WEBVTT - Wicked Problems 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from housetop works 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:23.160 dot com. The next order of business, if it pleases 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.640 your Highness, is the issue of continued vandalism of the 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.400 castle's east wall more graffiti. Well, what does it say 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:35.000 this time? The details are not important, your majesty, but 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.839 suffice to say that that the work criticized certain royal 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.760 policies as well as the the Royal beard, the royal 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.239 the royal beard. Well, I never well, what are we 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:47.640 doing to combat the problem. We solve the west wall 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.239 graffiti issue, yes, my lord, but but we're working to 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:56.400 implement a constant God presence anti vandalism spikes and erratic 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.400 paint scheme is aline. Well it worked here before, it'll 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.080 work this. I'm well, yes, my Lloyd, but these solutions 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.200 merely prevent the physical vandalism of a particular stretch of 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.920 the wall at any given time. This is but a 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.840 tame or a benign problem, you know, Uh, the overall 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.039 issue of vandalism with the Kingdom. It's a it's a 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:22.160 wicked problem, a problem sorcery. Fetch the witch. I'm to general, No, no, no, no, 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.559 my Lloyd. Not so escery, not pervasiveness, complexity. We're talking 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.759 about a public policy issue here, one with roots and economics, law, religion, 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.320 and other areas. We can't simply pull up the weed, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.440 because the roots are tangled throughout the soil, and indeed, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.200 treating one underlying cause is likely to disrupt other areas 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.559 of royal interest, alienate supporters, or force us to face 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:50.480 unflattering facts about ourselves. The royal beard is above reproach. Certainly, 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.680 my lord, Certainly, a finer beard has never been grown 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.600 in God's creation, no question there. But what is in 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.360 question is the very nature of the problem. Is it 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.720 the mere physical act of vandalism? Is it the perception 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.519 of the crown, poverty, a lack of religion or education. 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:15.160 This is a wicked problem. Yes, my would the wickedest. 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:27.040 By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Hey, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:28.720 welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.240 Robert Lamp and my name is Christian Seger. And as 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.240 you can guess from our little audio play at the 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.440 beginning there, we are talking today about wicked problems. Yeah, 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.760 this is a fascinating sort of overview topic. Um that, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:46.800 and I wasn't really familiar with this terminology Yeah, I 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.239 wasn't either. I actually stumbled across this a couple of 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.360 days ago. In particular, I was one of the resources 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.680 that we're going to talk about today about mains sort 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.440 of political science approach to wicked problems popped up on 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.040 my radar and I read that and I thought, Wow, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.600 this is a really interesting way for us to sort 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.840 of approach science for the show. And it's it's a 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.320 way that we don't usually talk about science, right, like 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.720 science podcasts usually have, like such a reverence for the 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.600 institution of science. Science is the great problem solved, or 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.640 it's the thing upon which we have built everything we 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:24.200 hold dear, It is the it is humanity's backbone in 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.600 a way. In a lot of ways, science is treated 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.560 in the same way as religion is by some people, right, 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.840 Like I know plenty of people who aren't religious, but 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.600 they turned to science as having the answers and and 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.360 and it's definitive for them, right. Uh. And this is 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.160 a really interesting way to approach that because it gets 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.080 into the deeper complexities of using science as a way 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.520 to solve the world's problems. Yeah, And it gets into yeah, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:54.200 it basically deals with our inability or certainly are difficulties 0:03:54.200 --> 0:04:03.360 with tackling complex problems, complex issues, um, throughout our our culture. Yeah, exactly. 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.280 So we're gonna try to approach you know, we're gonna 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.000 tell you what a wicked problem is, first of all. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.520 But the way that we're going to try to approach 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.000 it here is sort of on this scale. There are 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.880 macro wicked problems which we're gonna talk about, which are 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.600 sort of like our large scale societal ills, I guess. 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:20.839 And then we're gonna talk about it in a relation 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.560 to science and the science community. And then we're gonna 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.960 bring it down to the human level and talk about it, uh, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.840 you know in the way that it's most applied in theory, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:34.040 which is in the workplace. Uh. And it's the model 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.520 of wicked problems is used, uh basically as like a 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.360 management technique. And you should probably should probably also take 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:45.120 a moment to discuss its ties to Boston area dialect. Yeah, 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.600 so okay, this is worth mentioning. And we played around 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.320 a little bit of the audio play I'm from New 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.760 England originally. Uh, And you know, most people probably don't 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.080 notice that because I tried not to affect my accent 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.320 on the air, but Whenever the word wicked is the 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.159 into something, it might seep out a little bit here there, 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.480 so you might hear me losing some rs here there, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.440 or changing the way I pronounced things. As we're going through, 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.039 I'm gonna try to try to hold it together. Well. 