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Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

improvesomething.today

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Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#71

Post by deelayman »

have_faith wrote: post #23
didgetmaster wrote: post #20

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…

Does anyone within the system genuinely feel threatened by the idea that something like "crime" can be "solved" to the point that they're avoiding solving too much crime? Same logic for the others.

The article is written from the perspective of a business / management consultant, rather than a public policy shop perspective. In general, I think social problems move slowly, and solving them in a three year business plan isn't realistic. You'll see many agencies use a version of Mayne's Framework or Contribution Analysis to report on progress for big social problems.

It's not that they perpetuate their own raison d'être, it's that they are addressing path dependent social problems, and changing a system with embedded systemic memory within a vast number of crevices (public, private, and cultural) to hide those memories is orders of magnitude more effort than creating the system at the start.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#72

Post by dmitrygr »

blharr wrote: post #56
dmitrygr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A LOT of crime can be solved. A huge percentage of perps are multi-repeat perps. Putting them away permanently would solve a lot of crime. "75% to 83% of released prisoners are arrested for a new crime" https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/2018-update-prisone...

"Solved" (heavy quotes) because instiutionalizing dozens of millions of people with no improvement is a massive crime in and of itself. That's like those stories of LLMs saying "I fixed the vulnerability in your app" by deleting the project entirely

Wouldn’t you say that the lowered crime rate enjoyed by the innocent as a result is an improvement?

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#73

Post by Swizec »

MattGrommes wrote: post #38
didgetmaster wrote: post #20

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…

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…

> how some group would go about preserving a problem like homelessness, even unintentionally

Simplistic version: San Francisco spends roughly $100,000/year on each homeless person. In services, salaries for people working on it, rent for office buildings etc. I am willing to bet many of these people would not be homeless if we just gave them $100,000/year without all the middle bureaucracy layers.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#74

Post by mnahkies »

0wis wrote: post #5

Nice article, interesting to keep an open mind. On "No. 0002. Preserving problems", it can happen to people too, no need for a complex system at the size of a company. I have often noticed recognized experts keeping the root of the problem unsolved because it was justifying their position. I may even have been subject of this curse. As an expert, you may know the root cause but have no incentive to solve it and it ca…

In terms of the expert observation, I've seen this happen a number of times in conjunction with "not invented here" (and probably been guilty of it myself at times) - "the commodity solution doesn't do X that we want", "yeah our in house solution doesn't do x,y,z that the commodity solution does but just a little more effort and it'll be perfect"

Spoiler: neither the commodity solution or the in-house solution will ever be perfect, and you should be really self critical of whether you're building something in-house to scratch your own itch.

If you can find a commodity solution with the right extension points that's often the best solution, failing that many times it's worth accepting the limitations, rarely it's worth investing in the totally bespoke thing (outside of your core domain/proposition).

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#75

Post by al_borland »

didgetmaster wrote: post #20

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 is in charge will mistakenly assume no maintenance is needed after “solving” a problem and let everyone go. This would be incompetence in leadership.

I see both of these things play out on a smaller scale at work all the time. We keep solving the same problems, because ever time it’s “solved” people move on to new projects the upkeep falls behind, and the problem grows again.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#76

Post by skipants »

didgetmaster wrote: post #20

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…

Am I wrong in thinking this comment is absolutely bonkers? It's basically a conspiracy theory.

When I lead teams and thought of how to motivate them to get certain things done, like code quality, I found it best to frame why certain things got done as a mixture of constraints and incentives. ie. What was preventing people from doing a thing and what motivated them to do thing.

You're basically arguing that there's no constraints to these problems and that people are incentivized to proliferate them. Do you distrust people that much?

Isn't it easier to surmise that there could be a lot of constraints and not a lot of incentives to solve these issues?

Or heck... just a shit ton of constraints than incentives?

I mean... there are people who are incentivized to keep drug use going: drug dealers and kingpins. And I'm sure there are some with their hand in governments. But there's no way that's the default.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#77

Post by RugnirViking »

Swizec wrote: post #73
MattGrommes wrote: post #38

Earlier 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…

> how some group would go about preserving a problem like homelessness, even unintentionally Simplistic version: San Francisco spends roughly $100,000/year on each homeless person. In services, salaries for people working on it, rent for office buildings etc. I am willing to bet many of these people would not be homeless if we just gave them $100,000/year without all the middle bureaucracy layers.

But the idea that that is intentionally done is the leap, right? In my model of the world, it's very easy to believe how overlapping & duplicate programmes, middleman corruption, and ineffective programs can cause this without meaning to, rather than some deliberate attempt to engineer the morass of beuracracy.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#78

Post by nostrademons »

MattGrommes wrote: post #38
didgetmaster wrote: post #20

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…

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…

All you have to do is promote policies that make the problem more palatable but don't actually solve it. Treatments instead of cures. As long as the problem needs treatment, the organizations dedicated to treating it will still be around, but as soon as it is no longer a problem at all, those organizations will cease to exist and everyone working on it needs a new job.

For homelessness, it's things like shelters, free meals, needle exchanges, etc. Make the life of the homeless easier without actually getting them into permanent housing. The actual solution to eliminate homelessness is to build more housing, along with financial arrangements to incentivize ownership and make it possible.

For taxes, it's accountants and tax preparation software like TurboTax or H&R block. The actual solution is to make the tax code simple enough that anyone can understand it and then withhold the appropriate amount so that nobody even needs to file. The big tax preparers have repeatedly lobbied against this.

For medicine, it's lots of prescription medication that you have to be on for life to "manage" your condition, as well as recurrent doctor's visits to diagnose and treat it. The actual solution for the vast majority of conditions that kill Americans today is diet, exercise, fiber, reduce stress, stop smoking, and wear your seatbelt. Modern medicine is also very adept at solving acute problems like broken bones, bacterial infections, appendicitis, etc. But once you've got a chronic condition of indeterminate source (many of which are actually solved by the advice above), you're in the system and can expect to pay through the nose for no solution.

For many construction projects (like say CAHSR), it's performing endless studies about how to build the project without actually building it. Some level of design is necessary for successful outcomes, but many agencies go around in circles with proposals and reports and environmental impact studies and voter referendums without actually having anyone actually pick up a shovel and start moving dirt.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#79

Post by mnahkies »

black6 wrote: post #14

The company for which I work seems to be run by engineers. When learning to be an engineer you're taught that doing nothing is always a valid option. In Army leadership courses we were taught that ANY decision is better than NO decision. My company is stifled by a bunch of engineers in leadership positions who always choose to defer up the chain rather than make a decision themselves.

As another commentator said "do nothing" is a decision. There's a distinction between "don't make a decision and hope someone else makes a decision" and "we acknowledge we're deciding to do nothing about X until/unless Y"

The people in leadership positions should be active participants, and not all decisions will be ones they are are able to make locally - but they should feel comfortable to present a POV and recommendation/tradeoffs upwards when that's the case. If the buck stops with them then they should be aware that "do nothing" is a decision that they are making.

Re: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)

#80

Post by reverius42 »

Swizec wrote: post #73
MattGrommes wrote: post #38

Earlier 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…

> how some group would go about preserving a problem like homelessness, even unintentionally Simplistic version: San Francisco spends roughly $100,000/year on each homeless person. In services, salaries for people working on it, rent for office buildings etc. I am willing to bet many of these people would not be homeless if we just gave them $100,000/year without all the middle bureaucracy layers.

How many of the homeless people in SF are from other parts of the US and are given one-way bus tickets to SF by their own hometowns? Because just giving them money could only possibly make that problem worse.

(Yes, this is a real thing that happens, though I'm not sure the extent. See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/... )

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