looks nice by color even though I can't find anything without reading every title.
Can chatgpt help you find the book on the photo of your shelf?
Maybe, but that is a lot of overhead vs a well organized bookshelf where I don't need reach for some app(s) on my phone just to find a book. This story is from several years before chatgpt, I've organized my bookshelf since so I won't have to find out.
Nailed it. That's why imagining what you'd say if someone else had the same problem - or what they would suggest if you explained your problem - are effective problem-solbing techniques.
This is amazing. It starts with rightly understanding that problems aren't actually as simple as they might seem from outside. But then it bizarrely seems to take that to conclude that our friends aren't trying for inertia or fear or something else, and so they just need to get unstuck.
It seems to me that the far more reasonable and understandable conclusion is that our friends are much like us. Things aren't as easy as they may seem from the outside.
Tip: when your solution contains "just (do something)", it's never that simple.
And also a counter point, just because things are simple, doesn't mean it is easy.
Those two things are separate and we often get them confused, when things are hard, we think it must be more complex than it is, which is not usually the case.
Yes! I'm always reminded of "Just is a Dangerous Word", from the original wiki:
https://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord
As a person with problems: “just do the thing” would solve about 90% of them. Unfortunately I’m spending all my time on other priorities/problems that I also have.
Just do the thing is a lot more powerful than people realize. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it is often simple.
That is Nike for you.
When estimating time for a task, every occurrence of the word "just" doubles the estimate.
"Just" always hide a lack of knowledge. Of the problem, of the environment, of the team, of what the future will be.
My favourite take on this:
> If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just...” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At no time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.
https://squareallworthy.tumblr.com/post/163790039847/everyon...
that's cute, and it is often true. but not "always".
sometimes when a group gets "wrapped around the axle" and the proposed thing is spiraling out of control (usually due to hallucinated requirements or group anxiety feeding on itself), "Just <simple option>" is EXACTLY what is needed, especially from a confident leader.
Yes, but <simple option> is not <action>. "Just implement it" may be said in spite of required complexity, "Implement just this one option out of many" is typically already defined and is a narrowing of scope.
I agree. Grammar matters. "Just do this one thing" is worthless blather while "do just this one thing, then consider next steps" is a necessary call to focus.
Reddit advice threads are famous for this. Just quit your job and get a new one. Just divorce your SO of 10 years and try again. Just pick up sticks and move somewhere else. Easy-peasy, right?
There was a thread yesterday which was on /r/getmotivated, the typical word spew from a teenager who had started a newsletter.
Advising people that all they had to do is outlast everyone and that was easy because everyone else quit.
They didn't seem to understand the difference between simple and easy, when I mentioned that was the hard part and the reason everyone else was quitting was because it was hard, there response was that 'they just needed discipline, which is easy'.
So glad we have genius level thinking out there that has solved all of life's issues.
The solution to being overweight is simple. Eat less. But it ain't easy.
YES! "just" means hours and hours and hours [...] and hours of work!
Relatedly, there's interesting research on "self-distancing". Like https://selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2...
Talking to yourself by Name or in second person like you are talking to a friend seems to have a positive way of changing your perspective and allowing you to regulate your emotions and deal with something more rationally.
> Talking to yourself by Name or in second person
but that guy is crazy and never listens to anything i say! ;)
There are funny videos of Swedish people advocating for immigrants and then balking when being asked to commit to taking an immigrant into their home.
I've found people are long on advice and short on actual help. When people offer me advice, I usually turn it back around on them to see if they are willing to help.
Recently I was taking care of some shared property repairs and received a lot of complaints that the cost was too high. I asked people for their help on finding a better price and , just as expected, they couldn't.
Everything seems trivial and deterministic until you actually embark on the solution. The hard part is actually completing the task.
Lesson: the world is short on help. If you want to help, pick up a broom. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
It's always some undefined "somebody". Somebody should do something. Somebody should pay the costs. They never suppose that they might be that somebody though. Challenge them to actually be somebody, they disappear into thin air.
I'll forever think of Douglas Adams and the Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) field[1]:
>An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem
Local maxima and sunk costs should not in reality be ignored. For example, I could find a better job, but with opportunity costs of paying less attention to my health or my family for a couple of years, and it may be difficult to fully recapture these opportunities later. Or say, I made an effort to get to know my current coworkers well. New job may have better pay and more respect from higher ups, but that's still one thing where I would have to start from scratch with no guarantee of equally good results.