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.440 I I admit that when I was reading the material, 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.080 I would about this, and reading some of the papers, 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.359 I would come to the phrase wicked problems, and I 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.159 would often hear hear it spoken in my head in 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.880 the voice of Julianne Moore's character and thirty Rock, which 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.919 he played the Boston She did a great job with that. Yeah, 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.720 it's it's either Julianne Moore or like uh, Mark Wahlberg 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:41.320 in The Departed, like doing his his best Dorchester accent. Okay, so, 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.359 wicked problem? What is it? You're probably wondering what the 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.720 heck are we talking about? We sort of introduced you 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.520 to the basic idea throughout that little uh the play 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.640 that we enacted. But here's the breakdown. A wicked problem 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:57.240 is a social or cultural problem that's difficult to solve 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:02.240 because of incomplete or contra dictory knowledge uh and usually 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.200 the number of people that are involved in the interconnected 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.760 nature of this problem is part of other problems, right, 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.880 so they're all connected. Uh, and often it's just written 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.800 off as too cumbersome to be something to bother with. 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.680 So this is gonna seem familiar to all of you 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.960 as especially uh citizens in the United States as we 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.320 are in the middle of a crazy the presidential cycle. Uh, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.680 and all of these things are coming up and are 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.640 frequently being talked about with you know, in my opinion, 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.240 very little concrete answers because they're wicked problems, right yeah. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.880 I mean it's basically a standard aspect of politics. Nobody's 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.640 getting up there and stumping and campaigning and saying, uh 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.920 on the on the topic of poverty. This is a 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.880 complex issue and we probably will not be able to 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.240 solve it. We're gonna throw our best minds at it. 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.279 But every time we try and fix it, we're probably 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.680 going to change the problem. Nobody's saying that. People are 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.200 saying I have a plan I have or I'm gonna 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.560 throw some really uh you know, classy people at it 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.880 to fix it. Uh. Nobody nobody is is campaigning um 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.200 on a platform of wicked problem. But I think like 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.600 the more mature approach and probably for some candidates maybe 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.480 once they're in office. The approach is, hey, look like 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.760 these are problems that are so big we will never 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.320 solve them, right, but we we can if we can 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.680 sort of understand them on a larger level like that 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.440 and use that framework, then we can approach them in 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.600 a different way that's healthier and maybe can make them better. 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:31.840 Maybe not solve them, but make them better. So we're 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:37.720 talking about poverty, sustainability, equality, health wellness, racism, are failing 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.640 education systems, terrorism, you name it. All that stuff falls 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.520 under sort of the rubric of wicked problems or multi 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.200 headed snake monsters in the swamp. Go back to our 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.080 hydro episode, because even the hydra, of course, the idea 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.320 of being that you every time you chop up ahead 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.480 two or more grown its place. Even Hercules, son of 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.320 a god, took on this task, and the best he 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.040 could do was limited to one undying head and just 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.040 sort of hide head under a rock, which is perhaps 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.760 a telling metaphor for like, even the best attempts to 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.520 tackle a wicked problem, all you can really do is 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.000 like clear cut and barry and and hope that people 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.040 forget that this was a problem. I guess I think 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.520 the hydro metaphor is gonna work well throughout this is 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:23.560 you know, I'm not quite sure what order we're gonna 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.400 release season, but yeah, so, Uh we also talked to 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.840 this week about hydros on a different episode, and hydras 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.800 are a great example for it, because you you can't 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.080 solve the hydro problem, right, you could at least the 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.720 mythic one. Yeah, you cut off one head, two more 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.720 heads grow to replace it, right, and so you But 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.160 I think maybe like the angle of wicked problems is 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.040 knowing what the two heads are that are going to 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.440 grow to replace it. Yeah, we're trying, yea, trying to 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:54.240 figure it out, or certainly just being being conscious of 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:59.040 the fact that complex problems are complex, that that the 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.360 that many of the issues that are are not going 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.600 to be easily tackled, and you're not gonna be able 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.720 to solve them with a quick application of this policy 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.960 or that policy. Uh, it's all you, That's why they 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.479 are wicked. And not to mention, you know, the theoretical 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.440 applications within the workplace. You know, I'm assuming most of 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.080 you out there listening have jobs or have had a job, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.440 and know the frustrations that go along with that, and 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.600 really you can use the wicked problem model at that 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.959 level too, and I find uh that it gives like 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:34.840 a little bit of a sense of freedom and relief 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.600 when you think about it that way, the frustration of 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.000 employment issues. Yeah, and I think it's also important to 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.719 remember that the wicked problem is in contrast to a 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.160 tame or benign problem. The tamer benign problem is often 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.080 just a simple, uh, mathematical problem, you know, like, what's 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.040 what's two plus two? Well, there's an answer to that, 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.480 and it's four. Um an engineering problem. What's the how 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.520 do we build this thing so that it doesn't collapse? 