--- title: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than... description: A consultant's reflection on how people respond to problems beyond simply solving them. Three patterns are identified: pushing problems around (local... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-people-respond-to-a-problem-other-than-solving-it--scswf9rtt twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it) | daily.dev og:description: A consultant's reflection on how people respond to problems beyond simply solving them. Three patterns are identified: pushing problems around (local... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-people-respond-to-a-problem-other-than-solving-it--scswf9rtt og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/scswf9rtT.png og:image:alt: Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it) **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A consultant's reflection on how people respond to problems beyond simply solving them. Three patterns are identified: pushing problems around (local optimization that shifts problems elsewhere), preserving problems (the Shirky Principle — institutions becoming dedicated to the problem they solve), and promoting new problems (every solution creates new issues, as noted by Neil Postman and Jerry Weinberg). The post emphasizes fixing incentive structures, identifying stakeholders who benefit from problems persisting, and accepting that problem-solving is never truly finished. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Three ways to solve problems — Andreas Fragner](https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-to-solve-problems-andreas-fragner-arhy2gk8h) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Staff engineers shift from solving problems to shaping systems](https://daily.dev/posts/staff-engineers-shift-from-solving-problems-to-shaping-systems-y7iswub43) · LeadDev · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-people-respond-to-a-problem-other-than-solving-it--scswf9rtt) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Three ways people respond to a problem (other than solving it)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-people-respond-to-a-problem-other-than-solving-it--scswf9rtt","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/three-ways-people-respond-to-a-problem-other-than-solving-it--scswf9rtt"},"datePublished":"2026-07-17T15:20:30.835Z","dateModified":"2026-07-17T15:32:47.614Z","description":"A consultant's reflection on how people respond to problems beyond simply solving them. 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