
Work on unimportant problems - kryptiskt
http://www.yosefk.com/blog/work-on-unimportant-problems.html
======
feral
The work we now consider 'important' is the work that has, according to our
best guess, the highest likelihood of solving important problems in future.

Our best guess may be wrong, as the future is hard to predict. But the future
is not so unpredictable that we should stop thinking about where best to
direct our efforts.

Maybe someone working on Farmville will cause an important advance, as an
unpredictable side effect. We can't rule that out. Even a job that seems
'unimportant' can have beneficial and unpredictable windfalls, and that's
wonderful.

But we should still try and direct our efforts as best we can, and work on
problems that we think are important.

That seemingly trivial pursuits sometimes bear fruit, doesn't mean that all
pursuits are equally worthwhile.

~~~
terangdom
But if important is hard and unimportant easy, than there might be better
reward/work by working on unimportant stuff.

~~~
repsilat
Difficulty can be a decent heuristic for novelty, though. There are obviously
a great number of simple things that have never been tried (or even thought
of), but certainly difficult things are less likely to be tested, all other
things being equal. That said, small ideas and small changes can be
surprisingly impactful.

I rather like the idea of small changes that result in cognitive shifts. An
article I read a while ago said that Lisp programmers are often unimpressed
with language features other people have because Lisp can easily emulate and
subsume them, essentially dismissing the idea for its technical simplicity and
not an actual lack of merit.

I'm not a big web guy, but a lot of web tools seem to work that way - easy to
think up, easy to code up, but once they're actually available they change the
game in subtle ways. There's a mindset where people (myself included) say
"Well, that's easy enough to hack up using cron and ssh and..." and we fail to
recognise that actually having it makes us use it, and actually using it
improves our lives.

------
niels_olson
I'm a doc, teaching myself python specifically because it's painfully obvious
that we (docs) need more and more programming skill to do real medical
research. My current project is shaping up to be a multi-year effort to hunt
cancer (tissue micro-arrays to assess novel antigens). So this article threw
me for a loop in the first sentence.

The article is still relevant though, in my mind. There's no external
motivation to write a parser. But how else could one reasonably build a
research database? I suppose someone could manually go through the clinical
database and transfer info into a research database for 500 patients. But what
about the next 10 studies of 500 patients? It seems unimportant in the near
term, but in the long-term having someone on the project who can talk to the
computer is going to make or break it.

------
hythloday
The author wonders what important came out of, say, Farmville, and I think the
answer is something along the lines of the importance of business intelligence
- the attention paid to user telemetry, A/B testing, and product iteration has
grown based on this has grown by an order of magnitude since Zynga started
bragging that they could determine the ideal size of e.g. a call-to-action
button.

This makes it obvious there's an unstated assumption at work here, though,
i.e. that the unimportant work plays a significant part in developing this
technology. I don't think this is necessarily true: the opposite premise, that
"it's GPUs time when it's GPUs time", seems equally plausible.

------
Mz
I have a deadly and incurable medical condition. A big part of getting myself
well involved eating at restaurants and tipping the wait staff well in
preference to spending time in doctor's offices. People react to the "news"
that I got well with either treating me like some hugely inspiring figure or
calling me a liar and charlatan to my face. It is very clear to me I know
something of value to the world and have made a real difference in the lives
of some people. Yet I cannot figure out how to monetize it and I have spent
some years trying to figure out how to just talk about it without flame wars
breaking out.

In my experience, the big problems need "small" solutions. I got well by
gradually walking away from the hard hitting drugs whose overwhelming strength
hit my body just as hard as it hit my medical problems. The pursuit of the
hard hitting solutions strikes me as rooted in fear and reflective of
inelegant mental models.

"I love Lucy" was the "Star Wars" of its day in terms of revolutionizing an
industry. I suspect it also helped combat racism in this country. Lucille Ball
was originally told they would not cast her Cuban husband in the role, that no
one would believe that. I think they took the show on the road to build their
case that audiences would accept it and she did eventually get her way.

