Pseudo-Problems are distractions or side issues to the real challenge, but they are often less frightening. Confronting the true Goliath before us often requires making uncomfortable trade-offs, dealing with unpleasant realities, learning new skillsets, facing the reality of our own shortcomings. Dealing with pseudo-problems allows us to embrace the illusion of problem solving without all the emotional pain of real problem solving.

  1. Pseudo-problems offer cognitive closure when the real problems are ambiguous. Humans dislike ambiguity and unsolved complexity. When the real target is fuzzy (“Why is productivity down?”), people naturally substitute a clearer but irrelevant problem (“Should we mandate 3 or 4 stand-up meetings per week?”). This is called substitution—answering the wrong question because it’s easier.
  2. Pseudo-problems satisfy our need for control: when the real issue is outside one’s control (economy, fate, emotions, long-term uncertainty), people latch onto pseudo-problems because they create a domain of perceived competence and fulfill our tendency to prefer certainty over truth.
  3. Pseudo-problems enable avoidance yet allow a self-concept of competence; they protect people from confronting their own limitations, their roles in creating or sustaining the deeper issue. They allow us to “be busy” without being vulnerable, sidestepping our fear of failure and tapping into a preference for comforting certainty over threatening truth.
  4. Pseudo-problems allow for safe conflict and comfort of social bonding while protecting status. Real conflicts (values, strategy, accountability) involve danger. Arguing about technicalities allows people to engage in ‘safe fighting’ that avoids emotional or political fallout. Debate becomes a sport, not a risk. Addressing the real problem often threatens someone’s position. Pseudo-problems let everyone keep their dignity and avoid zero-sum status clashes.
  5. Pseudo-problems are emotionally rewarding; they offer fast answers, frequent wins, quick closure, all at low risk. Real problems are long, uncertain, and emotionally taxing.
  6. Pseudo-problems make great stories because they are narratively tidy. People like neat stories with clear villains, simple causal chains and quick fixes, a pleasant refuge from real world complexities.
  7. Pseudo-problems enable moral signaling, showcase visible virtue, displaying effort without requiring sacrifice. “We’re tightening procedures, reviewing all policies again, working really hard on this.”
  8. Pseudo-problems Avoid Loss Aversion. Real solutions often require giving something up: Habits, beliefs, comforting illusions, a sense of control, familiar and well-known processes. Pseudo-problems avoid the discomfort of loss while preserving the outward appearance of progress.

Closing Quotes:

“Pseudo-work is comfort food for the mind.” – ChatGPT5

“The righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become.” – Russell L. Ackoff

“People focus on noise because it’s easier than understanding the signal.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker

“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” – Henry David Thoreau, Letter to Harrison Blake, November 16, 1857

“When faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead—usually without noticing the substitution.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier

Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832