September 14, 2018

The atmosphere of Venus

The funny thing about problems is that it’s easy to imagine that they exist as objective realities.

Natural disasters, global warming, cheap opiates... all problems, right?

Well, yes. But only because they affect people.

Wait, what?

Consider this:

The atmosphere of Venus is 96 percent carbon dioxide. This is not a problem. It’s an observable fact.

On the other hand, if the Earth’s atmosphere was 96 percent carbon dioxide, it’d be a major problem.

What’s the difference?

There are people on Earth.

Problems are things that happen to people. No people? No problems.

If you want to find problems that people will happily pay you to solve, start by talking to people. Not by observing facts.

Yours,

—J

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