It's one thing to look at each problem in isolation, it's another to live a good life overall, which may entail many tradeoffs between different problems.
The way I’ve been thinking about this is that you shouldn’t jump on every idea you have.
You can acknowledge the ideas, but if you jump on every one that comes to mind, your life ends up being extremely chaotic.
However, if you find yourself thinking about a certain idea a lot of times, it might be worth considering it, because your subconscious might be trying to tell you something.
It's sort of related, but too often other people's problems end up forced into being my problem.
Other people's problems are fun to solve when you're like "hey, I've seen that before / I know something about your problem", and I think I can advance you in your pursuit of a solution. Fun, win/win for everybody.
But too often you try to use some product or service, either of another company, or of another team at your company, and it doesn't work. And the other team is just "but I don't waaaaannnna" about figuring out why their shit is broken. And so it becomes your problem, because you're probably trying to do something that isn't shaving this teams yak, but here you are, blocked on them. So it's either "do their job for them" or be blocked by them.
And managerial chains are just, IME, utterly ineffective at dealing with this. My current boss does not want to handle these, ever. He wants me to fix the problem. Problem is I have no authority over others teams, so I can't get them to act, and so … now it's my problem! And soon I'm doing the work of 3 teams, it feels like, and shaving yaks all day.
Google, internally — at least way back in the day; I've got no idea if this is still a thing — had a philosophy at several levels of "it's our problem", and in internal team-to-team stuff, that meant if a customer of your team's junk was having a bad time, that was your problem. Not your "customers'", internal or external. One of the many things I think that led them to being a FAANG.
I swear this guy is the pinnacle of cheap wisdom. There are VC’s who are worse, but Seth never fails to disappoint.
I love solving other people's problems. If I succeed, they are usually happy. If I fail, it is, after all, someone else's problem. It's a proposition you cannot lose.
Because when you try to solve people’s problems, you imagine this simplified rule set, but in reality the rules you don’t see is what makes it difficult for the actual bearer.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but make sure you are not insulting someone’s intelligence by over simplifying the problem. This means you need to really get to understand their issue before chirping.
Yet other reason is that it is super easy to imagine you solved your friends problem and that the friend is just stupid or weak for not trying. You just simplify the situation in your head, apply simple solution and it works - in your head.
It is much harder to actually solve that problem back in the real world.
It's like we're not designed or supposed to be alone with the burden of anything
And THIRD. Real problems are really hard to solve. If they weren't, then everyone would solve them and you couldn't make any money on your solution. So while I'm midway working my way through a solution, everyone decides to stop by my desk and say, "Why don't you just do X? Problem solved!" Funny, X is the very first thing I thought of myself, but it's more complicated than that. So I keep working through my solution, casually nodding at the peanut gallery as it cycles by.
It’s easy to tell people how to solve their problem, as it doesn’t include the burden of actually doing the work.
The classic example would be that it’s easy to solve someone else’s weight problem. Tell them to eat a proper diet of X, get enough sleep, get to the gym X times per week, etc. Saying all these things is very easy, but overcoming the barriers to actually implement each one in a life isn’t already doing these things, is much harder.
Providing a path is much more difficult than walking the path.
I'd generalize burden to cost. Difficult problems usually have no good solution. Every option has some cost. Sometimes the cost of continuing to suffer from the problem is (or appears to be) lower than that of solving it.
> Loosening the constraints always makes a problem easier to solve.
In a vacuum, I disagree quite strongly with this although I understand what the author is getting at. It is easy to get stuck with arbitrary and unnecessary constraints. Dropping those is great.
On the other hand, I find that adding constraints is one of the absolute best things you can do to enhance creativity. True freedom can only be found in the presence of immutable constraints.
tangential, but this reminds me of the "Somebody Else's Problem field" in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy:
> An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot.
> The Somebody Else's Problem field... relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else’s Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem?wpro...
As Steve Goodman sang:
And I saw the boss come a-walkin' down along that factory line
He said, "We all have to tighten up our belts."
But he didn't look any thinner than he did a year ago
And I wonder just how hungry that man felt
But he knows it ain't too hard to get along with somebody else's troubles
And they don't make you lose any sleep at night
Just as long as fate is out there bustin' somebody' else's bubbles
Everything is gonna be alright
"Loosening the constraints always makes a problem easier to solve."
