Short-sighted “solutions” are not solutions

Have you noticed that most problems that come to bite us in the posterior are caused by

1. a short-term focus that
2. prevents systems thinking?

Many say it’s “human hubris”; nonsense. It’s that many promote neat and simple (i.e., short-sighted) solutions to wickedly complex problems without even attempting to understand the underlying systems better than they understand their own ego and pocket first and foremost.

Then, the unintended (but also inevitable) consequences increase pressure to find solutions to the new downstream problems, thus compounding the problems of unrealistic time schedules, low quality of thinking, even less systems thinking, etc.

Also, I concur with this comment by John Parmentola :

Everything is easy when you don’t know anything. And when you don’t know anything everything is a discovery.

Vice versa: people who think they know or feel compelled to behave as if they know everything in advance (but really know little) are not only sustainable blowhards, but hostile towards actual, valuable discovery. These are so-called “experts”, often self-proclaimed, other times either by degree or by decree.

No wonder problems proliferate.