[darpa_escapee]

Very few problems are solved by simply ignoring them.

General awareness of a problem is needed to mobilize political action. If the solution to the problem is political, awareness of the issue might inspire direct action, or at least voting for policy that effects change.

[xwdv]

That might be a good statement for a motivational book but it isn’t true. A massive amount of problems have been solved throughout my life without me even being aware of them. The key is that the people aware of those problems were exactly in the right position to do something effective about them.

[malandrew]

This. I would go even further and say that, if anything, bringing attention to an issue in this day and age makes it highly politicized and increases the likelihood that those with an agenda on any side of the issue will try to manipulate perception, thereby making it harder to make an honest assessment of the issue.

A month ago I would have been more likely to find a more cut and dry factual assessment of these fires than I could today. The attention economy coupled with pandering to the lowest common denominator and the ROI of manipulating perception is paralyzing our ability to solve any problem.