Due to job deformation, I cannot agree. Tight constraints make for easy solving. However, loose constraints allow more change. And ultimately, change is what people are looking for.
Additionally, when looking at others we see them as their own free agent, but looking at ourselves we see us as constrained in a system.
I've also seen this phenomenon. I wonder if hopelessness and hopefulness is relevant since the focus seems to be the difficulty of coming up with solutions.
I suppose this just shifts the question to.. are we typically more hopeful for others than of ourselves and if so why?
Hopeful = helpful?
If we have a problem ourselves, we sometimes block out, often obvious, solutions! I read somewhere : what can help is, ask yourself, what advice would I give if that problem were a problem of a friend. And that works! Suddenly you have, at least, a less biased view on the problem, or even the solution!
The devil is in the details and, at the end of the day, the person with the problem is the one who has to solve it. Even armed with great advice that's not an easy task or it wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
Related: volunteering is a good way to get out of your own head. Putting your concerns to the side and helping the community can do wonders for your mental health (not to mention gain new friends with similar interests).
The ramifications of dependencies and the trivial and hidden costs of modifying (refactoring) these are why is "easy" for one and "hard" for the other one.
Outsider (to the novice swimmer): Just breathe, you are not breathing.
Novice swimmer to himself: Yeah right, but thats the problem, i have no idea how to breathe.
In Chinese: “当局者迷，旁观者清”. The players are confused, but the audience sees clearly.
Other people's problems become mine as soon as I get involved.
I haven't had a problem since.
Most problems are hard to "solve" because we entertain the delusion of solutions that don't exist — solutions which tie everything together with a nice bow and require no discomfort or negative emotions of any kind.
Alex Hormozi says "the life you want is on the other side of a few hard conversations."
I would channel that to say, "the solution you're looking for is on the other side of a few uncomfortable feelings."
And usually, it's just the fear of the feelings, not the feelings themselves.
My experience was that if you successfully help people they will come back with new problems. Hell, they wont come back until they have new problems for you.
Helping people is hard, I found a much easier approach. You have to make it worse for them: You won't solve your problem because it isn't in your nature. I'm convinced you will never find a new partner or a new job, you wont be able to pay your bills, you will be out on the street soon! If they are old I go with: If only you paid more attention in school.
Then they run out the door in rage and go do all of the things they should have done years ago. Ill pay for stuff if money gets in their way but ill remind them it is pointless, I might as well set fire to the money.
Sometimes they come back to pay me and to tell me what an asshole I am. Sometimes they come back with new problems for me to make fun of and to tell me what an asshole I am but then I at least know they need help since there is nothing convenient about my "help".
That's one way to do it!
I am so down with OPP
Aww! Cute picture! Look at those Cargo pants/shorts... wait...
Why does home-boy have a f-ing machete?!
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> In the UK you do not get any extra benefits after the second child, meaning that if you are poor you only get support for your first 2 children.
With a total fertility rate of 1.74 (2017 figure) that seems to be a strange regulation.
Or, perhaps we could entertain a fantastical explanation: what if no one has free will and thus someone else's problems seem easy to us because our deterministic movements solve them easier than the deterministic movements of the person with the problem?
But the claimed phenomenon here is that it's (almost) always easier for you to come up with a solution to someone else's problem than for them to do so, not just that some problems are easier for one person than another. There are problems with this claim, I think, but the absence of free will is not an explanation, or at best just reduces it to the question of why, granting the claim, the determinism (almost) always leads to this bias.
(For that matter, nothing in the linked article depends on whether or not we have free will.)
The outside with the solution doesn't have to live with the result and likely doesn't comprehend the un-stated nuances of the situation.
That makes problem solving easy.
> The outside with the solution doesn't have to live with the result and likely doesn't comprehend the un-stated nuances of the situation.
Yes, that's the kind of thing I had in mind by saying that I thought that there were problems with the claim.
That would just move the question *, not give an answer.
* to: "OK, and why would our deterministic movements solve them easier than the deterministic movements of the person with the problem?"
Selection bias: people tend to talk about the problems that are hard, and we tend to see the ones that we can solve. (Okay, this has nothing to do with free will I guess...)