Miracle cure
What would happen if some part of your problem were suddenly resolved? What can that teach you about solving the problem now?
This is Andrew Benedict-Nelson, social change strategist and innovation educator. Each week, I share a question that you and your organization can use to find a new perspective on the toughest problems you face. Reply to the e-mail or comment on the site and we can talk about them together!
NOW FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION…
Imagine that a new technology or other development eliminates a major aspect of your problem. Despite the title of this post, this shouldn’t be magic — it’s something you could imagine happening in the real world. Similarly, imagine how the people and institutions connected to the problem might react to the change. What does this reveal about their values and assumptions?
In 1980, scientists announced that the smallpox virus had been eradicated. This was the culmination of centuries of campaigns to vaccinate people against the disease. Though it took a long time, there’s no denying how remarkable it is that no human being will ever have to suffer from this disease again. From the perspective of our ancestors, vaccination is a miracle.
Yet as we all now know, the remarkable success of vaccines against certain diseases has not led to an era of perfect health. Some diseases like AIDS continue to defy our best efforts at vaccine development. As the unequal distribution of antiretroviral treatments of AIDS across the world shows, even when we develop “miracle” cures, many people are still left to suffer.
And of course, we have all lived through the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We now know that even when we have the technological ability to develop vaccines almost immediately after discovering a new disease, that doesn’t stop the disease in its tracks. Vaccine skepticism and other tricky human behaviors show that “miracle cures” don’t eliminate social problems — they just change them.
In this exercise, you’ll imagine how that kind of change might play out with your problem to better understand how it works today. Let’s get into it.
HOW TO DO IT
Pick your miracle - For problems that attract a lot of scientific interest, this is usually easy: take some far-out technology you’ve heard of and imagine a sudden breakthrough. Think low-cost sustainable nuclear fusion or a simple way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If you are skeptical technology will truly solve any aspect of your problem, you can still think about its effects. For example, I was once at a conference on the issue of homelessness where there were a few enthusiastic proponents of 3D-printed housing who got a cold reception from advocates who understood the true complexity of the issue. Nevertheless, you could still use such technologies to explore how behavior around your problem might change.
Explore the miracle’s impact - In some cases, the impact of a technology may have been thoroughly imagined before it actually happens — just look at current stories about artificial intelligence, which draw upon decades of “killer robot” narratives. In other cases, only a few people might understand the significance of the change, even if it affects a lot of people. In any case, try telling stories about how people and organizations would respond if the new “miracle” technology became available. If you have time, look at multiple scenarios so you can understand all impacts of the technology — good, bad, and otherwise. Remember, panic and resistance are also part of the response to technology. Just think how much better a position we might be in with COVID if the CDC had thoroughly modeled what anti-vax sentiment might look like.
Identify patterns behind the impact - This is the crucial step. Every story you can tell about what may or may not happen with future technologies is grounded in what you know about human behavior now. Make sure you can connect those future stories with present observations. Then ask yourself what more you understand about those patterns of behavior if you re-examine them ini the context of a “miracle cure.” Remember, you don’t need to perfectly model the future for this to work — it’s just a new way of looking at behaviors that are already happening in reality.
Figure out what to do with those patterns now - After thinking with the future of your problem, you will likely see some present behaviors in new ways. The last step is figuring out what you can do with that new perspective even if no “miracle cure” is waiting in the wings. Try finishing the sentence, “Now that I better understand why people would do X, what I really ought to do is Y.” Sometimes this exercise will help you better prepare for the future, but it’s really all about uncovering unseen opportunities in the present.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Of course, it’s one of my favorites. I facilitated an exercise at a conference of health care entrepreneurs a few years back. One group of the entrepreneurs was interested in Alzheimer’s. A leading scientist from the field was there and told him that in his opinion, an effective drug to stop the advancement of Alzheimer’s would be developed soon. This made the attendees happy as human beings but sad as entrepreneurs, since it suggested the market for any new business model might be limited.
But then one participant realized that wasn’t really true. Even if an effective preventive drug appeared on the market, millions of people would still have to live with their current state of Alzheimer’s (since it is very difficult to recover cognitive capacity once it is lost). And unlike smallpox, Alzheimer’s doesn’t have a virus you can eradicate, so there would still be a robust market for tools to detect, prevent, and manage the disease. This led to a shit in emphasis among the entrepreneurs that led to much more productive thinking about the problem, miracle drug or no.
SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to transform your thinking about a problem using the future dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.