Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

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Can you provide an example of a typical problem most people have that's not trivially solvable by "don't do the thing that causes you to have the problem?"

There's literally hundreds of thousands of pages of advice columns and books and lectures you can go to about various typical money/relationship problems which make up the vast bulk of people's issues which are all summed up with the above.

Problem: I don't make enough money

Solution: Stop not making enough money and make more money.

Problem: My Significant Other and I don't get along

Solution: Stop not getting along and get along or break up.

Problem: My life sucks

Solution: Stop living a sucky life and get a better life.

Yeah, not every problem is simple, and not every problem (simple or not) has a simple problem, but the vast majority of day-to-day problems people have are trivially solvable...they just don't do the things to solve them.

Solutions don't have to be instantaneous, they just have to resolve the problem. People want instant quick fixes, "I'm poor" and poof money falls out of the sky, sorry doesn't work that way. But making money is stupidly easy...do something somebody wants and charge them for it.

"But I'm not rich" well that's not really a problem is it?

This seems completely delusional to me. Your answer to every problem is saying "solve the problem". I can think of two problems every person has that are not trivially solvable with your approach:

Problem: people die Problem: people are unhappy

Or, to relate to what transpires as "your" problem, having a meaningful fulfilling time with other people. Which by the way is a problem that I think is fundamental to human existence.

In my experience, problems that look trivial get increasingly complex the closer you look at them. The simple problem of (off the top of my head) how to cook an egg will probably bring you a lifetime worth of fulfilling intellectual challenges.

I have a decent IQ, skipped a few years of education, and used to think I had trouble relating to other people. I still seem to have this uncanny ability (at times) to solve programming issues (I'm a developer). I used to think I had trouble relating to other people and set out to live a more passionate life, and spent a lot of time with less intellectually oriented people. One thing I learned (and I had to learn it, as in spend effort on acquiring some kind of knowledge) is that intelligence is so much more than what I thought it was. It is not just about solving problems, it is also about experiencing and appreciating reality, and how to share and express your appreciation of reality. It clicked one day, and I have pretty much no problems anymore connecting with people, regardless of how trivially solvable their "problems" are.

This is a bit rambling and dishing out advice, and I don't want it to sound that way. I am trying to boil it down to your approach of problem + solution. Here is a simple one:

Problem: the sunset yesterday was beautiful, and I want to share the beauty I experienced with you.

Problem: people die, unsolvable don't bother.

Problem: people are unhappy, sounds like you found the trivial solution, no? Your explanation sums to me as "don't do things that make you unhappy, do things that make you happy".

Problem: it's hard to connect with people, do things that connect with people. Do them with lots of people till you find connections.

My central thesis here is that solving normal every day problems, the kind that people write into Dear Abby about, is usually pretty simple. It's why Dear Abby and similar columns have

a) been around for decades

b) are given just a couple inches of column space

c) answer half a dozen "life problems" every week in under 2 paragraphs.

Would it come across better if I framed it as a Dear Abby question? Nobody seems to have particular problems with her? If you strip away the polite wording, her solutions are usually one or two sentences.

Or would it be better if I padded the simple solution in easier to digest language like Dear Abby?

Problem: People Die

Solution: I'm very sorry that people die. It's a sad thing when a particularly bright light, who's contributed so much to the world, and so much yet to contribute, is snuffed out. People have desired long and hard for an end to the end, but it's a simple fact of life. Learning to accept death, and find closure, without dwelling in the past (move forward in celebration of their life!) is an important part of living your own life.

Does that make you feel better? The solution is no different. But now we've both wasted time getting to it. It's not any more complex than it was before, but now it's coated with sugar. That's not problem solving.

Here's an article acknowledging and celebrating this

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/17/words-of-wi...

Read very carefully her advice and see if it's materially different than mine.

Problem: I can't find other people that I can associate with.

Solution: Move & get a career where you're more likely to find the right people.

But none of those are solutions.. you've solved nothing.

"Whenever I start feeling sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead" - Barney Stinson

In what way are they not solutions?

Pertinent to your quote:

Dear Abby: My last job had me at an open office work site where people did lots of international travel. Inevitably somebody would come back sick from some exotic illness. That, combined with a high stress job had me sick constantly and it has me feeling sick, tired and run down. I feel like I've aged 6 years in the last 6 months and it's impacted everything from my relationships to my fitness. How can I solve this problem?

Solution: Stop being around sick people and get a lower stress job.

My point has nothing to do with the validity of what you said. I have no doubt that most people's problems are trivial to you, and that you could easily find effective solutions for them. Rather, my point is that you said what you did. The geniuses I've met were typically far more graceful about their intelligence.

Sure, and normally I would be, but this isn't the forum to be coy. This is the forum to talk about the difficulties of walking around with a hot potato of a brain. Sometimes it's bound to come across as rude or prickish. But it's like tall people talking about how tired they are of getting things off of high shelves for their short friends when they could just use a step stool.

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