The list of minor examples of muddling solutions includes:
driving through traffic on the freeway and reaching a standstill. Bored,you turn on a podcast.
visiting a doctor, she informs you that you have a benign but growing tumor. Upset, you schedule an inexpensive surgery to remove it.
coming home, you find a tree branch broke through your attic window. Annoyed, you call a repairman to replace the window.
walking from your home to a nearby convenience store, you step in some smelly dog poop. Upset, you scrape some of it off with a twig and wash your shoe bottom after turning around and reaching home.
turning on the television, you see an emergency broadcast of strong winds in your area. Alarmed, you close the now-rattling windows.
sitting at your desk at work, the power goes out and your UPS starts beeping. Concerned, you quickly save your work on your computer.
preparing dinner for friends, you receive a text from a relative wanting dinner as well. Obligated, you agree and prepare more food.
These are small examples of muddling solutions. In the middle of your life, an unexpected problem arises. It could be worse, but you have some emotional response to it as you engage with the problem to solve it. The available system supports you in doing so. You take the actions you needed and succeed, and can then go on with your life.
These are not immediate life and death decisions, but if the problem were to go on, they could inconvenience you or others in various ways. Either way, you muddle through. Perhaps the solution solves the problem completely, perhaps not. Other muddling solutions might be required, as events warrant. Whatever the case, there’s a typical pattern we know to follow. As problems arise, we solve them, and move forward.
Muddling through those situations toward a solution involves:
doing some routine process.
receiving disruptive news.
responding with a resourceful action (or not).
returning to our routine process.
repeating the above as much as necessary for as long as we can.
That’s what it means to muddle through.
What happens when we cannot muddle through
If you review the list of examples that I gave, you’ll see that each example relies on some resources being present, for example, a repairperson and money to pay her, or a local hospital that will do an inexpensive surgery, or the health insurance to pay for the surgery. When considering a scenario, sensitivity in the scenario to what happens when muddling solutions cannot be carried out gives you a sense of how civilization can fail as well.
What happens when the water doesn’t come from the tap? When the gas station has no gas? When insurance is not available at all? When there are no police or firemen or open hospitals or pharmacies?
Everyone understands the answers to those questions easier than abstractions about risk management or high-impact events.
In general, the idea that others will mitigate a crisis for you makes sense, that is why we have government and public institutions and businesses in place. They help us muddle through. However, depending on the root causes of a crisis and the size of the crisis, that mitigation might not be possible. In that case, civilization has collapsed.
The collapse of civilization is not that difficult to think through, put in terms of muddling through life, and then finding that everyone cannot because our civil, economic, or technological support systems have stopped working.
Muddling Solutions To New Problems
The list of minor examples of muddling solutions includes:
driving through traffic on the freeway and reaching a standstill. Bored,you turn on a podcast.
visiting a doctor, she informs you that you have a benign but growing tumor. Upset, you schedule an inexpensive surgery to remove it.
coming home, you find a tree branch broke through your attic window. Annoyed, you call a repairman to replace the window.
walking from your home to a nearby convenience store, you step in some smelly dog poop. Upset, you scrape some of it off with a twig and wash your shoe bottom after turning around and reaching home.
turning on the television, you see an emergency broadcast of strong winds in your area. Alarmed, you close the now-rattling windows.
sitting at your desk at work, the power goes out and your UPS starts beeping. Concerned, you quickly save your work on your computer.
preparing dinner for friends, you receive a text from a relative wanting dinner as well. Obligated, you agree and prepare more food.
These are small examples of muddling solutions. In the middle of your life, an unexpected problem arises. It could be worse, but you have some emotional response to it as you engage with the problem to solve it. The available system supports you in doing so. You take the actions you needed and succeed, and can then go on with your life.
These are not immediate life and death decisions, but if the problem were to go on, they could inconvenience you or others in various ways. Either way, you muddle through. Perhaps the solution solves the problem completely, perhaps not. Other muddling solutions might be required, as events warrant. Whatever the case, there’s a typical pattern we know to follow. As problems arise, we solve them, and move forward.
Muddling through those situations toward a solution involves:
doing some routine process.
receiving disruptive news.
responding with a resourceful action (or not).
returning to our routine process.
repeating the above as much as necessary for as long as we can.
That’s what it means to muddle through.
What happens when we cannot muddle through
If you review the list of examples that I gave, you’ll see that each example relies on some resources being present, for example, a repairperson and money to pay her, or a local hospital that will do an inexpensive surgery, or the health insurance to pay for the surgery. When considering a scenario, sensitivity in the scenario to what happens when muddling solutions cannot be carried out gives you a sense of how civilization can fail as well.
What happens when the water doesn’t come from the tap? When the gas station has no gas? When insurance is not available at all? When there are no police or firemen or open hospitals or pharmacies?
Everyone understands the answers to those questions easier than abstractions about risk management or high-impact events.
In general, the idea that others will mitigate a crisis for you makes sense, that is why we have government and public institutions and businesses in place. They help us muddle through. However, depending on the root causes of a crisis and the size of the crisis, that mitigation might not be possible. In that case, civilization has collapsed.
The collapse of civilization is not that difficult to think through, put in terms of muddling through life, and then finding that everyone cannot because our civil, economic, or technological support systems have stopped working.