Wicked problem

PUBLIC POLICY NETWORKS AND ‘WICKED PROBLEMS’: A NASCENT SOLUTION?

The last two decades have seen a shift in public services organizations from hierarchies to networks. Network forms are seen as particularly suited to handling ‘wicked problems'. We make an assessmen...

You don't have to be smart if you can think clearly

When you’re on fire, problems are transparent: they’re solved simply by the act of looking at them. Even complicated layers of multiple problems can simply be glanced through like stacked panes of glass. But nobody can work that way all the time.

Bridges & scruples

For your own sanity, you have to remember that not all problems can be solved. Not all problems can be solved, but all problems can be illuminated. —Ursula Franklin

The Paradox of Perfection: When ‘Good Enough’ is Actually Better

Exploring the tension between engineering perfectionism and pragmatic delivery. Discover why striving for the perfect solution often prevents us from shipping valuable improvements and how to find the balance.

How Complex Systems Fail

All of the interesting systems (e.g. transportation, healthcare, power generation) are inherently and unavoidably hazardous by the own nature. The frequency of hazard exposure can sometimes be changed but the processes involved in the system are themselves intrinsically and irreducibly hazardous. It is the presence of these hazards that drives the creation of defenses against hazard that characterize these systems.

The Tragedy of the Commons

The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.

Convivial Computing

In 1973, Ivan Illich published Tools for Conviviality, a book about man's relation to tools 1. Illich pleaded for a pluralism of responsibly limited tools that guarantee an individual’s right to work with independent efficiency, the development of which is "as unpredictable, creative and lively as the people who use them" (Illich, 1973) 2. He pointed to overgrowth and overproduction threatening the right to a liveable environment, which unfortunately led him to ideas on gender and population control that are highly problematic 3. His ideas are included in the Catalog because of their influence on other practices, that picked up on his ideas about limited tools and turned a blind eye to the less appealing parts of his writing.

Your Solution Doesn't Know Your Problem Exists

If your problem is structural, your approach must be radical.

The 1960s Art School Experiment That Redefined Creativity

A groundbreaking study revealed that the most compelling artists seek to find problems, not solve them.

A Year of Magical Thinking

Elite impunity has fueled the fantasy that catastrophes are for other people.

The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry

Allusions to the “problem of metropolitan government” are often made in characterizing the difficulties supposed to arise because a metropolitan region is a legal non-entity. From this point of view, the people of a metropolitan region have no general instrumentality of government available to deal directly with the range of problems which they share in common. Rather there is a multiplicity of federal and state governmental agencies, counties, cities, and special districts that govern within a metropolitan region.This view assumes that the multiplicity of political units in a metropolitan area is essentially a pathological phenomenon. The diagnosis asserts that there are too many governments and not enough government. The symptoms are described as “duplication of functions” and “overlapping jurisdictions.” Autonomous units of government, acting in their own behalf, are considered incapable of resolving the diverse problems of the wider metropolitan community. The political topography of the metropolis is called a “crazy-quilt pattern” and its organization is said to be an “organized chaos.” The prescription is reorganization into larger units—to provide “a general metropolitan framework” for gathering up the various functions of government. A political system with a single dominant center for making decisions is viewed as the ideal model for the organization of metropolitan government. “Gargantua” is one name for it.

Stovepiping

The definition of stovepiping can also refer to sharing information within a governmental body while hindering the sharing of information across different government bodies.[2] This type of information sharing can create large ineffectiveness as coordination can be weak, leading to a variety of inefficiencies and delays particularly with daily communication across governmental bodies. However, this issue can often be solved when groups or certain governmental entities can pressure or require different governmental bodies to work together.

interfluidity » The great game of global public goods provision

War is bad. Excuses should not be made for it. All sides should work to end this and every war as quickly as possible and shift to modes of bargaining and competition that are not profoundly destructive.

the void — LessWrong

Comment by nostalgebraist - Thanks for the reply!  I'll check out the project description you linked when I get a chance. [...] Yeah, I had mentally flagged this as a potentially frustrating aspect of the post – and yes, I did worry a little bit about the thing you mention in your last sentence, that I'm inevitably "reifying" the thing I describe a bit more just by describing it. FWIW, I think of this post as purely about "identifying and understanding the problem" as opposed to "proposing solutions."  Which is frustrating, yes, but the former is a helpful and often necessary step toward the latter. And although the post ends on a doom-y note, I meant there to be an implicit sense of optimism underneath that[1] – like, "behold, a neglected + important cause area that for all we know could be very tractable! It's under-studied, it could even be easy!  What is true is already so; the worrying signs we see even in today's LLMs were already there, you already knew about them – but they might be more amenable to solution than you had ever appreciated!  Go forth, study these problems with fresh eyes, and fix them once and for all!" I might write a full post on potential solutions sometime.  For now, here's the gist of (incomplete, work-in-process) thoughts. ---------------------------------------- In a recent post, I wrote the following (while talking about writing a Claude 4 Opus prompt that specified a counterfactual but realistic scenario): [...] And I feel that the right way to engage with persistent LLM personas is basically just this, except generalized to the fullest possible extent. "Imagine the being you want to create, and the kind of relationship you want to have (and want others to have) with that being. "And then shape all model-visible 'context' (prompts, but also the way training works, the verbal framing we use for the LLM-persona-creation process, etc.) for consistency with that intent – up to, and including, authentically acting out that 'relationship you want to have' w