Did she set out to change an industry or combat racism? No. She wanted her
husband on the show to try to save her marriage and finally have kids. This
industry changing TV show was a lifestyle business. They did finally have kids
but ultimately divorced.

Having "cured CF" (so to speak) and mostly gotten spat on by the world for
trying to share such info, my hope is that I can eventually do a web comic. I
think humor is a far more palatable means to share wisdom than trying to
"help" people. Solving serious problems that run deep tends to be too
threatening to people. Entertaining them, making them laugh and incidentally
causing them to think seems to be a more powerful and effective means to
really change minds.

I continue to wrestle with such questions. But I think the most elegant
solutions make light of problems. I only hope I can resolve my problems well
enough so I only need worry about "unimportant" problems. That would be a
truly amazing accomplishment given my history (and genetic disorder).

~~~
CJefferson
I don't know who you are, and have never read anything you have written
before.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to reply to my initial opinion of your
message. Your problem is that your message reads a lot like "I cured a
horrible disease (I don't know what you had), which modern medicine failed to
cure, by eating at good restaurants".

Your problem is that this message sounds very close to the anti-modern
medicine claims of groups like homeopaths. I do not know what your cure is,
but trying to work with, rather than (apparently) against modern science-based
medicine might help.

Apologises if this message just ends up telling you nothing, or something you
have heard too many time before.

~~~
Mz
Thank you for replying.

I struggle with how to talk about what I have done. There is a substantial
difference between my framing of the problem and the way others frame it. I
did mention my condition but only in shorthand. I have CF -- cystic fibrosis
-- a deadly genetic disorder which accounts for around a third of all adult
lung transplants and half of all pediatric lung transplants in the US.

What I found is that life is chemistry. Everything we eat, drink, breathe or
touch impacts our biochemistry and what germs we are exposed to and so on.
Making many small choices throughout the day has a cumulative impact on body
chemistry. I was able to reverse the pathology of my condition and make my
body work closer to normal. Dietary changes were a big part of that but far
from "everything".

Getting myself well took everything I had. I ended up deeply in debt because
of it. I am currently homeless, trying to declare bankruptcy and trying to
figure how to make money online so I can stay well. Having a desk job in an
industrial park was part of what was keeping me ill.

Anyway, I hope that is a little clearer for you. My real message was intended
to be that taking care of problems while they are small is more effective at
really fixing things than hunting for big, dramatic ego boosting solutions.
Doctors pay little attention to nutrition for people like me, though it makes
a big difference in outcomes. Lung transplants grab more headlines and glory
than trying to help people keep their own lungs functional and healthy.

Peace.

~~~
CJefferson
Thanks for your reply, I agree with, and am interested in, what you say. Just
want comment:

"Doctors pay little attention to nutrition for people like me, though it makes
a big difference in outcomes. Lung transplants grab more headlines and glory
than trying to help people keep their own lungs functional and healthy.".

While I realise you might have had bad experiences, I know lots of medical
researchers who are dedicating their lives to trying to cure disease, in any
way possible. Many doctors would be very interested in proving how diet can
help disease, and doing so.

~~~
beagle3
> While I realise you might have had bad experiences,

Chiming in on bad experience: Thankfully, I don't have CF or anything of the
sort; I just appear to be statistically improbable. On way too many medical
diagnostics, I'm in the 1% of the scale -- though everything about me seems
normal.

Except weight; I used to be 100kg (220 lbs) on a 5'11" (1.78m) frame. Full,
but not overly obese or really fat. But I was on a 800-100 calorie diet for
years at that point. (Not because of trying to lose weight; I just didn't have
the appetite, and would go days, and in a few cases, weeks, without eating
anything).

I had responses similar to those described by Mz from practitioners - I've
paid good money to consult with many, supposedly expert and the best around --
disbelief and general disinterest.

And then I became (mostly) normal by cutting out wheat. This was met by "oh,
that's interesting" and "oh, that's psychosomatic" (Because the standard wheat
allergy test came up negative), and general disinterest. I'm eating a lot more
now (wheat excluded), and am down to 80-85kg range.