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.040 There's an answer, it can achieved. You have a you 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:03.880 know what the mission is when you go into try 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.120 and solve it, and then you solve it. Um. We 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.079 love questions like that, and it's easy to look to 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.760 wicked problems and and try to solve them like that, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.400 to want them to be solved like that. I've I've 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.720 read you know, that's one of the reasons that the 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.880 zombie um motif is so popular the zombie apocalypse, because 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:29.040 in the zombie apocalypse, all problems become tame or benign. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.800 Zombie comes what do you do you shoot it in 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.280 the head, you can cut its head off, you kill it. Right, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.000 those are relatively easy to solve problems, and it makes 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.800 the relevance of the wicked problems go away, right Yeah, 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.400 Like you know, your better zombie h fiction has wicked 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:47.360 problems in it as well. I feel like you look 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.199 at like Walking Dad, they're attempting to to to graft 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.439 in wicked problems into the narrative. But at heart, the 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.040 very sort of video game or Donna the Dead level, 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.680 it's all about tame benign problems. I was talking to 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.000 a friend about this yesterday as I was researching it 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.280 and saying, like, this is pretty fascinating stuff. You ever 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.240 heard of this? And he hadn't, But he said, uh, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.120 well you know, and he may be like kind of 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:10.960 a broaden the scale of it, but he didn't look 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.360 at the research. He said, Well, life's a wicked problem, 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:14.959 isn't it. Like when you come down to it, the 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.280 human body is a wicked problem because no matter what 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.360 we do uh to the human body, no matter how 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.199 well we exercise, no matter what we eat that's healthy, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.360 something's always gonna pop up that we can't control. Right, Yeah, 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.880 I mean that the self the mind is a wicked 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.040 problems problem. I think back to you know, the old 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.880 sound of music track. How do you solve a problem 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.080 like Maria? It's kind of a goofy reference point, but 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.679 how do you how do you solve a problem like Maria? 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.000 How do you solve a problem like like the individual, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.760 like the self? Like that is a a complex situation, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.480 is not just you know, an A plus B equals 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.960 see equation going on there. We spend our whole lives 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.920 trying to solve this unsolvable problem. Yeah, and so the 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.560 interesting thing out the wicked problem, I guess paradigm are 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:07.600 as a as a Slavo says, peredigma is is that 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.520 you know, that's the key to it is that is 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.440 learning to approach it that way and to say, okay, 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.720 well that's an that's unsolvable, right, That's not a thing 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.560 that can be fixed by its very nature. But there's 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.800 ways to mitigate it, there's ways to approach it differently, 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.960 and having that very position put you in a better position, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.440 I guess to approach it. Right. So one major proposal 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.800 that keeps coming up, and in fact, uh, if you 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:34.640 google wicked problems, one of the first things that comes 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.360 up is a website for a book called Wicked Problems 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:43.360 that's by a design educational facility in Austin, Texas, and 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.880 the whole books available for free. Actually you can read 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:47.520 it online on the web where you can buy it 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.439 and print. But they basically say, look like, the way 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.160 to approach this is through strategic design, and it's a 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:58.719 combination of using empathy, abductive reasoning, and rapid prototyping. Those 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.520 are the ways that they sort of think about. You know, 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.600 let's let's approach these first of all acknowledge that they're 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.760 a wicked problem, but then you approach it afterwards. And so, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.040 you know, just as a reminder, because I had to 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.640 remind myself. Abductive reasoning is that it is the opposite 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.400 of deductive logic. Right, where there's a premise that leads 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.920 to a conclusion with a solution, right, there's two premises 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.000 lead to a conclusion in staid, Abductive is that the 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.640 premise doesn't guarantee any solution, and in fact you have 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.440 to work from inference and it's the most simple solution 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.600 that's inferred that usually leads to some kind of uh, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.560 not a solution in this case, betterment, I guess that 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.640 that makes sense in terms of what we're talking about here, 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.400 because one of the big problems is just even defining 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.160 what the problem is. You know, you look at something 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.920 like like poverty. Someone says, hey, we have a problem. 