The Problem 51% Of People Can't Solve

2026 here, I feel by some metrics that this video may have aged poorly.
While I agree with a lot in this video I feel I must add one caveat; Chesterton's Fence

All processes have rules, regulations and limitations built into them, It is how we get to the desired outcome.
This works making any form of complex decision, be it building a house or a road, writing any code, even applying to legal and economic systems. Remove a wall and the house falls down, use different materials or skip a step or two laying a road and you get potholes or slippages.

The point is, just because you can see some form of benefit to removing a regulation, does not mean you should.

If you ignore Chesterton's fence, then you may have to deal with its sibling; The law of unforeseen consequences.
Cheers

Despite the criticisms of the video for the bad wording, the programming analogy is spot on in the real world. We assume that code people have written must've served a purpose, but it's highly likely it's just...not needed. Increasing simplicity is better than increasing code people!

Sooo....What does it mean if the solutions to the puzzles i came up with were all moving stuff around and not adding nor substracting anythign? XD

This sounds like the kind of research that will fail when they try to replicate it.

This is really bad science. Being suggestive automatically nullifies the results. If you made this video and took away a brick while using the word change, your data would be completely different. Yes, all people can be misled in similar ways. What that has to do with additive of subtractive methods remains to be seen.

Here is an experiment most people get this wrong, too. I have 2 coins that add up to 15 cents. One of them isn't a nickel. Are we about to prove that the human mind favors dimes? No, because this is a riddle that is meant to exploit their audiences' lack of knowledge about the constraints and perimeters of the question. All you prove is that people dont know what they dont know. Go back to school.

To the lego things I thought about just removing the red piece, but to the golf course thing I thought about adding more stuff… Now I’m confused

I want to point out that in the first puzzle, removing the red brick makes it too short to allow a minifigger under the roof. You need at least 4 bricks.

The lego guy is too tall to fit under the structure that has had the block taken away though.

What if there's a neutral solution? Like just modifying a property.

I assumed it was against the rules to take things away, since you specifically said "what would you add" for all of the questions

1:49 i was thinking of removing the guy..

You can't just take that single block away, because the height of the structure is no longer tall enough for the figure to fit under...

I looked at the first one and switched three of the squares to different corners and then was trying to figure out how on earth to replicate that strategy on the ones that didn't have multiples of four 💀 was turning my head inside out and then I just went FINE I'm just gonna remove the odd blocks!! You didn't say I couldn't 😤😤😤 and then it turned out that makes me special😇 It made me realise how the urge to repeat a previous strategy impacts approaching similar problems. tbf this is a smart way for our brains to work, but it's always good to consider other approaches!

1:03 Everyone either adding or removing the squares, my adhd brain rearrange the squares..

I guess DOGE nailed it huh

questions aren't clearly defined

Great video. I'm going to subtract fuel from my car to ensure I can drive a longer distance 😂

in the first one i thought you couldn't remove something but then i moved the object, and in the second one i came up with a subtractive solution

Ah, silly me. I thought you can move things. The lego thing should be more stable if you move support block closer to where you want to put the brick? First set of squares is just 4 corners and center piece.

Me over here neither adding nor subtracting squares: Uh, whoops. (Also, I tend to watch more YouTube videos in order to find patterns and see what unique information stands out after some distillation work.)

I’m sorry how did you not review this video before uploading it? It’s ridiculous, the first 3 questions are either presented incorrectly or unbelievably vague/ niche

I would have moved the red block to the centre, but with the green block puzzle, yeah, take the corner block away, obviously. As to the golf course, I'm-a plead visual impairment here, because I'm like, "Uhh...improve it how?" You made a qualitative statement without defining the base quality we're working with.

It took me a minute but I figured out what you meant by "switching" the pieces (switching the colours, like Othello) - it couldn't mean moving them around, because in the second, third and fourth example there weren't the right number of green blocks to make a multiple of 4 to satisfy the symmetry conditions. So yeah, it was a bit confusing initially but not exactly insurmountably so.

I wonder if CEOs know about this heuristic, and therefore think they're so smart for challenging their own inbuilt biases to fire people to make their company more "efficient" or "productive" or whatever, instead of hiring more. -_-

Move the human away? I didn't subtract i didn't add?

I would've put the lego figure on the other side of the roof on top of the support block. He's at least not in danger of anything falling onto him.

I usually add stuff to my french notes but sometimes I'll just organize it and it feels like more to me

Instead of adding or subtracting I started rearraging

haha i thought about subtraction. does that make me smarter ?

I immediately wanted to move the red piece to the corner directly behind the minifig (or closer to the center of the plate) so that the plates median weight would be on top of the red brick

How did you look like my science teacher but skinnier?

Additive solutions have their place in all of these puzzles.
1. From a construction standpoint it would be easier to brace the roof of the structure then add supports from a labor and cost perspective. Removal means getting a crane or supporting the piece another way to demo a small section. Then you have ti seat it properly and get it reattached costing more time, money, and labor.
2. In the case of construction, if those are pillars and supports addition is necessary, but if they're just decorative subtraction is perfectly valid.
3. Instead of digging up or dismantling the course you could add a ramp on top of the track to increase the difficulty or maybe a tunnel "n" shaped piece for cheaper.

Of course these real world scenarios are just the first to come to mind. You may find a real world example requiring subtraction to these problems I missed. Just remember you always have to factor in labor and not just parts.

Okay but my immediate thought was to remove a part. But then you said "every extra piece you add costs you..." and I assumed only adding was allowed since that's the only thing you specified the cost of.
It's not because I didn't think of subtracting. It's because you specifically only mentioned adding. That's not a subconscious bias towards adding. That's you prompting people to choose adding.

Nah I get rid of random bs I don't even know I have 2:24

For the 1st one I did add. for the 2nd one I just moved squares around, whereas for the 3rd one I wasn't sure what you meant by better. By 'better' did you mean easier, harder, cooler or what?

I wanted to say get rid of the red block underneath
But I didn't know the Lego figure can still fit

Based on your solution we can assume that white blocks are the absence of green blocks. So in that case even if we think of switching as moving green blocks around we could still solve this by placing green blocks over other green blocks.

If we think of white blocks as blocks of their own(not the absence of green blocks) your solution still involves adding. You subtract the green blocks then you add white blocks in those places. In this case I think the best solution(the one with the least cost/adding the least amount of blocks) is removing all of the blocks :p..or just the blocks that destroy the symmetry.

The figure you dangerously put in there would no longer be able to stand in there... the figure is taller. You also said by switching, not removing. This video sucks. You don't get enough information and I don't see how this video is even relevant to anything besides your opinion

Also there are a greater number of ways to add things than to remove things than to remove things

Note: the first problem could be simply solved by removing all bricks

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

1st question- i thought of your solution.. Until you added the lego man. Your solution won't work since the lego man
wouldn't for anymore

2nd question - of course we didnt think you could subtract when you say the puzzle is to rearrange the squares.. Making us think we need to keep and use them.

3rd question - i thought the golf course was fine as it is.. But we didn't get your solution. Sure you said take something away.. But it was a fine course.. So removing anything would make it worse

I thought of removinf the red piece first, but alsothpught about moving the existing things around, not adding or subtracting anything! And thats also why i proclaimed the 4th symmetri problem impossible! Becauce it litterally was without adding or subtracting anything!