Somebody else's problem

Somebody Else's Problem (also known as Someone Else's Problem or SEP) is a condition where individuals/populations of individuals choose to decentralize themselves from an issue that may be in critical need of recognition. Such issues may be of large concern to the population as a whole but can easily be a choice of ignorance at an individualistic level, such as our contemporary issue of global warming. Author Douglas Adams' description of the condition- that he amusingly ascribed to a physical "SEP field," has contributed to make it a generally recognized phenomenon. Somebody Else's Problem is now widely used to capture public attention on matters that may have been overlooked and has less commonly been used to identify concerns that an individual suffering symptoms of depression should ignore. This condition has also been employed as trivial shorthand to describe factors that are "out of scope" in the current context.

In psychology

Various areas of psychology and philosophy of perception are concerned with the reasons why individuals often ignore issues that are of relative or critical importance. Optimism bias tends to reduce subjective importance due to the tendency to have thought processes that are overly positive- ""Overly positive assumptions can lead to disastrous miscalculations — make us less likely to get health checkups, apply sunscreen or open a savings account, and more likely to bet the farm on a bad investment."

Where multiple individuals simultaneously experience the same stimulus, diffusion of responsibility and/or the bystander effect may release individuals from the need to act, and if no-one from the group is seen to act, each individual may be further inhibited by conformity. 

On a wider basis, all members of society are exposed to so many messages about pressing matters of concern that information overload may play a part. There may also be a tendency to argue that "I can't fix this problem, so I need do nothing to reduce it" (a perfect solution fallacy).

However, taking responsibility for negative events that are outside an individual's control can lead to depression and learned helplessness, particularly in adolescents. Part of the solution is to help the individual to realistically assign a proportion of responsibility to herself/himself, parents and others (step I in the RIBEYE cognitive behavioral therapy problem-solving method).

In politics and economics

French president Nicolas Sarkozy warned the U.S. Congress that "The [decline of the] dollar cannot remain someone else's problem. If we are not careful, monetary disarray could morph into economic war. We would all be victims."

The New York Times said that when the Shah of Iran was exiled in 1979 he became "someone else's problem" from the point of view of President Carter's administration.

In the election of 2006, the Swedish Centre Party used the phrase "nånannanism" (someone-else-ism) as a catchword for their campaign.

In environment and public protection

British politician Peter Ainsworth acknowledges that "climate change can seem huge, complex, remote and someone else's problem."

The Hundred Year Lie describes what it claims is the public myth that food and medicine "toxicity health issues are 'someone else's problem'."

Douglas Adams was himself concerned about such failures to recognise the need for action and, with Mark Carwardine, published the book Last Chance to See, which highlighted endangered animal species.

In technology

The sub-goals of programmers working on a shared artifact "can be deferred to the degree that they become what is known amongst professional programmers as an 'S.E.P.' - somebody else's problem." This can be considered an aspect of social loafing where, in some instances, while working as a team individuals become less productive because they feel less responsible for the final product.

Unix became popular because when it was developed at Bell Labs where "profits were somebody else's problem," so there was no reason not to share the source code with universities. This means that Bell Labs were not concerned with making Unix a profitable computer operating system and thus in turn making it conveniently accessible to university campuses.

In fiction

Within Douglas Adams third book "Life, the Universe and Everything" of the series "The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy" his character Ford Prefect describes Somebody Else's Problem as:

In this case, the Starship Bistromath ("a small upended Italian bistro" with "guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches") has been hidden from the crowd watching a Cricket match at Lord's by an SEP field. People may see it, but they take absolutely no notice of it due to the shielding mechanism that does not allow them to view the unique structures of the particular bistro.

The book says that the SEP field is derived from Bistromathics and in particular the concept of an imaginary number called a "recipriversexcluson" whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. Modern science has been slow to investigate this further, though Professor John Wettlaufer (of Yale University) has apparently observed that it is very important for physicists working outside the mainstream "to have a genuine interest in learning about someone else's problem." However, he admitted that "not many people want to do this."

See also

• Externality
• NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard)
• Tragedy of the commons
• First they came…
• Buck passing