Killing Unicorns
Building a border wall will stop illegal immigration.
Poor people are poor because they’re lazy.
I’m not racist because I don’t see color.
“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
-H.L. Mencken
Beware the person who provides simple solutions to complex problems.
Instead of resonating with simple solutions, our job is to do the difficult work of defining the problem and understanding the many factors that influence and impact that problem.
If you’re selling popcorn, this probably doesn’t apply to you. If you’re trying to address non-conscious bias in a population, it probably does.
There are often many strings that pull together on a problem. They can pull in any direction and may alleviate or exacerbate one another. The point is that there are many factors that are tied to complex problems—that’s what makes them complex.
Our job isn’t to find unicorn solutions and fall in love with them. Our job is to constantly kill unicorn solutions by revealing that they don’t exist.