I drink a liter and a half of tea each morning.
Most “paper” tea bags contain plastic to seal the seams. One bag releases billions of microplastic particles per cup. The paper holds the leaves. The plastic holds the paper together. And the plastic ends up in you.
So I switched to loose leaf. Metal infuser, no plastic, problem solved.
Except now I have a new problem. Loose leaf tea infusers are a nightmare to clean. Wet leaves pack into the mesh. You rinse, you shake, you pick at it with your fingers. So now I’m searching for “easy to clean loose leaf tea infuser.”
I solved the plastic problem. And the plastic problem handed me a cleaning problem.
Problems beget problems. Each solution begets the next problem.
When people worry about AI replacing jobs, the rebuttal comes fast. “There will always be problems to solve.”
I think that’s true. History backs this up. We didn’t run out of problems after the printing press, the steam engine or electricity.
But this time might be different.
Solving problems requires intelligence. Pattern recognition, judgment, creativity. And the thing we’re building right now is intelligence. For the first time, the tool and the task overlap.
The rebuttal is incomplete. “There will always be problems” is probably true. “Humans will always be the ones solving them” is a separate claim. The first is about the nature of problems. The second is about the nature of intelligence. Two claims, often bundled as one.
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Which of your current problems is actually a sign of progress?
