Contact

Citizens

How citizens can help government pick better problems to solve

US capital building against a slightly cloudy sky.

Wrong problem, bad delivery, or both?

Nowhere is the gap between intention and reality more evident than in the relationship between government and citizens. The Meta-Problem Method can help shrink that gap.

Someone you know has likely suffered the consequences of this misalignment, when a policy intended to make life better for a group of citizens ends up failing or worse, damaging their lives even more.

Sometimes that’s because the government picked the wrong problem to solve, other times the delivery machinery thwarts or distorts the outcome.

Charcoal image of people sitting at bus stop

Managing the tradeoffs

Let’s take the national issue of penal reform. Holding people in prison is costly both for the individual and for society. In addition, in our current system about 70% of released prisoners re-offend within five years.

Addressing those problems means deciding what we think is the purpose of imprisonment (punishment or redemption?) all the way through to what support does a released prisoner need to prevent re-offending? There are tradeoffs to manage at every step in the decision chain.

At a local level, let’s take the issue of zoning, the planning process that cities use to decide what goes where. It affects almost every aspect of city life. Deciding what zoning rules to set involves weighing and managing multiple layers of tradeoffs to balance conflicting local needs and desires.

Get involved

Engaged citizens can use the Meta-Problem Method to pick the best problems for government to address with public resources, and to think through the sequence of additional problems that will need to be solved to deliver the desired outcomes.

As with volunteering, the first problem is where to focus your energy and resources (at what level, on what issue and with what skills). Your personal values and where you are in your life will guide your initial choices.

Choose an example below to learn more about the Meta-Problem Method and how it can help guide your choices.