Almost No One Is Working On Any Problem, and Yet We Are A Vast And Powerful Civilization
So It Turns Out, #53
Hi,
So here are some things I’ve been thinking about this week.
So It Turns Out That Almost No One Is Working On Any Problem
From the perspective of the average Westerner from a few centuries ago, you live in paradise. Half of all kids don’t die before adulthood. Two percent of mothers don’t die from their first childbirth. We don’t have slavery. We do have electricity, and vaccinations, and the ability to fly around the globe to celebrate a wedding. Insert your favorite example here, and it’s probably stunning to the average person from the past.12 We’ve built an amazing society, and we don’t do, all things considered, that terrible a job of maintaining it.
So why does everything feel like it sucks?
Recently, I just finished watching the second season of Apple TV’s adaptation of Foundation, which is wonderful but extremely flawed. (Light and broad spoilers follow.)
Foundation is a story of the fall of a galactic empire and what happens after; the titular Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation is a not-so-secret society dedicated on reducing a predicted 30,000-year dark age to a 1,000 year one. Their cover story is that they write down all the knowledge of the galaxy to preserve it, like monks in the Dark Ages (or, more accurately, like Christian, Muslim, and Jewish writers in the Dark Ages, but who’s counting).
Given that timeframe, the writers naturally want recurring characters for the reader or viewer to follow along. Both versions therefore rely heavily on finding ways to preserve the narrative voice of Hari Seldon, the social science mathematician (or “psychohistorian”), who predicted the imperial fall and the coming dark age.
But one of the things I deeply regret about it is that the TV version doesn’t capture the core narrative loop of the early Foundation short stories, and in particular Seldon’s role. In the TV show, Hari Seldon is an active character; he hangs around after death by uploading himself into various computers, which allows him to actively intervene in the course of events, plotting the outcomes. In the original short stories, however, he’s present solely as a recording, which makes it possible for him to pull off quite the magic trick: at the end of each Crisis the Foundation faces (and its accompanying short story), after the Foundation muddles its way through by becoming less and less of an encyclopedia-producing nonprofit, Seldon’s pre-recorded image appears in an auditorium and explains to the Foundation (and the reader) what he predicted centuries ago that they’d do, and why according to the forces of history it had worked.
This plot trope works so well, in fact, that after a while the bureaucracy of the Foundation comes to expect these kinds of reveals, and starts to have faith in Seldon’s ability to solve the problems for them; or rather, the bureaucracy becomes useless, while motivated individuals go and solve the problem, and then Seldon tells them that the rogue heroes’ actions were part of the plan all along. And that works very well, until it doesn’t, and one of Seldon’s predictions goes horribly wrong, due to the emergence of the Mule, a dictator in a rival kingdom with the singular talent to compel men’s emotions by psychic powers and to twist the social patterns of galactic civilization, rendering history no longer predictable.3 And so we see the eminent men of the Foundation sitting in their auditorium, helpless, hearing the dead voice of their Founder incant false prophecy, as the Mule takes their planet.
We don’t live in the Galactic Empire, at least not yet. Civilization isn’t going to fall, at least not today and probably not tomorrow. But we don’t live in a heroic age, either.
So, here’s my proposed diagnosis: We are in an era of unpredicted challenges: our Founding went overall well, had a few Crises, but now The Plan is off-track. What we lack is what the Foundation also lacked right before the Mule came: enough capacity and capability to tackle new Crises ourselves. We can all know of a problem, we can all know that we all know, and yet all-too-often, there isn’t anyone really working on it. (See our previous discussion here.)
This may be controversial to some of you; it's not to me:
After all, I’m someone who has spent most of his career as a professional troubleshooter. I’ve seen how messy your institutions are.
Heck, I volunteered on what was arguably the main effort to help people actually find where they could get a COVID vaccine in California during the first several months of the Covid vaccine rollout. Our nonprofit’s total budget was about $1M, apparently. Does that sound like the right allocation of resources to you in a global crisis?
Similarly, it’s not too uncommon to see stories like this, where a few researchers and a few dedicated civil servants completely utterly stopped a source of lead poisoning for an entire country.
On the other hand, it’s not too uncommon to hear of problems we all know about, but no one seems to solve. Put another way: have you looked at housing prices lately?
Of course, so many efforts exist on the back of actually functioning world-class infrastructure, ranging from the Internet itself to supermarket logistics networks to government R&D grants. I’m not saying that the things already built aren’t there, just that they’re creaking under low budgets and their average employee is already retirement-eligible,4 so I don’t love their long-term reliability prospects.
Similarly, I want to make it clear that I believe that we do have some Big Damn American Heroes that are capable of solving problems, as I’ve previously discussed; we just don’t have enough of them, they’re already overworked fighting some of the most urgent fires, and our processes for finding/making more of them are, ah, incomplete.
Okay, that’s the diagnosis. What’s the proposed solution?
I’ve spent a lot of my life around deeply, deeply successful people. People way wealthier and/or more successful and/or just more impressive than me. And one of the things I’ve learned, arguably the hardest thing I’ve learned, is that all-other-things-being-equal, being the kind of person who actually prioritizing doing things is a choice.
(Note:All advice is of two formats: “Do as I do,” or “don’t do as I do.” Right now, this advice is too often the latter. Working on making it the former.)
Therefore, my proposal on how I’m trying to grow, myself: Find a thing that no one seems to be doing anything about, despite its obvious importance. Do something about it, quickly and repeatedly.
So what might that look like? Well, here’s an example of one I’m NOT working on, but maybe illustrates to you the shape of projects I’m considering. It’s an example that’s, frankly, intended to convince you that there are indeed metaphorical $20 bills sitting on the table in front of you because no one is reaching for them, and that all you need to do is figure out how to grab them.
