Some people look at an immense problem and say, "How selfish of people to allow this to go on."
Others look at an immense problem and say, "How sad that this problem is so immense." A few look at an immense problem and say, "I have an idea."

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@ahi
By immense, do you mean by size or complexity?

I love complex problems because hey, I can get paid to solve a puzzle. But immensely large simple problems, I slowly look for the nearest exit, because it's going to be monotonous.

@skanman Both. For instance, climate change is an immense problem. We could potentially avoid extinction by 100% commitment to return to pre-industrial technology. But that probably won't happen. Inventing new green technology allows people to be good the rest of the way. Like if an average car is $10,000, and engineers can create a carbon neutral car that's $15,000, then the public can do their part and spend the extra $5,000, which is a lot more do-able than having no car at all. The puzzle solvers and the daily grinders must work together to fix the problem.

@ahi so the problem there is changing the will of 7.9 billion people across vast distances from a multitude of cultures and sociological structures. That's a pretty big complex problem. In that particular one, the solutions are simple but dark. Humans by nature are collectors and competitors. So this inherently drives us towards industrialization. To change human nature, is the same as any creature. A tiger for example can be moderately tamed, changing it's nature some what. How does that happen? Cage it, care for it, punish it when it does wrong, reward it when it does right, control it's environment, teach it environmental manipulation, and voila, a circus tiger. Humans however hate this, the result is always war. Humans don't like to be heavily controlled. This is a paradox that cannot be solved because we will continue to ignore the simple easy solution, and keep trying to add details and complexities to the broken solution we like.

The simple solution is, we're bad for the earth, the earth will get rid of us. The more we destroy it, the more it will destroy us.

Here's the golden irony, the reason we don't like that solution, is the very same nature that causes the problem in the first place. 😂

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