There's still a lot about me that is statistically improbable, including body
temperature. I'm sure it's all related, but I can't find a medical researcher
who cares, so I have to do my own "research".

> Many doctors would be very interested in proving how diet can help disease,
> and doing so.

I would be happy to meet those doctors. In my experience, however, they turn
into your standard everyday doctor somewhere between the 3rd year of med
school and the end of their internship.

~~~
Mz
Stupidly tossing out a couple of thoughts, in spite of long experience telling
me it will most likely not be appreciated. But I am having one of those days
and bad habits die hard. Apologies in advance.

Celiac causes wheat and dairy intolerance. People with my disorder are at
higher than normal risk for also having Celiac. An alternative med group I
know of suggests that Celiac has a genetic component but is triggered by metal
poisoning -- I mean having active symptoms is triggered by metal poisoning.
Chelation makes some sufferers of Celiac asymptomatic. I have not done a
formal chelation protocol but I have reason to believe I have reduced the
metal load on my system. I tolerate wheat and dairy better than I used to,
have improved appetite, and have shrunk dramatically. My hypothesis is that my
genetic disorder involves misprocessing metals and thus involves increased
vulnerability to metal poisoning.

FWIW: People with CF tend to run warm. I do not. I have a long history of
being cold natured (including an abnormally low temp when not feverish),
something which has improved somewhat with getting healthier. Given that CF is
a salt wasting condition and salt changes the boiling and freezing points of
water, it kind of makes sense to me that it appears to typically alter normal
body temperature. If you wanted my advice, which you most likely don't, I
would suggest you get tested for Atypical CF if you haven't been previously
and look into the possibility of metal poisoning as a factor.

Congrats on your improved health. Best of luck. Apologies for my compulsive
helpful streak. I am working on it. I'm just extremely stressed out today.

Peace. And thanks for contributing to the conversation.

~~~
beagle3
> in spite of long experience telling me it will most likely not be
> appreciated.

Much appreciated. My approach to conversations is "hurt me with the truth,
never comfort me with lies; tell me all you can, I'll filter it myself".

> I have a long history of being cold natured (including an abnormally low
> temp when not feverish),

I do too, actually - that's another thing no "expert" I consulted had anything
to comment on (or has even shown interest in), even though this is surely an
important marker.

> If you wanted my advice, which you most likely don't, I would suggest you
> get tested for Atypical CF if you haven't been previously and look into the
> possibility of metal poisoning as a factor.

I do want your advice. A quick google, however, did not find a reasonable
reference for atypical CF, and since I don't have a sufficiently open minded
doctor, I don't think that would work -- could you give more references about
the definitions, what tests are involved, and if one can do them privately?

> Peace. And thanks for contributing to the conversation.

Thank you. And good luck!

~~~
Mz
You might try searching for the term "variant cystic fibrosis" as well. There
is no hard and firm definition. It is a newish diagnosis which basically
recognizes that some people suffer the same issues as classical CF but to a
less severe degree, kind of like Asperger's and several other forms of "autism
spectrum disorder" get recognized as a milder form of the problem known as
classic Kanner's Syndrome (aka severe autism).

The most common test is a sweat chloride, which basically measures the
saltiness of your sweat. Historically, a result below 40 was considered
normal, above 80 was CF and the range in between was an undefined grey zone
which is now recognized as a milder form of CF. My son and I both tested
consistently at 41. Though I have heard some different number ranges discussed
on some lists, so there may be some variables I am unaware of.

I am not sure how you can get one. Mine required referral but my ex was career
military and the referral was necessary so insurance would pay a civilian
facility for the services. It simply isn't done just anywhere. There are
several techniques, all noninvasive.

Some nonscientific "tests" or indicators: Does your skin/sweat taste saltier
than average? Do you get worse aquagenic wrinkling than most people (in other
words, do you prune up badly in the bath)? Do you seem more prone than average
to suffer shocks from static electricity? Those are all typical for CF.

Best of luck.

------
chubot
This article didn't say what I thought it would.

I thought it would be that most people have preconceived notions of what
problems are important. But these notions don't necessarily correspond to
reality. By definition, when you are trying to break new ground, you don't
know what's important because no one has thought about it before.

In academia, and big companies, you see this a lot. The difficulty or
impressiveness of a problem gets mistaken for its importance.

His example is that games like Doom led to higher power computing. I guess
that's true, but I don't think we should have to justify things like making
video games in terms of the benefit they'll bring to "noble pursuits" like
curing cancer. Sometimes people just want to have fun and waste time.

But all in all I agree that people shouldn't prejudge what is important or
not. This is often driven by fads. Doing random things is important because
they lead you to unexpected places.

------
anoplus
The importance of problems I work on, is an issue that hits over and over
again while I work. I can't help but thinking of cures for cancer and heart
diseases, while the product I work relates to entertainment. All the energy I
invest could have been used for extending human life-time. I really like to
imagine I can indirectly cure cancer with some nice methodology I invented, or
a productivity tool I made. But its just seem to be better if humanity stop
worrying about user experience, wearing ties and talking professional jargon;
and start focusing on curing cancer and heart diseases.

