Not my problem - the best kind of problem.
an SEP - somebody else's problem
Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
121–130 of 174 posts
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think many people are being homeless by choice no matter how comfortable it is. Perhaps it makes more of them choose homelessness over suicide but I don't think it's making anyone choose homelessness over homefulness. You know what does though? Making it really hard to get a home. That makes more people homeless. I hope that's obvious.
Quite a few are homeless by choice. There are shelters available but they choose not to go because the shelters ban drugs. So they choose drugs over shelter.
Shelters also ban lots of normal things that make them harder to use, or have onerous rules around your schedule that make working impossible. There are a lot more reasons people don’t use shelters
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#123My favourite pathology is change the problem. Piggybacking on an organisational problem to solve it while promoting a personal objective. This is a subtle pathology, quite common e.g. when a new framework is introduced etc.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#124People often attribute the government's inability to solve a problem even after throwing billions of dollars at it; as a sign of incompetence. While there is plenty of incompetence within government; I think the 'Preserve the Problem' response is mostly to blame. If we 'solved' crime, homelessness, drug use, poverty, etc.; then budgets would decrease and political power would diminish. Those in charge of solving the…
I'm genuinely curious about even a hypothetical more detailed example of how some group would go about preserving a problem like homelessness, even unintentionally. I can't wrap my mind about how it would actually happen beyond simplistic sayings. I live in Portland, OR where we have a large homeless problem and I continually hear that the groups being given money to help are incentivized to keep homelessness high fo…
I think you could solve homelessness really simple by allowing something like a favela. It will be an eyesore so pick an area out of sight of rich people. Then split it into like idk 200sqft plots. Give everyone enough corrugated steel to build a primitive shelter. Have like a central sanitation place with a shitton of toilets and showers.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#125You make two big assumptions - 1) The problem is really a problem, it is not invented by the consultant, it is well defined, deserves "solving", 2) the person or team is the one who is responsible for doing something about it. 3) "Solving" is justified by overall cost-benefit view.
The "pushing around" could be about letting the right person/team handle it. "Preserving" could be due to lack of business justification to "solve" it. Promoting new problem could be due to poor understanding of the problem and solution, usually due to consultants pushing for it.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm genuinely curious about even a hypothetical more detailed example of how some group would go about preserving a problem like homelessness, even unintentionally. I can't wrap my mind about how it would actually happen beyond simplistic sayings. I live in Portland, OR where we have a large homeless problem and I continually hear that the groups being given money to help are incentivized to keep homelessness high fo…
In the homelessness example, it's not so much that the programs and groups want to justify their continued existence (though that might be happening too). It's that the programs themselves incentivize more of the problem. When they give things to homeless people, such as food, shelter, clothes, social services, even needles and a "safe place" to get high in some cases, and often with few or no conditions, they make b…
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, housing those people is only half the budget, so it's like $25k/person. It's unlikely there's a trivial arbitrage to eliminate homelessness in a city full of engineers.
The market would probably solve it if you fired all the bureaucrats but there may be other side effects to that
Because there was no homeless before government programs.
It’s like history was the first casualty of late stage capitalism and no one knows about the new deal or the war on poverty.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#128People often attribute the government's inability to solve a problem even after throwing billions of dollars at it; as a sign of incompetence. While there is plenty of incompetence within government; I think the 'Preserve the Problem' response is mostly to blame. If we 'solved' crime, homelessness, drug use, poverty, etc.; then budgets would decrease and political power would diminish. Those in charge of solving the…
3 groups are suspect: Doctors, Police and Firemen. If they did their job well, they would have no job.
Politicians too, by having big problems they guarantee they can get people to vote for them by promising to solve those problems. But people are getting smart to that. The Who said it well: We won't get fooled again.
Doctors have their Hippocratic oath. Do police and firemen have something similar, or don't they need it?
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#129People often attribute the government's inability to solve a problem even after throwing billions of dollars at it; as a sign of incompetence. While there is plenty of incompetence within government; I think the 'Preserve the Problem' response is mostly to blame. If we 'solved' crime, homelessness, drug use, poverty, etc.; then budgets would decrease and political power would diminish. Those in charge of solving the…
3 groups are suspect: Doctors, Police and Firemen. If they did their job well, they would have no job. Politicians too, by having big problems they guarantee they can get people to vote for them by promising to solve those problems. But people are getting smart to that. The Who said it well: We won't get fooled again. Doctors have their Hippocratic oath. Do police and firemen have something similar, or don't they nee…
Why stop at them? Lawyers, politicians, psychologist, bookkeepers, the list goes on and on. Why? Because our GDP includes them. Look the numbers are higher. It doesn't matter if your work promotes a parasitic outcome. The system produces it's own problems and then diligently works to solve them... Yeah, right.
Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)
#130My favorite is ignoring or downplaying a problem. 95% of apparent 'problems' are best ignored in favor of solving the worthwhile 5%. Sometimes this means 'creating' a new problem by pointing to something unconsidered that's 10x more important.
That's lesson number one for GP's. Second lesson is to pay attention to correctly catch the remaining 5%. You can get help to solve them later.
Choose your battles.