Why problem statements aren't enough

12 pointsposted 5 days ago
by mooreds
(letters.unchartedpathbreakthroughs.com)

5 Comments

ericyd

2 hours ago

I just can't take tech-adjacent advice from someone who can't properly size an icon in 2026

lukan

an hour ago

It is not technical advice. It seems some general career advice for tech people (don't just think in technical context).

But mainly it is a ad to hire her as your coach.

oliculipolicula

2 days ago

TFA has 2 Qs aimed at building trust-culture:

>Who has the missing context?

>If the work succeeds, what changes beyond “the project shipped”?

As a total rando trying to develop a (possible) nothing-burger I call expert embarrassment, I'd derive 2+2 corresponding what-ifs:

What if

  1. nobody in the org does?

  2. the project ships yet nothing changes?
Excuse my extra what-ifs for being kind of sly takes on the class of "Maserati Problems"

https://dfccyyqjngn5p3.archive.ph/uWeuT/2f4f3d465f8a85a41e89...

  3. What if we don't market our solution?

  4. but it still blows up in our face?
(MPs being defined by the context that makes their technicality _seem_ reasonable only long after you'd have acquired one, but your ability to answer them matters _now_

Here's a real world instance, related much better than I ever could

https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/28/the-permission-slip/

)

Chu4eeno

2 hours ago

> https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/28/the-permission-slip/

That anthropomorphized misunderstanding of what "hallucinations" actually are (and how he supposedly could "solve" it) is pretty embarrassing.

Someone else wrote more eloquently than I'm able to about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48725262

oliculipolicula

31 minutes ago

Peering through my brain fog to read that (maybe you shouldn't give up writing about it either.) Here's what I can say right now.

Seems to be the difference between "innocent until proven guilty" and "guilty until proven innocent" and cringely's approach seems to be..

...

It seemed to me at first read to have been the former, but now that you put a spotlight on it, it doesn't seem so clear

Will sleep on it, but I don't think anthropomorphizing is the issue here, it's more about success probabilities/cost. Can a jury of MoEs decide whether one of their mates is guilty? Versus alternative jurisprudential arrangements.

That might or might not be the untimely "technicalities" that I was referring to, heh. It depends on whether _you_ think hallucinations are an inescapable consequence of sentience.