How to move forward when you face a “wicked problem”

🕰️ We’re officially 11.6% of our way through 2025
Issue #266: your responses to academia’s paper mill problem, 12x-ing humanity, and luck
By Harris Sockel

I have a simple piece of advice today, one that calms me down — and is also something Carter Gibson learned after nine years as an internal community management strategist at Google: No matter how overwhelmed you feel, just do the next right thing.

“Work is ambiguous,” Gibson writes. “You are never going to have the full picture… you’re getting paid to make decisions and not mess up, but you’ll [inevitably] find yourself in a situation where you have to make a call.” I imagine that’s especially true at Google, with its ~182,000 employees spread across 200 cities. “When I think about life as these short, immediate decisions I feel… at ease.” Same.

Jake Hoban, founder and strategy consultant, echoes this advice in a story about “wicked problems” on Medium. These are problems that feel impossible to solve because you can’t identify exactly what’s wrong, or where might be the best place to start. If something feels intractable to you, or if you keep ruminating about it and aren’t sure where to begin, it’s a wicked problem. The term was coined by two philosophers and business theorists in the ’60s. One hallmark of a wicked problem? Whenever you try to solve it, it gets worse. Wicked problems are:

1. Hard to articulate clearly.
2. Unprecedented.
3. Not easily labeled “solved” or “unsolved” (often, the solution is more of a continuum than boolean).
4. Irresponsive to testing, meaning you can’t try to solve it through trial and error.

Climate change is a wicked problem. Homelessness, healthcare reform, and pandemics are wicked problems. Most businesses have a wicked time landing on a strategy because doing so means understanding the complex, ever-shifting reality in which they operate.

Also key to these problems? Every action you take to solve them changes the problem itself. That’s why, as Hoban writes, you can’t think straight to a solution — instead you have to get there gradually, one Next Right Thing at a time.

🧪 Your thoughts on false academic papers

Yesterday, we sent a newsletter about the swarm of AI-generated papers overwhelming academia. Many of you responded thoughtfully — here are a few replies that deepened our understanding.

As an academic, albeit in a low-stakes field (literature), this is bloody terrifying. […] Peer reviewing should always be double-blind to prevent nepotism, but also reviewers should [also] be paid — it’s hard work and essential work, but with how precarious many academics are right now, it is not possible to do extra/volunteer for unpaid labour. Journals roll in cash but expect free labour from all sides of academia — the writers don’t get paid (or have to pay to publish) and the reviewers don’t get paid, but readers pay for access, either individually or through library subscriptions/universities. It’s bonkers. — Dr. Casey Lawrence

I have been thinking about the crisis of academic science for quite a long time. Even when I was a researcher, it was becoming clear, now, alas, it is obvious. Modern science has turned into an institution that requires efficiency and extreme planning, which is practically unrealistic in the conditions of a scientific experiment — and many find rather strange solutions. — Zoia (Zoe) Chernova, MS

I agree with your observation on the modern focus on quantity over quality in academic life. But your treatment of peer review strikes me as inaccurate (and maybe a little glib). I have worked for several academic journals in the social sciences and peer review in these settings is done blind. Identifying information is removed from all manuscripts and the names of reviewers are never shared with the authors. Reviewers are ethically obligated to avoid reviewing manuscripts if they think they can identify the author. I don’t know about medical research — maybe they use a different approach. — Amanda Barusch

💘 Three of my open tabs

• Valentine’s Day is Friday, and medievalist K. A. Laity reminds us of the holiday’s roots in medieval “courtly love” (extravagant gifts, chivalry, dramatic devotion). She quotes 31 “Rules of Love” from a 12th century text, most of which feel Valentine’s Day-coded to me. (Rule #4: “It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing.”)
• There are around 8.2 billion people on Earth right now, and the U.S. Census Bureau projects we’ll reach 10 billion by 2060. In a fascinating Medium story, Tomas Pueyo outlines a few hyperfuturist technologies human civilization will need to unlock as we grow: supertall residential skyscrapers, ocean desalination at scale (more people = more thirst), and underground farming labs.
• Karen Hill Anton reflects on the slang-ification of her name. It became a pejorative sometime in 2020, but the name has a beautiful Scandinavian lineage and means “purity or innocence.”

🧭 Your daily dose of practical wisdom

A study of salespeople revealed that simply believing in luck changes your behavior. Those who believe in it are better at their jobs. (Nir Eyal)

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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