History Main / StatingTheSimpleSolution

* When ''WebVideo/JonTron'' and ''WebVideo/InternetHistorian'' did ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oThA-ZxcFkA Future,]]'' their biggest criticism with Walmart's virtual reality online store evokes this. They bluntly ask who, in their right mind, would want to do shopping in a virtual store with an actual shopping cart and having to find their products that way, all the while being [[UnwantedAssistant haunted by a virtual reality assistant]], when you could just have a simple interface where you find products on a website either by browsing or searching and then select what you'd like to buy. And then point out ''[[OlderThanTheyThink this system already exists]]'' and has for quite some time.
-->'''Jontron:''' You know what I love about this thing, is it's like, isn't this just Amazon.com but with extra steps?\\

* ''WebAnimation/Eddsworld'': In "Spares", the Evil Director is searching for where the clones he's created of the boys have run off to, until he discovers a trail of Cola cans leading to a storm drain in front of Edd's house. He deduces that the clones have escaped into the sewers, where they've gained superpowers from the waste and created an entire civilization underground, and are planning to destroy society. His more level-headed partner states they've just gone into the house, which of course is what actually happened.

* [[StatingTheSimpleSolution/AnimatedFilms Films -- Animated]]

* A non-verbal example of this comes from the writings of Simplicius of Cilica, regarding an Ancient Greek philosophical debate. One of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes Zeno's Paradoxes]] states that it's actually impossible to leave a room, since first you have to cross half the distance to the door, then half that distance, then half ''that'' distance, etc., getting very close but never actually being able to leave.[[note]]Greek mathematicians didn't have the concept of zero[[/note]] While other logicians proposed more intricate responses to the paradox, Diogenes of Sinope (appropriately, one of the founders of Cynic philosophy) simply ''stood up and walked out of the room''. Strictly speaking, not the correct way to refute a logical paradox, but it's hard to argue with the result. One interpretation is that the paradox was meant to show that reality is an illusion since one can physically appear to do what is logically impossible.

* [[Creator/PennAndTeller Penn Jillette]] has stated that the Greatest E-mail he ever sent from a text-to-impact ratio was when he was one of the few who proofread UsefulNotes/RichardDawkins' ''The God Delusion'' before publication. He came to a part of the manuscript when Dawkins quoted an American hater of his calling him "a cheese eater!", and Dawkins then spent two-and-a-half pages trying to deconstruct how being a cheese eater could be a bad thing, where cheese was manufactured in America and if there was some correlation with that area and atheism. Penn's immediate realisation and comment?

* A Non-verbal example of this comes from the writings of Simplicius of Cilica, regarding an Ancient Greek philosophical debate. One of Zeno's Paradoxes states that it's actually impossible to leave a room, since first you have to cross half the distance to the door, then half that distance, then half ''that'' distance, etc., getting very close but never actually being able to leave (Greek Mathematics didn't have the concept of zero). While other logicians proposed more intricate responses to the paradox, Diogenes of Sinope (appropriately, one of the founders of Cynic philosophy) simply ''stood up and walked out of the room''. Strictly speaking, not the correct way to refute a Logical Paradox, but it's hard to argue with the result. One interpretation is that the paradox was meant to show that reality is an illusion since one can physically appear to do what is logically impossible.

* ''WebAnimation/EpithetErased'': [[spoiler:Mera's]] plan is to use a magic amulet to steal Molly's powers and use them to negate the downside of her own, which brings with it debilitating fragility and pain. Molly points out that she could just use the power to remove her own epithet, which would save her both time and effort. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Mera]] is a big fan of the SunkCostFallacy.

* [[StatingTheSimpleSolution/AnimatedFilms Films - Animated]]
* [[StatingTheSimpleSolution/LiveActionFilms Films - Live-Action]]

* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/c/karljobst Karl Jobst:]]''

** During ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0ZRTlIXR0 "These DOOM Cheaters Were Caught Red-Handed"]]'' video he goes indepth into just how difficult making a faked SpeedRun that won't immediately be recognized actually is, showing how professional Speed Runners are better than ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' at spotting the absolute most ''minute'' details -- even so much as a single frame out of place, one errant move, one tiny hiccup in the physics, will be enough to out a player who is using slowdown, [[SaveScumming save-state abuse]], [[ManipulativeEditing splicing]], or cheats. He then quips that it would take such a good understanding and so much mastery of a game to make a seamless faked Speed Run... that it's probably easier to ''just do the Speed Run for real''.

--> '''Jontron:''' You know what I love about this thing, is it's like, isn't this just Amazon.com but with extra steps?
--> '''Internet Historian:''' Yeah, and with this annoying lady who's preventing you from like listening to music or whatever in the background!
--> '''Virtual Assistant:''' [[LargeHam And now... ON TO ELECTRONICS!!!]]
--> '''Internet Historian:''' [[FacePalm Ugh...]] Instead of just opening a web page, alright here's the thing with the stuff, instead you have to go through this rigmarole of being into the shop, you have to get back to the electronic store, and as you do that every time she does this stupid fucking line "and now onto the fun stuff!" Yeah yeah yeah skip skip skip!

* ''WebVideo/SteamTrain''

---> '''Dan:''' Alright, this is a clusterfuck of shit I can't do anything about.
---> '''Ross:''' Are you serious?
---> '''Dan:''' Well, yeah. I can't get there without the wallflowers, and I can't get near the wallflowers without the snapdragons--
---> '''Ross:''' You can't get through ''the door''?
---> '''Dan:''' ...Oh.
---> '''(Alexander goes through the door)'''
---> '''Ross:''' C'mon, man! You didn't think to check the ''door''?!
---> '''Dan:''' Sorry...

