Simplicity resistance

Here’s another term that ties in with the ideas in “boring considered beneficial”, “fee justification” and “problem maximisation”: simplicity resistance.

When something is too easy, we dislike the sensation, and try to make it more complicated in order to soothe that. This is a kind of cognitive dissonance around finding solutions to problems. We think “it can’t be that easy”, “it’s too good to be true” and so on, and start looking for the more complicated solution that the problem at hand surely justifies.

This could be described as simplicity resistance, in an attempt to highlight how we often miss or actively ignore potentially straightforward solutions to things.

It’s a bit like the joke about an economist refusing to pick up a $20 note on the ground, because it can’t be real, otherwise someone else would already have taken it.

Someone has to get the low hanging fruit, and we shouldn’t ignore it on the assumption that the opportunity has already passed.

Often the solution is simple, and we shouldn’t resist the simplicity.