The Problem Space

We currently attempt to understand our societies by measuring the artifacts (the solutions) that we have created: the products, the services, the outputs. Dominant economic architectures measure precisely these things.

But we are missing the essence of our societies. By focusing exclusively on the artifacts, we are ignoring the underlying substratum: The Problem Space.

The Trap of Solutionism

The traditional goal of "solving problems to achieve stability" is a physical impossibility.

We must examine the problems that we experience. The problems that we actively transform into progress. The problems we are forced to accept. The problems we deliberately ignore. And the problems we deny.

The problems that we accept the burden of are the specific problems that we eventually transform into progress.

But our cognitive economy—the way we currently expend mental energy—is trapped in a holding pattern. We get stuck in the same patterns of thought, stuck in the trap of solutionism, and distracted from the most important anomalies in our environment.

Bumponomics demands that we ask fundamentally different questions than those posed by most other fields:

• What problems actually matter?
• Who experiences them?
• How effectively are they transformed into progress?
• How are we expanding our operating space for problem development to increase our affordance (opportunity) to transform problems into progress?

The Manifesto is simple: We do not simply need better solutions; we need Better Problems.