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As a designer, I chomp at the bit when I hear about a problem. It’s my Pavlovian response to bring to bear the things I love to do, create solutions.
I want to talk about problems and how in general, the media and all of us treat the idea of problems wrong. Bear with me here. Problems are wonderful in that they tell us two things at once. Here’s something that needs addressing and it’s important.
Yes there are times when a problem is raised and it’s not really important, those you can feel free to dismiss. It’s the problems that people complain about, work to subvert or otherwise push aside, or try to get “carte blanche” to ignore…these are the ones which you should investigate.
Often you will hear that some problem is so bad or so difficult that we need to allow people to willfully ignore it. This happens a lot in business. You will hear some business person complain that if we have to adopt rigorous requirements of the EPA or Climate Change, well, it will destroy our businesses. It would be so much better for our business if we could just not deal with this. Some go so far as to deny reality in their desire to avoid these things. They will imply or claim this goes against basic principles of capitalism.
