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Comment by prof_hobart | Hacker News Reader

But being right about the problems isn't automatically the same as being right about the solutions...

Being right about the problems is the first step. I would argue providing a bad solution for a problem you know exists is better than providing a good solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Problem: Hamburger buns aren't noticeable enough. Solution: A cheeseburger with a lightbulb inside.

Problem: Some humans are currently suffering. Solution: Destroy the universe.

It's time for another good idea, bad idea.

Headache? Amputate! It will certainly stop the headache.

> I would argue providing a bad solution for a problem you know exists is better than providing a good solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

I would argue that details matter here and there is no valid generalization here. Neither of these are good things, but which is worse will depend on the details, and specifically how you define "good solution" and "bad solution".

And I would disagree.

Doing the wrong thing for the right reason seems in general to be worse, at least in terms of outcome, than doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Can you give any examples of where you think this isn't the case?

My point was more along the lines of it is wasting time. If you do something bad for the right reason and then later find out it is bad then at least you know that solution was the issue and you can try a different solution next time.

If you do something right for the wrong reason then you have absolutely nothing to learn from and have made no progress at all at finding the correct solution for the problem at hand.

But you could well have done a huge amount of damage before you realise it's the wrong solution. History is full of examples of identifying a problem and putting an entirely inappropriate, and damaging, "solutions"

- the Russian monarchy is bad, let's put a "Communist" dictatorship in place - 1930's German farms can't support its people, let's invade Eastern Europe - modern Britain can't afford to pay for all of the hospitals/schools it needs right now, let's pay the private sector to build them for us, keep paying for them for the next 20 years and then find out that we own none of it - terrorists sometimes communicate on the internet, let's bug everyone's conversations

etc, etc.

But sometimes it is.

Hence the word "automatically".

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