~~~
nakkiel
I'm sorry, but I really find this detail particularly intriguing: "extending
human life-time". Indeed. But what for, exactly?

I can't help but look at elder people and think it's a disservice to wire them
to those machines, fix their hearts with what I'd call batteries and generally
go to any extent as long as it "extends" life at any cost.

Perhaps it's simply related to the way I lead my life and the choices I make
but I'd rather live 50 freaking years than a freaking 100.

~~~
joering2
Well, but isn't it hardwired in the nature of each living organism to survive
at any cost and live as long as possible? Each creature, even the tiniest bug
has some sort of defense mechanism built in, not to welcome others to kill it
or eat it, but specifically to defend against such a behavior.

The difference between us and any other animals is that we use our brains in
extremely wise way. We colonized the world and technically are standing on the
top of animal tree. It would be only logical to use that brain to solve
human's nature biggest issue: how to live longer, or forever.

I want me and my family to live forever, because that's how much I love them
and love my life. I am not certain whats after death. If you don't believe in
existence of any nonphysical creations like spirits, soul, hell or heaven,
then nothing exist after death, nothing. Your brain falls apart into dust and
since your brain is you and your world, your world ends.

Another reason to keep people living longer is because medicine is constantly
pushing the envelope. There are TEDs videos of scientists literally printing
human liver and other elements of body. Truly science-fiction stuff, yet real.

I think in 100 years from now, we will be immortal. Of course that causes the
biggest challenges ever, like how to feed everyone, how to accommodate people,
etc, but there is tremendous improvement in those sectors happening as well,
so most likely we will be ready.

~~~
nakkiel
I understand your reasoning yet it doesn't make any sense to me. I hope I can
live correctly and die before your hopes come true. Good luck though.

------
drek
The article is built on the distinction between unimporant and important
problems and yet it goes out of its way to avoid stating his opinion on what
makes a problem important. He keeps putting the words important and
unimportant in quotes.

Something may be important to someone but completely unimportant to someone
else. Importance is subjective, so there's no such thing as important and
unimportant problems. This may seem like a run-of-the-mill "everything is
relative" statement (which are usually not very constructive) but I think that
this is pertinent here, because nothing is important on its own, but it may be
important to a person or a group of people, so talking about the importance of
things without taking into account who they're important to doesn't make much
sense.

~~~
jfoutz
He means important in the cultural sense. Someone defending, say anything in
the bill of rights is likely doing something culturally important. Killing
prostitutes was important to Jack the Ripper, but it's detrimental to
civilization.

~~~
drek
Is there anything in the article that leads you to believe he meant important
in that sense? Cause I don't see it. He constantly puts important in quotation
marks and really doesn't specify what he means by important. Take this
paragraph:

 _For instance, GPU hardware was developed to run first-person shooters with
increasingly fancier graphics. Today, it powers some of the largest high-
performance computing clusters where “important” science is done._

Would you say that science aided by high-performance computing is
automatically important in a cultural sense? What if that science is actually
military research? Because I see developing weapons and other means of
violence to be detrimental to civilization.

