The Problem of Recognizing Problems

The human ability to recognize problems is heuristic, and thus imperfect. It is biased and limited in various ways. We evolved in an environment with certain types of problems, and we are good at recognizing those problems. Conversely, we are bad at recognizing problems that our ancestors didn’t need to solve. We have “blind spots” and “glare spots”. Each produces a different type of error. Blind spots cause false negatives. Glare spots cause false positives. People often perceive problems that don’t exist, while ignoring real problems.

Our glare spots are:

• Conflict: We expect problems to be caused by other people, acting as individuals or as groups.
• Scarcity: We expect a lack of resources to cause problems.
• Constraints: We expect constraints on our freedom of action to cause problems.
• Oppression: We expect problems to be caused by those in positions of power.
• Evil: We expect problems to be caused by evil.

Our blind spots are:

• Ourselves: We don’t expect problems to be caused by ourselves.
• Abundance: We don’t expect problems to be caused by having abundant resources.
• Freedom: We tend to assume that freedom is generally beneficial, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the freedom of others.
• Morality: We tend to assume that morally good behaviors, such as altruism, will have good results. We don’t expect morality to cause problems.
• Human nature: We don’t think of human nature itself as a source of problems. Instead, we assume that problems are caused by pathologies or external conditions.
• Nature: We don’t expect problems to be caused by natural processes.
• Technology: We think of technology as a solution to problems, not as a cause of problems.
• Information: We don’t think of information as something that can be dangerous.
• Processes: Most people have a hard time understanding abstract processes, such as evolution, or the “invisible hand” of markets. This makes it hard to see processes as both problems and solutions.
• Feedback: Feedback controls almost everything in reality, and yet we don’t intuitively understand it. Most people don’t understand how feedback loops create problems. The failure to recognize exponential growth is one example of this.

Problems in our glare spots are easily recognized, and we know how to respond to them. But if a problem occurs in a blind spot, it will not be recognized. If its negative effects are felt, they will often be explained incorrectly as caused by a glare-spot problem.

Our biggest problems lie in our blind spots, so we do not recognize them as problems. And that is a meta-problem.

The biggest problems of the modern world are not caused by enemies, scarcity, constraints, oppression or evil. Of course, those things exist. There are always enemies to be found. We don’t have an abundance of everything. Some people are oppressed. Some people are evil (in our moral paradigm). However, none of those things is a fundamental cause of modern problems.

The real, underlying causes of our problems are:

• Ourselves: Collectively, as a species, we are the ultimate cause of all of our current problems. Likewise, the individual is often the cause of his own problems. To solve our problems, we must recognize our own role in creating them, and accept the responsibility for solving them.
• Abundance: Material abundance has allowed us to subsidize a global dysgenic population explosion. It has also enabled a mass status-signaling competition in the richer parts of the world. The struggle to survive was a problem, and we created modern civilization to solve that problem. By doing so, however, we created many new problems. Premature death solved certain collective problems, such as dysgenics and population growth. The struggle to survive also gave individuals a sense of meaning and purpose. We evolved to struggle. Without that struggle, we need to find a new, sustainable way of life.
• Freedom: Modern civilization has liberated women from their ancestral dependence on men to survive. It has also liberated men and women from children, with birth control. This has caused the breakdown of the family and the collapse of fertility. We now have choices that we aren’t equipped to make.
• Morality: Altruism does not solve problems. It creates problems. The altruistic morality of the West promotes dysgenic reproduction and mass immigration. Eugenic population control is viewed as evil, even though it is necessary to maintain modern civilization in the long run. We cannot solve modern problems without abandoning morality or radically changing it.
• Human nature: Our brains are not adapted to modern civilization. Many modern problems are due to the mismatch between our instincts and the modern environment. Also, we naturally compete for resources, because we are selfish, not altruistic. This creates conflict. To prevent/resolve conflict, we need to accept that human beings are selfish. Society is not based on altruism. It is based on incentives that create cooperation instead of conflict.
• Nature: Competition, death and selfishness are simply part of nature. We need to accept nature and work within it. Instead, our culture denies biological realism when it seems to conflict with moral assumptions.
• Technology: People are increasingly using technology to create artificial substitutes for real problem-solution cycles. In modern civilization, life has degenerated into masturbation of various forms, enabled by technologies such as the birth control pill, opiate drugs and the internet.
• Information: Modern information technology enables parasitic memes, such as ideologies, to propagate rapidly and easily. Our ancestors did not live in a world with rapid, global propagation of information. We have no defenses against parasitic memes and other pathologies of information abundance.
• Processes: Most of our problems are caused by long-term processes, not agency. Agency is involved in some of them, such as mass immigration. But most of them are just happening. The population explosion was not planned by anyone. It just happened as a result of abundance and modern medicine. The same is true of dysgenics and the breakdown of male-female relationships in modern civilization. No one planned these things. The birth control pill wasn’t a nefarious plot to destroy Western civilization. It was intended to give people more control over their lives. Many people believe that modern problems are caused by hidden agency: a conspiracy of some kind. The truth is that most of our problems are caused by historical processes that no one controls, and few are even aware of.
• Feedback: Modern civilization is out of control. It has several amplifying feedback loops that generate exponential growth (of the economy, the population and money).

The problem of recognizing problems is a big meta-problem. We have reached the limits of our instincts. To go beyond them, we must use rationality. The problems of the modern world are not intuitive, but they can be identified and solved with careful thought.