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Stabilizer comments on The best 15 words - Less Wrong
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I feel this quote belongs in this thread.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H.L.Mencken
But often it is worth understanding why the clear, simple answer is wrong.
Because it is incompatible with the beliefs of my tribe.
Because it is clear and simple, and therefore unfit to signal my sophistication.
Or because there are some specific technical reasons why it is wrong.
I guess these are the three most frequent reasons, perhaps even in the decreasing order of frequency, why clear and simple answers are wrong.
Because the problem is complex and your clear, simple solutions has at least 3 knock-on effects, one of which will make the original problem worse. And the other 2 will cause new complex problems in 10 years time.
The clear, simple solution to "X is to expensive" is "Declare a cheaper price for X by government fiat."
By the time you have compensated for the knock-on effects, regulated to prevent cheaters, and taxed to pay for costs, the solution is no longer simple.
The third one sounds a lot like “or anything else”.
Because it's actually an answer to a simple problem -- getting my mother out of the burning building is a simpler problem than getting her out of it alive and well, so the clearest. simplest solution to the former is a wrong solution to the latter. (In such an example it is obvious, but in many real-world situations it's easier to lose purposes.)