------
petercooper
It worked for me. I've been blogging since 1999 (when it wasn't even called
blogging) and even in the mid 2000s people asked me why I bothered. I wasn't
really sure why at the time either..

.. but blogging led to me being discovered by an editor at Apress who asked me
to write a book about Ruby (which I'd been blogging about). That led to a blog
I created to promote the book that then became the most popular Ruby blog and
was my main source of income for several years. I won't give the rest of the
life story but it went on to getting funding for a startup, selling that
startup, being invited to chair an O'Reilly conference, and more. All from
that "unimportant" personal blog. So I totally buy into this idea!

------
saraid216
Work on problems that are problems. Picking important problems misses the
trees for the forest; picking unimportant problems misses the forest for the
trees. Some people are more effective tackling larger issues like racism. Some
people are more effective tackling interesting questions like, "How do we
scale a microtransaction payment system for a social game?" Some people are
more effective at what they enjoy doing. Some people are more effective when
doing something that feels meaningful.

Work on a problem that (1) you feel you can solve, (2) you think is worth
solving, and (3) will challenge you. That's important enough.

------
aristus
Working on unimportant things often leads to overlooked things, and that's
gold. "the future" is more or less defined by its disagreements with the past
about what is and is not important.

------
hexagonal
Hrmf. The second half is complaining about FAA regulations of avionics, which
annoys me.

About a decade ago, I remember reading a fiction book about a pilot, who,
among other things was unhappy that TCAS (radar system on a plane to keep it
from flying into other planes) didn't communicate with the GPWS (radar system
on a plane to keep it from flying into the ground) when telling the pilot how
to avoid a mid-air collision.

The consequence is that TCAS could possibly tell a pilot to run right into a
mountain, while trying to not run into another plane. This is, of course, bad.

The book harped on this at great length, and one of the many bad things it had
to say about the FAA is that suffocatingly heavy regulation prevented
manufacturers from making changes that could save lives.

I finish the book, all fired up, get on the internet, and discover that, hey,
TCAS II does exactly what it should, and doesn't tell the pilot to fly into
the ground. The problem was fixed, by the FAA, without needing to _abolish_
the FAA. There was never any controlled flight into terrain crashes as a
result of bad TCAS directives. I got needlessly angry for no reason at all.

------
AznHisoka
Surely, you'll be more likely to solve big problems if you come in with the
intent/desire to solve them, no? such as building the Atom Bomb, or sending a
man to the Moon. We did those things deliberately.

------
crusso
This advice could be analogous to applying randomization to optimization
problems.

Randomization can get you unstuck from the locally optimal trough you've found
yourself in.

------
msrpotus
Every problem is important, if you care about it. Too often we make a
distinction between "important" work like curing diseases and "unimportant"
work like making games.

