What is the biggest problem in the world?
by The Bayesian Observer
I have been posing this question to friends and acquaintances (and to myself) in one form or another for a while now. The answers I have received have varied significantly. I am not the first to pose this question of course. Here is one of several online polls, posing the same question, with 700+ responses so far. Here are some others. Some of the responses I have received personally and gathered from various online postings like the ones above, in no particular order include:
| Environmental change | Poverty, Hunger, clean drinking water |
| The P vs NP problem | Ego |
| War | Communication between people |
| Lack of tolerance | Jobs, economy |
| Ignorance | Fear |
| Greed | Lack of genuine love, hatred |
| Religion | Racism |
| Moral decline | Energy shortage |
| Sin | Drugs |
| Terrorism | Apathy, lack of empathy |
| Anger | Pollution |
| Love for Money | Politics |
| Forgetfulness of God | Overpopulation, limited world resources |
| Toxic waste | Consumerism |
| Death | Selfishness |
| HIV | All –isms: Nationalism, sexism, racism.. |
| Cancer | Envy |
One of the problems with the way the question is posed above is that it does not specify what ‘problem’ and ‘biggest’ mean.
Define problem. We will define problem as ‘That which brings suffering to humans’.
Define biggest. Biggest could mean ‘one that affects the largest number of people’, ‘the scientific problem that would create the biggest impact if solved’, or ‘one with the greatest economic impact’, etc. I am interested in a specific version of this question, in which ‘biggest’ means ‘most fundamental’, i.e. one which can be said to be a root cause of many other problems.
Causal structure. A natural question to pose in order to move in the direction of getting an answer to my version of ‘biggest problem’ is: how many degrees of freedom are really present in the above responses (and what are they)? That is, are they all independent problems, or do they stem from a relatively small set (1-2) of root causes (with others being effects)? For example, lack of tolerance and energy shortage can be said to be causes of war. It is also clear that not all the problems listed above are at the same level of generality — some seem intuitively more abstract or fundamental than others. For e.g., war seems more in the realm of effects or symptoms, compared to say anger, fear or greed. In other words, even though they are all problems, some of the items in the list above are really effects rather than causes, and I am interested in the causes. To restate the question properly:
What is the true causal structure of the world problems?
Here is a small toy example of what I mean by causal structure:
An arrow from A to B indicates ‘A causes B’. In the above example, energy shortage is stated to be a cause for war, and lack of tolerance is also stated as a cause for war. Also, once energy shortage is taken into account as a cause for war, then war is not caused by overpopulation or consumerism. In other words, overpopulation and consumerism do lead to war, but only through energy shortage.
One correct answer. What strikes me most about the restated question above is that there must exist a definite answer to it. That is, there is an objective reality associated with the question. The causal structure is not a matter of subjective opinion. There is one true structure of cause and effect. I am not claiming the number of independent root causes at the very top of the causal structure is 1 (perhaps this is the case). All I am saying there is one definite causal structure. The ‘one correct answer’ aspect is interesting because while it is arduous to build a causal structure, checking whether a proposed structure makes sense should be much easier.
I am looking for this causal structure. I think that gaining an understanding of the causal structure can be more insightful than an understanding of the each of the problems in isolation [1]. If you think you have have a causal structure of even part of the list of problems above, please write to me or leave me a comment. If you contact me with a proposed causal structure, please use the following format:
Cause1 -> Effect1
Cause2 -> Effect2
and so on, with one cause-effect pair per line. For the above toy example, this would be:
Overpopulation -> Energy shortage
Consumerism -> Energy shortage
Energy shortage -> War
Lack of tolerance -> War
Think of this as a jigsaw puzzle, in which the problems are the blocks (feel free to pick whatever set of problems you want from the above list, or otherwise. Of course, the more complete the set, the better.), and one has access to as many arrows as needed (The fewer the arrows, the better).
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Notes
[1] I think this may be true in general. In middle school I recall homework and exam questions in various subjects asking us to fill in the blanks or match entries in column A with the entries in column B. I feel explaining the causal structure between a set of things would make a very instructive exercise in school because it would force a student to think.
The Bayesian Observer 
I love deep questions like these :-) Not because I know the answers, but I simply like to ask questions :-) Some day you get at least partial answers to these questions.
A lot of thoughts come to my mind on reading this post, but I will mention a few.
1. Is the table just a two-column list or does the first column has to something with the second column like the “match-the-following” exercise you mention in the footnote?
2. The answer to question on cause of the world’s biggest problems will depend on the kind of person you ask. If you let me classify them, they are two kinds: (1) the ones who will say that all cause comes from *within* a person, e.g., ego, ignorance, fear, hatred, selfishness etc. from the above list; and (2) the ones who will say that the cause is because of something external to any human being, e.g., Energy shortage, jobs, economy, environmental change etc. Which party do you belong to?
