171–174 of 174 posts
My 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.
Yeah, benign neglect is a good response for a wide variety of problems. FWIW, I also call it "the healing power of apathy".
People 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…
Problems like those don’t just get “solved” one time. They require ongoing maintenance to keep levels low/manageable. If that isn’t understood by those in government, I would say that is a level of incompetence. This can play out in a couple ways. People can avoid solving the problem, because they think at that point the work is done forever. This is incorrect. People can also be scared (for good reason) that whoever…
You could go even further and say that the modern Western preference for whack-a-mole politics rather than long term competence is one of the reasons that countries like China is on the rise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I normally don't write stuff like this but I did not expect 9 upvotes. I expected a karma hit (but I prefer to just write honestly what I think). That's informative, thank you.
What you said isn't controversial. Its very often the case that people fret and worry about things that aren't 'problems' but instead are just 'stuff they don't like'. In the former case, ignoring it will often make it worse. In the latter case, if you wait a bit then people move on to other things to complain about.
I am happy to report I only worked during the meetings and a bit outside of it, and feel totally vindicated by this approach.