** When reviewing the UsefulNotes/GameCom he talks about its Internet capabilities and explains how it required a wired connection to a modem since this was the days before wifi. So, you ''could'' buy the Game.com, plug it into your modem, and navigate through it's tiny text-only touch screen, but since you don't own a modem with Internet for no reason and can't leave the house with it anyways...

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDQgrT0mA-4 One Credit Karma ad]] begins with a group of kids looking over a treasure map, planning a ''Film/{{Goonies}}'' styled adventure to save their house, when the lead kids' mother turns on the light and says they've refinanced with the advertised service, and they'll be fine. One child responds "Your mom's mean."

* On ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'', this often pops up during the on-stage segments where Creator/{{Greg|Davies}} or Creator/{{Alex|Horne}} will point out ''much'' simpler way the contestant could have done the challenge. Sometimes they enforce it as well by giving a task to a contestant which is apparently just a LuckBasedMission, have them come up with ludicrously complicated means of finding the answer (or just guess and hope for the best), and then tell them that the answer was in plain sight and they didn't have to "solve" it at all. ''The Pendulum Draws The Eye'' had a task which involved finding which sock, out of ''fifty'', contained a satsuma orange with very limited means of searching them. During the show they were told that the ''giant number 8'' on the side of the caravan, which normally isn't there, referred to which sock contained the orange.
--> '''Greg:''' I'm a bit irritated. Someone seems to have graffitied on the side of my caravan!
--> '''Alex:''' That was awkward. So I obviously put the satsuma in the 8th one along and the big eight was there to remind me but I left it up. If any one of them had looked back at any moment, that would have been so annoying!
--> '''James Acaster:''' I just remembered that I hate this show!

** A variation of this happens in the ''Film/{{Venom}}'' Pitch Meeting, only directed at the Screenwriter himself as opposed to the characters in the film. At the beginning of the film, the two Simbiotes land in Malaysia, and Venom is taken back to the lab, and Riot escapes. The Screenwriter then talks about all the legwork he had to do in order to get Eddie Brock into the lab so that he could bond with Venom as well as get Riot into the lab so that it could bond with Drake.[[note]]So a scientist working for Drake goes and talks to Eddie Brock to report about Drake performing experiments on Homeless people, and helps him break into the lab so that he could take pictures of it, as opposed to simply taking the pictures herself. Then Eddie finds the Venom Symbiote and bonds with it. Meanwhile, Riot latches onto an elderly woman in Malaysia and spends six months aimlessly wandering around before latching onto a young girl who is about to fly to America. The young girl then somehow gets into the secure lab so that Riot can bond with Drake.[[/note]] The screenwriter even says that it will probably be the "least fun" part of the movie but he needed to somehow get everyone into their positions so that the plot could get going in earnest. The Producer points out that he could eliminate the need to do all that legwork by simply having Venom be the one who escapes at the beginning. After admitting that the chance could "Save about 45 minutes of crap and make the whole thing a lot more fun to watch..." the Screenwriter refuses to make the change because he "doesn't want to."

* On ''WebVideo/SteamTrain'' when playing ''VideoGame/{{Besiege}}'', after attempting to create hilariously and stupidly overly complex contraptions like "The Fuck-O-Matic", only for things to keep going awry and realizing the only times he's beaten levels are when he's gotten lucky and accidentally stumbled into victory, he ultimately has an epiphany and decides to make things much more simple.
-->'''Ross:''' So, I made a truck with bombs on it and a cannon, but [[UselessItem the cannon does jack shit]] so I thought "why don't I just drive some bombs into the building?" like this HELLO!\\

** Hilariously, this is subverted in the ''very next mission'', since [[DevelopersForesight the developers anticipated this strategy]]. The next mission has archers who snipe the bombs from a distance, blowing his bomb truck to hell and back before it even gets close, forcing him to once again [[IgnoredEpiphany begin building more complex contraptions]].

-->-- ''Series/RedDwarf'', "Rimmerworld"

** During ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFrQ1_2bbsI "The Worst Fake Speedrun on Youtube"]]'' he gives a thorough analysis of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badabun Badabun's]] faked speedrun of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' and highlights all the various people they stole footage from to cobble it together, then questions why they went to this much effort. He points out how there are [[https://www.speedrun.com/smb1 well over a thousand]] speedruns of that game, and how they could have made a much more believable video by just using one of ''those'' rather than this big edited together [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} Frankenstein's monster]] of footage from Tool-Assisted Speedruns (which is obviously not human) and world record holders like [[https://www.youtube.com/user/Kosmicd12 Kosmic]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/c/darbian Darbian]] (who are so well-known their footage will instantly be recognized).

--> '''Gary:''' I'm a bit irritated. Someone seems to have graffitied on the side of my caravan!

* In the video "[[https://youtu.be/eKQOk5UlQSc Sherlock Holmes Sucks at Deduction]]", parodying the franchise's common use of ConvictionByCounterfactualClue, Sherlock deduces via his SherlockScan that Watson had a tofu sandwich with mustard for lunch, because he has small stains on his clothes and a few telltale physical signs of being a vegetarian. This turns out to be completely wrong; he's not a vegetarian, and he had soup for lunch. Another guy in the room points out that he could tell Watson had soup because he smells like soup.