3. Your toy example looks very neat, and based on your thinking you have modelled it as a tree, i.e., there a root cause and it branches out as problems. I think the causal structure is not even a tree and the structure is more complicated, i.e., it has a lot of loops.
4. As you mention in the post, this is not the first time people have asked these questions! In fact, I can confidently say that some of the Eastern religions like Buddhism had its origins in this very question. The Buddha even had an answer to it, and that is the reason he is still worshipped!
Now for my personal take on this: I have asked this question to myself, and my answer has changed over the years! In my early 20s, when I lived in India, the answer was “Population”. Here is the causal structure for that:
Population AND lack of enough resources (due to finiteness) -> competition (due to survival instincts) –> greed –> hoarding –> strong wins / weak loses –> inequality…
But, if you ask me now, I will say it is all because of problems “within” oneself. An individual is a unit of the society, and so all problems arise from within oneself. So, the cause is within.
@Chandru:
1. The table format is irrelevant. Sorry for the confusion.
2. ‘Energy shortage, jobs, economy, environmental change’ seem like man-made things, so I’m not sure I see them as external.
3. Sure, I’m okay with loops. The e.g. was deliberately simple.
4. What was the answer the Buddha gave?
It is interesting you feel the cause is within. Is it just one root cause? Can you say what you think the cause is?
@Suhas,
My answers to some of the points:
2. Well, you may not see jobs, economy etc. as external but for a given single human being, those may not be completely in his/her control and hence see them as external. By your argument, only nature (which is not man-made) is external. That is just one way of seeing things; and I don’t disagree with you.
4. Buddha’s message was that all sufferings (and ensuing problems) comes from the “human desire” and that is *the cause* of ALL human problems.
Note that this is a very strong and deep statement. He says there is only ONE cause, and also traces back ALL problems to one cause. Something like an answer for your post. But, let me caution you that one must not take these words literally and say, “Human beings should not have any desires, and become a machine!”. That is a very gross misinterpretation of the Buddha’s teachings. What I mentioned above is His message in a nutshell. One has to really go to a teacher and learn to analyze the problem in depth to convince himself/herself of the truth in this statement. There has been truckloads of books written on this topic!
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Now for my answer about the root cause. I do agree with the Buddha, but on analysis of his approach, I find some loose ends. I would go with Sankara’s Advaita approach which says “ignorance of one’s own true nature” is the root cause for even the desire that Buddha mentions. So Sankara goes one level deeper than the Buddha.
It is purely my personal take, and this is based on my limited understanding of the analyses of these philosophical approaches.
@Chandru:
Also, would you like to take a shot at a full causal structure? You could decide on whatever you think is the right set of problems.
I would argue that the Indian (and also Asian) scriptures’ main subject matter is only this. It is surely a big task to map a full causal structure (although the root is clearly specified as above), but I will try and capture a few set of problems and make a causal structure that I can think of.
Give me a week’s time :-)
Here you go.
I took all the problems you listed above and it seems to me that either they are not really a problem at all or they are related to human feelings of unreasonable expectations.
Related to human feelings – The root cause for all of these is unreasonable expectations from others. From your list these are:
Ego, Communication between people, Lack of tolerance, Fear, Greed, Lack of genuine love, hatred, Moral decline, Sin, Apathy, lack of empathy, Anger, Selfishness, Envy
Religion-related – Religion, Forgetfulness of God – This is not a problem
Ignorance – Some amount of ignorance in humankind is inevitable. Not a fundamental problem.
Death-related – Death, HIV, Cancer – None of these are fundamental problems. Death is inevitable, and human health is constantly improving. Wrt cancer, it is a matter of time.
Poverty, Hunger, clean drinking water – Some amount of these is inevitable. Overall we are seeing a positive trend.
These are related to the human feelings category above:
Racism, Love for Money, Consumerism
Environment-related – Not really fundamental problems. These will even out in the long run. These come in this category:
Environmental change, Pollution, Overpopulation, limited world resources, Toxic waste, Jobs, economy, Politics, Energy shortage
Terrorism – Main cause is one or more of the Human Feelings related problems above. Other causes are Poverty, Religion-related, Ignorance which are not really a fundamental problem.
War – not really a problem – We are fighting lot less wars today than in the past.
Drugs – not a problem – A small subsection of population using them is inevitable.
All –isms: Nationalism, sexism, racism.. – either related to human feelings category or else not really a problem.
The P vs NP problem – haha
@PS:
I take it the causal structure you propose is:
Unreasonable expectations –> *
where * = Ego, Communication between people, Lack of tolerance, Fear, Greed, Lack of genuine love, hatred, Moral decline, Sin, Apathy, lack of empathy, Anger, Selfishness, Envy
And all the others are not problems so they dont feature in the structure.
Do I have you proposed structure correct?
Yep.
Whenever anyone talks about problems affecting the world, I cannot help thinking of Imagine – John Lennon. You may say he’s a dreamer, but its easy if you try :)