Problem-Reaction-Solution

Most of us on this board, at least those of us who have been here a while, are aware of the problem-reaction-solution concept, roughly:

The government (or whoever) wants a desired outcome, but they can't just come out and implement, or the public would reject it. They devise a plan by which they create a Problem (or in some cases, let one happen or seize on an already existing problem), and have the media portray the problem how they want it. In effect, they create the Reaction they want the people to have. Part of this Reaction is to demand a Solution to the Problem. "They" (the government, etc.) then give the people the Solution they were asking for, which gives they the desired outcome they wanted all along.

9/11 is a common example of this, and fairly illustrative. (For the purposes of this post, it does not matter how 9/11 happened or who caused it. Even if you believe the 9/11 Commission Report, the rest of this applies.) 9/11 happened and was blamed on al Qaeda terrorists and OBL. The Problem was that our country was attacked. The Reaction, carefully crafted by the media and implanted in the first few hours when emotions and susceptibility were high, was one of anger, vengeance, and fear toward the "people who did this," which was largely expanded to mean most of Islam, and certainly "bad actors" in the Middle East. The Solution was actually multifold, because there were multiple Reactions. To quell the fear, PATRIOT was passed, and DHS and TSA set up, making the surveillance state possible. Vengeance and anger were quelled by the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.

This is a pretty stock explanation and example, and most of you likely understand. But I think PRS goes beyond this understanding, and actually represents a very different way of perceiving and acting on the world for these people in Rove's "reality-based community," different than just about everyone else's.

Problem-Reaction-Solution as a mindset

We, or at least I, sometimes tend to look at the idea of PRS being these isolated, distinct, "plans," where the whole thing is planned out years or decades in advance down to the smallest detail, and I think this is how some of these operations are carried out. Yet that misses the bigger point, they literally see the world through the lens or reality tunnel of Problem-Reaction-Solution. Whereas you or I may see the world through opportunities to make our lives better through business/art/family time/research/etc., I think they see everything as PRS. Rather than see opportunities for places to grow or create, they see opportunities for creating Reactions that lead to their desired Solutions.

And if they do look at the world this way, I think we might find that they directly cause and orchestrate fewer Problems than we might perceive, and more often than not just have the desired Reaction and Solution ready to go. Take mass shootings, for example. Without getting into the specifics of whether any one shooting is real, fake, or false flag, let's considered whether they would want or need to artificially "create" an attack. I would argue they don't. I would suggest that rather than go to the trouble of creating an incident, with all the risks of failure or discovery, where they can, they would prefer to act more indirectly, planting seeds that could turn into suitable Problems. Plant enough seeds, eventually you'll get enough Problems, you already have your prepared Reactions, and can implement your desired Solution. It's easier, less risky, and ultimately more effective.

I don't say any of this to in any way defend their actions; on the contrary, I find that this is much more dangerous and effective than if they were just planning a series of these events. Those events where they actually cause death and destruction are only worse in degree, not fundamentally different than just seizing on already available problems.

Problem-Reaction-Solution as a pervasive mindset

This less overtly destructive form of the PRS mindset is so dangerous because it's far more pervasive. While only a few dozen people may be aware of the full scope of something like Gulf of Tonkin, this PRS mindset permeates through bureaucracies, corporations, and political organizations to the point where hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions are utilizing the mindset on a daily basis, to some degree or another.

You see this every time there's a divisive political discussion. Everyone in media and politics on the "right" immediately starts creating a Reaction in the minds of the people to implement their Solution, and everyone on the "left" does the same. These aren't secret orders being given down from above (sometimes they are), these are ingrained reactions by the people in the bureaucracies themselves. They don't need to be told what to say and think, they've internalized the entire PRS mindset and know what to say and think.

We see this process so much it's become normalized. This is not a normal way to see the world, and it's absolutely not a healthy way to see it. In game theory, it's a vicious cycle and a zero-sum-game, or less than zero-sum. The mindset only creates outcomes favorable to the person using it, and directly make outcomes worse for other sets of people. The issue is, we can't just remove a few people at the top that are the masters of this game and expect the system to get better, because everyone else in the various political, corporate, and government hierarchies have internalized it and act on it, and most of the population outside those structures see it as normal and healthy.

A way out of Problem-Reaction-Solution

The upside is, we don't really need to directly confront or even know who the people at the top of the pyramid are. Whoever it is, their strategy is the same, and their weakness is the same. The PRS mindset only works for those at the top if the people in the lower bureaucracies act on it and the people outside those bureaucracies think its normal. If we the people did not accept it as normal that we solve our differences through war, and the people that work in the hierarchies that support war rejected it, we would not have war.

If we focus on trying to find who is ultimately "pulling the strings," we will not find them, and exposing them or getting rid of them would not help us. We're trying to stop the Player without really understanding the Game. We need expose how they're playing the game, change how we play the game (virtuous cycles and non-zero-sum), get others to play these better games, and make the PRS game unplayable.

I'm not saying this will be easy, maybe not even possible, and I don't know any of the answers, but I do think these conditions (humans playing non-zero-sum games and rejecting zero-sum games) are fully necessary for anything other than a dystopian endgame.