1/ So often, we think that big problems require complex solutions. This is what I call the ‘complexity bias’. People who suffer from this bias have become so ‘educated’ that they don’t see the most obvious and effective solutions anymore.
2/ For example: poverty is a lack of money. So give people money. Or: homelessness is a lack of home. So give people homes. theguardian.com/cities/2019/ju…
3/ For ‘experts’, these simple solutions can come across as insults. ‘Surely solving poverty or homelessness can’t be that easy’ they say, ‘I’ve studies this for years! It’s really complex!’
4/ What's more, many ‘educated’ people - managers, bankers, lawyers, consultants - are in love with the complexity of their work. It’s what makes their job interesting, and it gives them a reason to say: ‘See, you need me to manage all this complexity.’
5/ Could it be that a large part of what we call the 'knowledge economy' is constructed in this way? That highly educated managers and consultants make simple things as complex as possible, so that they are needed to manage all that complexity?
6/ Sometimes I wonder if this is the business model of both bankers on Wall Street ánd academics who write in unnecessarily complex jargon. They make simple things as complicated as possible. And that’s how they ‘earn a living’.
7: Which reminds me of this Buckminster Fuller quote: ‘The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.’