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.760 There's poverty, and you say, well, what is the problem? 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.160 Is it that people are poor because of the job situation? 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.199 Is is it more cultural? Uh? Is it? Does it 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:57.599 have to do with our laws? Does it have to 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.760 do with enforcement of said laws? You know that there's 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.920 some of one of those things like try to solve 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.600 the laws, and maybe it makes another thing worse, right, Like, um, 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.199 I'm trying to think of an example, but I keep 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:13.120 coming back to like the interconnectedness of hunger and poverty. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:15.320 And then like I saw a really good in one 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:16.960 of the articles about wicked problems. It was a really 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.760 good example of why poverty is such a wicked problem. 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:21.680 Like we think of it like, oh, we'll solve that. 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.960 We've got this problem of poverty connected to people being hungry, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.280 But at the same time, we've got a problem of 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.680 obesity in our society as well, And how are those 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.040 things connected? You know, Yeah, I've been thinking about this 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.400 food thing a lot recently, because I'm currently watching Michael 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.160 Pollan's latest documentary series on Is on Netflix, and it 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.040 has to do with cooking and where cooking comes from 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.000 and then how the industrialization of food preparation preparation has 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.920 changed everything. Um. So you you you see this situation 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.960 where like one side is trying to make things easier, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.480 trying to correct problems, but that ends up creating other 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.200 problems as well. Yeah. See, so it's it's actually really 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:04.280 interesting how easily this can be applied. I go back 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:05.560 to when I was in grad school. I had a 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:07.920 professor who basically referred to stuff like this as like 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.040 the model fits type analysis. Right. So you've got this 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.120 model and you put it on top of something you're 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:14.960 like does it fit? Okay, but then you've got to 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.200 go beyond that and sort of synthesize them, you know what, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.960 what you've learned from it, and analyze and go further. Um, 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.760 but let's start at the beginning. So where did this 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:29.280 idea come from? Like or the origin of wicked problems? Right? Like? 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.400 It just didn't it? Well, we've certainly had them forever. 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.080 But but in terms of thinking about that exactly. Yeah, Well, 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.840 the origination of the term is generally attributed to a 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.280 pair of Berkeley professors in the nineteen seventies, Horst W. J. Riddle, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.560 Professor of the Science of Design the University of California, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:53.320 Berkeley and Melvin M. Weber, Professor of City Planning, Berkeley. Uh. 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.640 And then occasionally you see people giving credit to philosopher 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.520 and system science and see West Churchman largely for popular 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.880 popularizing or modernizing it. But but basically it comes down 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.600 to Riddle and Webber in particular. Riddle and web Webber 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.480 really dove into the topic in the nine paper Dilemmas 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.600 in a General Theory of Planning, published a published in 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.400 Policy Sciences. Yeah, I uh for this episode. I went 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.920 through and read that, and there were certainly many things 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.320 that were relevant to the discussion we're gonna have today, 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.560 But it was so grounded in the American politics of 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.480 the early seventies that there's a lot of stuff that 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.200 was like WHOA, okay, but it was interesting too write 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.040 to be able to look back at. Well, it kind 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:39.640 of gets down to one of one of the things 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.920 that will discuss that they point out about wicked problems, 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.200 if it every wicked problem is different, to the point 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.280 that if you're talking about wicked problems like just in 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.240 the shadow of a particular area, if you're thinking if 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.040 you're talking about wicked problems generally, but really in the 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.040 back of the mind, we're thinking about a specific wicked 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.320 problem that colors your your definition of what a wicked 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.240 problem is. Now, I do want to read part of 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.840 a quote here from them where they really get into 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.280 the whole idea of why why they choose the word wicked, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:14.640 which tends to inspire of evil yea or or Bostonian inflection. 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.439 They said that they show they referred to the problems 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.360 as wicked. Quote not because these properties are themselves ethically deplorable. