(edited to remove things that could be interpreted as a personal attack, since i've gotten feedback that my previous phrasing was too inflammatory)
you aren't the first person i've seen expressing the transparently nonsensical sentiment that 'people problems are much harder than technical problems'. i've seen it over and over again for decades, but i've never seen a clear and convincing explanation of why it's nonsense; i think this is worth discussing in some depth
an obvious thing about both people problems and technical problems is that they both cover a full spectrum of difficulty from trivial to impossible. a trivial people problem is buying a soft drink at a convenience store†. a trivial technical problem is tying your shoes. an impossible people problem is ending poverty. an impossible technical problem might be finding a polynomial-time decision procedure for an np-complete problem, or perhaps building a perpetual-motion machine, or a black-hole generator. both kinds of problems have every degree of difficulty in between, too. stable blue leds seemed like an impossible technical problem until shuji nakamura figured out how to make them. conquering asia seemed like an impossible people problem until genghis khan did it
even within the ambit of modifying a software system, figuring out what parts of the code are affected by a possible change, there are trivial technical problems and problems that far exceed current human capacities. nobody knows how to write a bug-free web browser or how to maintain the linux kernel without introducing new bugs
given this obvious fact, what are we to make of someone saying, 'people problems are much harder than technical problems'? obviously it isn't the case that all people problems are much harder than all technical problems, given that some people problems are easy, and some technical problems are impossible. and if we interpret it as meaning that some people problems are much harder than some technical problems, it's a trivial tautology which would be just as true if we reversed the terms to say '[some] technical problems are much harder than [some] people problems'. so nobody would bother making the effort to say it unless they thought someone was asserting the equally ridiculous position that all people problems were easier than technical problems
the most plausible interpretation is that it means that the people problems the speaker is most familiar with, and therefore considers typical, are much harder than the technical problems the speaker is most familiar with. it's not a statement about the world; it's a statement about the author and the environment they're familiar with
we can immediately deduce from this that you are not andrew wiles, who spent six years working alone on a technical problem which had eluded the world's leading mathematicians for some 350 years, for the solution of which he was appointed a knight commander of the order of the british empire and awarded the abel prize, along with a long list of other prizes. you give the appearance of being so unfamiliar with such difficult technical problems that you cannot imagine that they even exist, though surely with a little thought you can see that they do. in any case, for a very long time, you have not been working on any technical problems that seem impossible to you. i believe you that it's not that you started solving only the easier problems; that means that all the problems you ever solved were the easier problems
or, more briefly, you aren't accustomed to dealing with difficult technical problems
perhaps we can also infer that you frequently handle very difficult people problems—perhaps you are a politician or a clinical psychologist in a mental institution, or you have family members with serious mental illness. however, other aspects of your comment make that seem relatively unlikely
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† if you have no money or don't speak the local language, this people problem becomes less trivial
"you aren't the first person i've seen expressing the transparently nonsensical sentiment that 'people problems are much harder than technical problems'."
No, it's not "transparently nonsensical" -- it expresses a common human experience that techies who are at least somewhat self-aware (obviously that excludes you) have had at work. Their education gave them a toolbox for approaching technical problems, but no training in the people problems.
It's not remotely saying that all technical problems are easy.
you aren't the first person i've seen expressing the transparently nonsensical sentiment that 'people problems are much harder than technical problems'. i've seen it over and over again for decades, but i've never seen a clear and convincing explanation of why it's nonsense; i think this is worth discussing in some depth
an obvious thing about both people problems and technical problems is that they both cover a full spectrum of difficulty from trivial to impossible. a trivial people problem is buying a soft drink at a convenience store†. a trivial technical problem is tying your shoes. an impossible people problem is ending poverty. an impossible technical problem might be finding a polynomial-time decision procedure for an np-complete problem, or perhaps building a perpetual-motion machine, or a black-hole generator. both kinds of problems have every degree of difficulty in between, too. stable blue leds seemed like an impossible technical problem until shuji nakamura figured out how to make them. conquering asia seemed like an impossible people problem until genghis khan did it
even within the ambit of modifying a software system, figuring out what parts of the code are affected by a possible change, there are trivial technical problems and problems that far exceed current human capacities. nobody knows how to write a bug-free web browser or how to maintain the linux kernel without introducing new bugs
given this obvious fact, what are we to make of someone saying, 'people problems are much harder than technical problems'? obviously it isn't the case that all people problems are much harder than all technical problems, given that some people problems are easy, and some technical problems are impossible. and if we interpret it as meaning that some people problems are much harder than some technical problems, it's a trivial tautology which would be just as true if we reversed the terms to say '[some] technical problems are much harder than [some] people problems'. so nobody would bother making the effort to say it unless they thought someone was asserting the equally ridiculous position that all people problems were easier than technical problems
the most plausible interpretation is that it means that the people problems the speaker is most familiar with, and therefore considers typical, are much harder than the technical problems the speaker is most familiar with. it's not a statement about the world; it's a statement about the author and the environment they're familiar with
we can immediately deduce from this that you are not andrew wiles, who spent six years working alone on a technical problem which had eluded the world's leading mathematicians for some 350 years, for the solution of which he was appointed a knight commander of the order of the british empire and awarded the abel prize, along with a long list of other prizes. you give the appearance of being so unfamiliar with such difficult technical problems that you cannot imagine that they even exist, though surely with a little thought you can see that they do. in any case, for a very long time, you have not been working on any technical problems that seem impossible to you. i believe you that it's not that you started solving only the easier problems; that means that all the problems you ever solved were the easier problems
or, more briefly, you aren't accustomed to dealing with difficult technical problems
perhaps we can also infer that you frequently handle very difficult people problems—perhaps you are a politician or a clinical psychologist in a mental institution, or you have family members with serious mental illness. however, other aspects of your comment make that seem relatively unlikely
______
† if you have no money or don't speak the local language, this people problem becomes less trivial