First, we need to be ready to even think about solving problems. We must derive meaning from doing so (wanting it), but more importantly our life's have to be in order so that we can focus on solving them. But life is complex and there have to be a lot of things in place before any team can even begin.

Solving problems requires understanding the problem, knowing which questions are worth pursuing, who else is thinking about it and getting all resources in place to test conjectures in the physical world.

Problems get solved by coming up with novel good explanations. But this is extremely hard. In the end, the progress and survival of our species depends solely on the number of hours highly prepared researchers spent in deep focus together.

If no one knows that a problem is already solved they might reinvent the wheel. Or even worse not distribute and apply the solution in the first place. Most of todays suffering is just because the future is unevenly distributed and we failed with rapid post-creation.

Most attempts at solving problems fail. Developed a COVID vaccine, but people can’t get it because they live in poor nations without a good cooling infrastructure? But even worse, most solutions are actually for problems nobody has (looking at you, Playpumps). So this is just step 1 of the next cycle through the pipeline.