There's definitely a trap we can fall into where we say "If I accept the premise that ordinary people doing X can make the world better, it must also mean that ordinary people who aren't doing X—or worse, are doing not-X—are making the world worse."
But that's not the case. (1/2)
It's not the case morally, it's not the case logically, it's not the case empirically, and it's not a useful fiction that makes the world a better place.
Most of us are doing what we can, where we can. Some is visible, some not. Some of it is at cross-purposes. Always we could be doing more. (2/3)
Do your thing. Let other people do their thing. Sometimes they'll turn out to have been right and you'll turn out to have been wrong. Sometimes they'll turn out to have been wrong, but their wrongness put them on a productive path. Sometimes none of it matters. (3/4)
But doing your work is almost always better than tearing down someone else's. And aggressive criticism from a stranger is very very very rarely generative of anything good. Build a thing. Let other people try to build their things. With a little luck, we'll meet as friends on the other side. (4/4)
