[HN Gopher] Other People's Problems
___________________________________________________________________
Other People's Problems
Author : pmzy
Score : 141 points
Date : 2024-04-24 06:57 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (seths.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (seths.blog)
| yetihehe wrote:
| Tip: when your solution contains "just (do something)", it's
| never that simple.
| athenot wrote:
| Yes! I'm always reminded of "Just is a Dangerous Word", from
| the original wiki:
|
| https://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| 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.
| arkh wrote:
| 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.
| fargle wrote:
| 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.
| yetihehe wrote:
| 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.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| 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.
| Swizec wrote:
| 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_.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| That is Nike for you.
| cainxinth wrote:
| 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?
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The solution to being overweight is simple. Eat less. But it
| ain't easy.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| 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?
| JadeNB wrote:
| 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.)
| detourdog wrote:
| 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.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > 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.
| coldtea wrote:
| 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?"
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| 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...)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| 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.
| mft_ wrote:
| 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...
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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.
| richrichie wrote:
| 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.
| jprete wrote:
| 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.).
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >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.
| WJW wrote:
| 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.
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| Why can't they (we) though? :(
| WalterBright wrote:
| There are exceptions, though. For example, my advice is
| always welcome and apropos.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > 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.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > 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.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| 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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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
| lazide wrote:
| 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.)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > 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.
| lazide wrote:
| 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.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Yeah, but your advice is actually useful :-)
| omoikane wrote:
| 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_w
| ith...
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Verschlimmbesserung
| mft_ wrote:
| 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. :)
| terr-dav wrote:
| "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.
| jprete wrote:
| 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.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > 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.
| samus wrote:
| 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.
| okwhateverdude wrote:
| > 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.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> 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."_
| WalterBright wrote:
| > 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...
| coldtea wrote:
| 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.
| n4r9 wrote:
| 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.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| It is easier to help someone else organize their house than to
| organize your own.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| richrichie wrote:
| 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.
| scblock wrote:
| 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.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| 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.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| 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.
| jmbwell wrote:
| 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.
| zackmorris wrote:
| 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.
| jahewson wrote:
| 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.
| nemothekid wrote:
| 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?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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?
| lazide wrote:
| Why can't it be both?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The Law of Supply and Demand.
|
| For example, open a lemonade stand in your neighborhood.
| Charge $20 a cup. See how it goes.
| lazide wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, small positive inflation is better than any negative
| inflation. But the inflation in land/education/healthcare
| is quite a bit more than that.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Some moderate level of inflation is a pretty basic
| economic principle
|
| The US had zero net inflation from 1800 to 1914, and
| fantastic prosperity.
| csbbbb wrote:
| "Just get more sleep."
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'm skipping avocado toast!
| kevindamm wrote:
| I've skipped skipping avocado toast, I just look for good
| deals on avocado and buy limes no matter what their price
| is.
| jmbwell wrote:
| No matter the price? No wonder we're drowning in
| limeflation!
| kevindamm wrote:
| I would sooner not buy the bread and just eat
| avocado+lime+salt! Limeflation be damned.
| atoav wrote:
| 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.
| skybrian wrote:
| 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.
| atoav wrote:
| 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.
| Quimoniz wrote:
| > 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.
| methyl wrote:
| 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.
| flawn wrote:
| You're so right. Thanks for this perspective
| m463 wrote:
| 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.
| ozim wrote:
| 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.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| 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.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| 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.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| 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
| nate wrote:
| 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.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Talking to yourself by Name or in second person
|
| but that guy is crazy and never listens to anything i say! ;)
| JeremyJaydan wrote:
| 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?
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| 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!
| loa_in_ wrote:
| It's like we're not designed or supposed to be alone with the
| burden of anything
| watwut wrote:
| 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.
| reify wrote:
| Utter BS. Who is this idiot talking about?
|
| "FIRST, because we're unaware of all the real and imaginary
| boundaries our friends have set up."
|
| very dismissive and demeaning of the real life experiences of
| people.
|
| I have worked with hundreds of people as a therapist that do not
| have any psychological problems but are effected by social
| problems imposed upon them by government.
|
| This was the area that I struggled with most.
|
| An example:
|
| A Single parent, Husband abandoned her, has 4 kids under 10 years
| old. Comes to therapy thinking she is a failure because she
| cannot provide for her children.
|
| 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.
|
| After a few weeks of therapy I realise that all this woman needs
| is an extra PS50 each week to privide all that her children need.
|
| New warm clothing for the winter, new shoes, school uniforms and
| hearty meals each night etc etc.
|
| The idiot goes on to say:
|
| "When we care enough to solve our own problem, we'll loosen the
| unloosenable constraints and embrace the new challenges to come."
|
| Bollocks mate!
| generic92034 wrote:
| > 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.
| navane wrote:
| "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.
| js8 wrote:
| 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.
| RobRivera wrote:
| I am so down with OPP
| marviel wrote:
| 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...
| chasd00 wrote:
| 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.
| macintux wrote:
| 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).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| 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
| deathanatos wrote:
| 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.
| al_borland wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway2562 wrote:
| I swear this guy is the pinnacle of cheap wisdom. There are VC's
| who are worse, but Seth never fails to disappoint.
| tonymet wrote:
| 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.
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