It also, in total candor, is an attempt to persuade at least a few of you to make this your problem. (Hello, friends who work for the Democratic Party!)
Let’s talk about abortion, and Dobbs.
You know that I’m pro-abortion rights. Most of my readers are, but crucially, not all of them. I have folks who are anti-abortion-rights, too, who I care about deeply and who read this essay, and whom I hopefully won’t have pissed off at the end here too much.
But I bet most of you outside of DC, regardless of which side you’re on, haven’t really internalized something that most people in DC policy orbits have: basically no one had a real plan for what to do after the Dobbs decision besides “hold a few press conferences.” This is true, even though:
There was a leak that gave everyone advance warning;
It’s been the singular goal of one political faction for fifty years, and they nearly got there 30 years ago, so at least some plan should already be on the shelf. Maybe it’s as out-of-date as as a Department of War plan to invade Canada, but surely there should have been something; and
Competent organizations regularly conduct contingency planning exercises.
Oh, and when I mean no one had a plan: I don’t just mean pro-abortion-rights folks.
I mean both sides.
And this is still true, even after a few special elections have demonstrated how much this swings the electoral balance. Neither side’s leadership appears to know what to do about this fact! Not only do they not have a plan, they’re still weirdly uninterested in taking obvious low-cost no-regret actions while waiting for a plan.5
For example, both sides feel that the media doesn’t cover this issue well. Both sides know that Wikipedia is the Default Everyday Lazy Source for information. (To have such a thing is a civilizational treasure.) Both sides know that all-too-often, the average state level reporter — much less the average voter — will use it as a key source, maybe really their only source.
(Lest you think this is hyperbole: here’s an article talking about how judges crib from Wikipedia; here’s an article talking about how doctors use it; and here’s an article talking about how Wikipedia edits massively affect tourist behavior.)
But somehow, no one is doing anything about editing politicians’ articles to talk about their abortion beliefs, even though those are very salient to voters!
To test this, I randomly typed in “abortion” at the news.google.com screen while writing this essay. Here is the first hit for a non-national-level politician:
It is about the Alabama AG, and how he’s going after women who travel to access abortion care.
This is the Alabama AG’s wikipedia page:
Oh, and now to look for the word “abortion.” I’m sure it’s an important element of his article, because either someone who supports or his opposes his position wants to make sure Americans know all about it:
Oh.
Either side could easily point a volunteer at the problem — indeed, “I have been a wikipedia editor for a while” is among the most-likely-to-be-useful skills a college student could bring to an internship or similar — but it doesn’t seem to happen!
Note: this point is not, at the object level, about pro- or anti-choice viewpoints; I’m pro-choice, but the anti-choice side didn’t edit the page either. (Yes, I checked the edit history.)
No one, on either side, is playing the most obvious game in response to the most obvious question, “Gee, what if the voter briefly googles the candidates’ names before entering the voting booth.” At all!
We’re worried about Russian AI bot infowar, and we don’t even have the ability to task an intern for an afternoon. We’re just hoping the forces of history roll the right way in 2024, and that the Mule is defeated somehow.
So, here’s my challenge to you, dear reader: can you even do enough to edit this wikipedia page? Sure, reshare this essay, but will anyone actually do the object-level thing of editing the Alabama AG’s wikipedia page? Will you attempt to convince voters on one of the most important issues of the present moment?
And if you’re able to do that, what else could you do in this Crisis?
Now, I’ve done something dangerous: I’ve pointed out an open messaging opportunity, and I could see it helping the side I don’t support. I don’t think so, but we’ll see in time. If you think I’ll ultimately conclude this was a mistake — that calling attention to this idea will ultimately benefit the anti-choice side — you can win play-money Internet Points by trading on this Manifold Market:
— but I personally think this essay will turn out to be a good idea. It’s rarely wrong to tell people that their choices matter.
It doesn’t escape me that Foundation was written by a Jewish writer, Isaac Asimov, and that Yom Kippur begins this Sunday night. Jews believe — as much as Jews can be said to believe anything as a whole6 — that our fates are written on Rosh Hashanah, and sealed on Yom Kippur. A prediction has been made, and recorded, and sealed away for after the next Crisis.
If your fate is already written, may you consider that fate as one that is going to reveal itself to you in response to the actions you take. Don’t wait for Hari Seldon, or G-d, or anyone else to tell you about it while you wait around.
Almost no one is working on any problem afflicting our vast and powerful civilization.
What if you did?
Gmar tov, and shana tovah.
I’m looking for new opportunities; I’ve been especially successful in the past in corporate strategy and consulting roles where I work closely with technical, product and legal experts, and am looking for similar for my next role. I’m open to a range of different industries, but am especially interested in organizations where I can help keep people safe from bad guys, and/or help them get easier access to government services and benefits that they deserve. If you’re aware of an interesting opportunity, I’d love to chat with you and learn more.
Disclosures:
Views are my own and do not represent those of current or former clients, employers, friends, Emperor Cleon I, or the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation.
There are obviously counterexamples; heck, my Jewish ancestors from more than a few generations back probably aren’t psyched about me eating bacon. But I’m talking about the broad sweep of human history, so let’s just assume all the caveats and move on from the main point.
If you’ve read the books, you’re aware of the thing I’m avoiding mentioning here, but let’s leave that for now, since it’s a far bigger spoiler.
In a very real and palpable way, low housing prices in the Sun Belt are a threat to national security.
Yes, I suppose there could be a cunning plan. I do not believe there is a cunning plan, because a cunning plan would involve a greater degree of competence than is present.
They can’t.