We still have plenty of problems we can solve but don’t. The concept of food insecurity should not exist as a problem in 20th century, but we still have it around.

What do you think is standing in the way of solving the problem of food insecurity?

Solving conflicts between groups of people would solve it. But indeed that is just moving one problem to another.

That's my point. Food insecurity isn't a solved problem because it also encompasses solving conflicts between groups of people as a sub-problem.

It's a bit like saying, I found my keys so I solved my problem of getting to work whilst the battery is also still dead.

Well you’re framing it as a problem that can’t be solved. My point was food insecurity is a problem that CAN be solved, but we don’t.

And the issue I take with the framing of “it encompasses solving conflicts between groups of people as a sub problem” is that if you use that excuse, a lot of things can be framed as unsolvable, including the ones that have been already solved. Going to the moon is a solved problem. But if you say we can no longer go to the moon because it would mean solving the conflict between people don’t want to spend on the project and people who do, then going to the moon becomes an unsolvable problem.

If you want to go to the moon today what problems do you have to solve?

expertise and funding to build a rocket, years of training to sustain and adjust to the lack of atmosphere,and the priveledge of being chosen to man these machines which only house maybe a few dozen astronauts at most. All solvable problems, though there's a huge policial/social slant which may obstruct your goal. Maybe you get filtered out for not having a degree, or simply because a director's son got dibs over you. Maybe NASA got defunded and no one gets to go.

I don't really know what the point here is. These are all solvable problems. Not by an individual, but it doesn't take as many key individuals to influence as you'd expect. Likewise, forming a treaty doesn't take as many key individuals as you'd think, but the political roadblocks and other internal incentives block a lot of this progress.

It sounds like social/political problems as well as funding are indeed problems in the causal chain of going to the moon that are not solved.

From what I'm gathering, people consider a problem solved if the engineering problems are solvable. The point that I'm making is that social, political, and financial problems, if impediments, remain unsolved, because in fact one cannot "go to the moon" without solving them.

Only considering a problem real if it's in the engineering path is counterproductive to accomplishing the goal.

Yet.