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.040 We use the term wicked in a meaning akin to 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.080 that of malignant, in a contrast to benign or vicious 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:34.240 like a circle, or tricky like a leprechn um. I 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.640 love that we're able to always bring back monsters into it. Yeah, 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.639 they and more of a it's a it's a fairy 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.479 folk with it's an unnatural creature, So I think it 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.240 counts um and they brought it up, not us says 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.879 that door tricky like a lepricn, or aggressive like a 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.560 lion in contrast to uh, you know a lamb, we 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.120 do not mean to personify these properties of social systems 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.520 by implying malicious intent. But then you may agree that 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.879 it becomes morally objectionable for the planner to treat a 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.560 wicked problem as though it were a tame one, or 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.840 to tame a wicked problem prematurely, or to refuse to 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.320 recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems. And so that 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:18.720 right there, that last bit is what I think gets 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.560 to the heart of what maybe the connection is today 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.240 is the refusal to recognize what this is right for 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.080 what it is. And that brings us back to that 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.600 political analogy of everything that's going on right now. Now, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.800 whatever candidate you support or whatever candidate you don't support, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.800 all of them are up there. That's the inherent nature 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.280 of the political system. Right when you're running for office, 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.400 you pretend like you have all the answers, uh, and 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.679 all of them are are are basically running on a 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:48.960 platform where they're like, Oh, that problem, I have the 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:50.920 answer to that. Yeah, that problem, I have the answer 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.760 to that. But for me, I'm anti hydra elect me 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.560 and I have don't worry, I have a plan. I'm 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.000 gonna bring some very classy people to exterminate that high 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:05.560 and it's it's worse than that, right, Like, you can't, man, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:07.840 how refreshing would it be to have a candidate come 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.520 up and just be like, well, look like the problems 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.880 that we're facing are so chaotic and so complex that 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.320 we as human beings are just not equipped to be 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.280 able to solve all of them. Well, there's your problem. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.159 That doesn't sound like a politician, that doesn't sound like somebody, 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.639 it's like it's like some kind of philosopher or something. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.160 And we just shove that off in a corner and say, well, 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.359 that's that's not authoritative enough for what we need. Yeah, 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.760 actual contemplation of the wicked problems either comes after you're 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.320 elected or it falls to the people who are charged 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.280 with fixing things by the elected indivision. Yeah, that's absolutely true. 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.840 And the very idea that you can't formulate a definition 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.919 of what a wicked problem is is actually part of 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.120 what Riddle and Weber came up with as their ten characteristics. 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.720 So the bulk of their article was these characteristics that 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.120 they lay down, and they basically say, look, these are 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.960 not criteria a test to determine what the wickedness is, 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.600 but their insights to help you to decide if the 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.600 problem you're facing is wicked. So let's go through these briefly, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.240 and I'll note for those about you out there counting, 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.200 there's actually eleven here in our list, and that's because 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.119 Riddle and Webber. I keep going to call him Horsed 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.879 because that's his first name. Riddle and Weber came up 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.679 with ten. But then over the years, as people have 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.359 written more about this and applied it to various things, 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.320 they've come up with their own and so they're basically 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.119 the same, but I tried to sort of merge them 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.119 together here for for the purpose of the podcast. So 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.439 I'll start with the first one, which is that wicked 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.840 problems have no definitive formulation. They are all different and 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.280 they can't contribute to solving one another in any complete way. 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.720 You can't write a well defined statement of these problems. 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.080 And this is a direct quote from the article by 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.240 Riddle and Webber. The process of formulating the problem and 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.359 of conceiving a solution are identical, since every specification of 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.520 the problem is a specification of the direction in which 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.720 a treatment is considered. Yeah, I think one example that 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.720 comes to mind. Here is the war on drugs, right, 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.600 like epidemic is a problem, and then it falls to heaven, 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:13.920 how do you define the problem and then go after 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.120 it if you end up approaching it from a purely 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.840 you know, law enforcement, right when you brand it as 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.880 a war and you have chosen the direction and uh yeah, 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.320 and then it's easy for us to look back now, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.040 look back at the eighties now and go, oh, why 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.720 did we brand it as a war on drugs? Right? 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:33.760 But at the time it seemed like a solution to 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.600 a problem to them. Yeah, yeah, I mean hindsight twenty 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.399 on that. But then but then once you've employed that strategy, 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.239 you have changed the problems we'll discuss. So number two. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.560 Wicked problems involve many stakeholders, all of whom have different 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.760 ideas about what the problem is and what its causes are. 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.399 This again, in think of any any portion of the 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.720 world where there's a lot of conflict, like my mind 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.320