But people like games, both making them and playing them. You might not enjoy
solving "important" problems, you might just want to make games and have fun.
Focus on what interests you, not what society deems "important," and you'll be
much happier.

~~~
pardner
Yep. So I think the more general advice is also simpler: work on problems you
find interesting.

Sometimes the ones that seem small lead to big things (I got an IPO out of one
such). Often - ouch! - the ones that initially seem like they will be
Important turn out to be ho-hum. But regardless of ultimate Importance
(however you choose to measure that), it is a RUSH every time you find an
elegant solution.

That's why even as an 'old guy' I still love developing so much... even a
relatively modest app provides daily doses of interesting sub-problems to
crack.

------
hogeberg
Is the main point of this article, to work on unimportant problems as you can
never know how important they may actually become, essentially the same as
that of Steve Jobs in the Stanford commencement speech? E.g. at the time of of
taking calligraphy classes, he could not know that this would majorly impact
OS font handling? [www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA]

------
xaa
It seems the relevant quantity is whether

P(important outcome | work on unimportant project) > P(important outcome |
work on important project)

I doubt it.

------
larrys
To prove his point the OP says:

"Office software arguably solves no important problem: as Berglas convincingly
argues, office automation results not in increased productivity, but in
increased complexity of rules and regulations."

(at which point a link is given to "Berglas" writing.

Unfortunately I can find nothing on Dr. Anthony Berglas either on the site
linked to or on his apparent page at the university other than "research"

<http://itee.uq.edu.au/~csmweb/personnel/berglas.html>

So we have a claim that office software solves no important problem because
some person who I've never heard of and can't find anything about says so.

------
nubela
i wanna add to this: most startups that work are iterative. revolutionary
ideas take too much to be accepted by consumers, only through iterative steps,
could startups like dropbox, facebook, esp google, be where they are today. by
being the next step up, and more. i'm working on this myself, on the failures
that foursquare and other location based startups have failed. i hope this to
be true :)

------
WalterSear
All those problems were considered important by somebody.

------
Ubiquite
Good motivator.

------
wissler
The way you work is more important that what you work on. One can work on
either important or unimportant problems and end up in the same place, if the
motives and methods are good.

Richard Feynman explains:

"In his eccentric collection of autobiographical stories (see reference),
Richard Feynman recounts: "I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling
around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it
wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around.
It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the
wobbling. I had nothing to do, so I start figuring out the motion of the
rotating plate. I discovered that when the angle is very slight, the medallion
rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one. It came out of a
complicated equation! I went on to work out equations for wobbles. Then I
thought about how the electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then
there's the Dirac equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum
electrodynamics. And before I knew it… the whole business that I got the Nobel
prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate." A replica
of the Cornell plate is now part of an exhibit marking the centennial of the
Nobel Prize."

Feynman didn't have a policy "work on unimportant problems" or "work on
important problems." Rather, he worked on problems that interested him.

~~~
brianpan
And if I recall, Feynman at this point was burnt out on the important
problems. Thinking about unimportant problems, where he was essentially
playing, is what finally led to the breakthrough. It's like me going for a
walk to clear my head, except with him it's complex motion equations.

~~~
MichaelGG
Surely here the issue is not "importance" but "interesting"?

~~~
niels_olson
I think the issue is not confusing importnant and interesting: it's hacking
the relationship between your rain and your world. Important in this sense
involves timelines, budgets, and the needs of others. Unimportant is whatever
other people don't are about right now. It's a bit like the advice to grad
students to work on what's unfashionable, unattractive, forgotten.

------
its_so_on
The author really hasn't thought this through.

Here's an example of something unimportant: maybe Microsoft C, version 7,
which was released in 1992, has a typo in a menu item that was never fixed.
(The next version of the software was Microsoft Visual C++ version 1.0). True,
nobody has used Microsoft C version 7 to compile a program in many years now,
but - there you go. An unimportant problem.

That would be an example of an unimportant problem. Releasing a patch to fix
the menu typo right in the binary would be an unimportant solution to an
unimportant problem. Maybe if you take the time to release it, literally 0
people ever apply that patch from now until the end of time.

If you want to work on an "unimportant problem" fix bugs in software versions
that were discontinued and which nobody used because of a quick migration to
the next branch. Work on fixing Windows 2, maybe.

No, what the author really means is work on something very important, that
doesn't evaluate as such to everyone, (or to the people you normally pay
attention to). That, I can agree with.

~~~
Fargren
You are arguing semantics. You say exactly the same thing as the author, but
define "unimportant" differently. While it is important to be on the same page
regarding to what we mean by the words we use if we want to have meaningful
discussion, I think it's pretty obvious what the author meant by
"unimportant". And it clearly isn't "absolutely meaningless", as you seem to
imply.

~~~
saraid216
He isn't implying "absolutely meaningless". That would be something like
rewriting the entirety of Windows 7 in Brainfuck.

Which someone should totally do, just so that I can laugh once.

------
mkramlich
there's an argument to be made that if one does not have FU money in the bank,
then one should work on whatever is most likely to end up with you reaching FU
money, whether it's working on an important problem or an unimportant one.
then, once you have FU money, and/or are otherwise financially "secure" (as
you define it personaly), then, go take the big risks or tackle the harder
things.

