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The headline is a nice use of language to make an almost-truism seem like an insight. Good fodder for the cold reader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

IE; Everyone is "better at solving other people's problems", since everyone is bad at solving their own problems. And they're bad at solving their own problems ... because they have them. Neither the observer nor the person himself/herself is likely to notice the problems they don't have, because they're good at solving. Uh, plus its easy to think your solution to someone else's problem is good since you don't have to put it into practice. And the headline mentions smart people, so I'm sure they're talk about you.



The problems referred in the article are those problems that people should have or could have solved but have not solved them. I thought it was obvious but it looks like I have to explicitly state it. Will make a note for next time.


Even so, the same logic applies, see Xenophanes comment.


I read the comment by Xenophanes and we are talking about different things. So we can agree to disagree here :)




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