What problems have obvious solutions that everyone seems to miss/avoid?

Replace churches with a secular alternative, with trained psychologists instead of priests, 1-on-1 brief sessions instead of confession, and mindfulness meditation instead of prayer.

Ensure everyone in the community participates by giving local tax incentives (i.e. cut council tax by X%).

I think people today desperately need a 3rd space, a local community and a sense of belonging, and this will provide both. Ensure that people living locally, with different backgrounds, see each other once a week, which would naturally lead to some communication. The 'priest' will be in a good position to provide pastoral care, be able to help people that are lonely or otherwise struggling. Many would be willing to help struggling people locally, so in many ways it is a coordination problem which this would solve.

I feel like by becoming less religious we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and lost some very good things along with the bad. It does not have to be that way.

Chesterson’s Fence comes to mind. If you think you have an obvious solution, you’re almost surely missing something.

Killing people obviously has repercussions. Building more housing obviously has more complexities. Zoning is hard. Forcibly taking land is complicated. Building the other amenities (transportation, parking, etc.) is hard. Taxing billionaires is complicated. They fund other things, can put financial pressure in other places, etc. California’s exodus of the rich is a real problem. etc.

I think the real question of value here is “what am I missing such that I think obvious solution X solves the problem?”

For me:

- Climate change = nuclear power

- Online social media abuse (e.g. Twitter) = shareable and transitive block lists

The housing crisis.

Build more houses, increase supply, lower prices. It's simple on the surface, but unfortunately, NIMBYism, political interests, status quo, antiquated zoning/permitting, etc etc makes this far too difficult.

Here is a controversial one which I don't personally agree with, but it certainly fits the description of "would avoid endless work and debate by doing something super obvious".

If you catch someone doing something really, really bad, and have clear evidence, just kill them. No court. No prison. No attempt at reform. No debate about mental health. Just shoot them. Quick and easy.

Again, I don't personally agree with this line of thinking. But pretty much everyone avoids what would probably be the most obvious solution. And if I were on a deserted island, it's probably what I'd advocate for.

Tax billionaires to reduce income inequality

Negative taxes instead of complex red-tape-filled subsidies and minimum wage and whatnot.

Saner politics -> ranked choice voting.

Stop taxing income and start taxing land and other resource use.

Deleting social media apps from my phone

Encourage couples to have fewer children with the intent of reducing the world population.

About 100 years ago, the world had about 2 billion people. Today it is 8 billion people. The world population has quadrupled in just 100 years. I believe that the world today is woefully overpopulated, and it puts great strain on our planet with finite resources. We've fundamentally had to change the way we produce food and create energy, but it's only sustainable for the short term, and only for those privileged enough to live in developed countries.

Global warming, runaway inflation, the housing crisis. We propose so many solutions to many of society's ills, but nobody ever suggests "maybe there's just too many damn people."