Thinking about this a bit more I feel it highlights something that I've been struggling to make sense of - complexity. Our first tendency is to try and look for simple explanations which can boil down an event or thing such that we draw some conclusion from it. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that almost any problem which is an important problem is probably a wicked problem. One with multiple layers of complexity that take a lot of work and understanding to peel back.

(That's one of the things I wanted to do with these posts - start to peel back at least some of those layers to see what can be learned in looking at far-away issues with a bit more context than usual.)

The trouble with grappling with complexity is that it gets paralysing after a while - my work is in trying to make mining do better and it's a daily struggle to convince myself that I can even make a difference. Trying to imagine solutions to or even causes of internecine political conflict on the other side of the country is even harder.

How do we manage actually understanding problems on a fundamental level without becoming swamped by the complexity of it? For now I'm taking the route of digging deeper where I can - maybe there is light somewhere down at the bottom...