SOAPBOX TIME
I hate how many times I read things like "nobody cares about the world" and "humanity is the virus" and "our species is too inept/evil/selfish to survive" online. I almost never see anyone talking about the many, many people who are doing incredibly hard, complex, good work
Then I log off, and run into, say, someone who provides occupational therapy for disadvantaged factory workers. Or someone whose job is to produce citywide heat maps that lead to regulations that cool specific areas. Or someone who scrutinizes health care in mental health settings. Or or or
There's a world of people who aren't debating the basics (pollution bad, climate change real) but are taking action at incredibly complex levels. And I mean there's a WORLD - there both US- and non-US-based solutions. There are massive victories. Heroes. And I don't see this work reflected online
And this scares me deeply. Because we're so disconnected, and our standards are honestly so low and don't reflect the range of possible solutions. When I read things like "NOBODY CARES ABOUT ISSUE X" I feel like it's understandable yet insulting to the people who have been doing this work forever
It's reasonable to be mad at the world! I am! But, on a personal level as (in my case) a climate activist, I get tired when people ignore the work rather than pitching in, and yet it's NOT THEIR FAULT because they are getting absolutely no coverage of positive actions. Online is so skewed. The end
Online is super skewed. I find it helpful to remind myself that online is the safest place to shoot off a feeling of despair and feel seen. And we don't necessarily see all the hope bc it's harder to put into words (especially if you don't want a lot of cynical responses). Lots of steam.
Yeah, I try to remind myself of that. I just get so tired bearing the brunt of everybody's "we're fucked" statements all day, and I feel like I can't be the only one, and it feels so insulting to community activists
Thank you for writing this. You described something that's been rattling around in my head (and making me very anxious), but I haven't been able to pin down.
folks online have a very hard time finding local places to contribute since the internet encompasses everything happening in the world, all at once, forever. they’re told over and over that the problems in the world are too big to solve at their scale and there’s no way to process that
It scares me too, because I don't know how to get connected with those people - especially as someone who mainly exists in online spaces. I don't really have ability to get out and help physically, but I would like to hear about what's being worked on! I want the "advanced" knowledge. 🙏
Yeah absolutely! And when people show us the possibilities, we can see where we slot in. Eg I do my volunteer work remotely at the moment, which I didn’t realize was possible!
Or WORSE I see people being like "oh yeah they're doing this thing and here's WHY IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH AND HERE'S WHY IT'S ACTUALLY BAD BECAUSE A LITTLE ACTION IS WORSE THAN THE NO ACTION I DO"
No. Tiny actions >>>> your Discourse.
Ex. Act. Ly.
If the only thing they are doing is posting in despair I do not want to hear it.
Also like, yes if you want to tell me X is bad actually...and NOT TELL ME HOW TO DO IT BETTER...
If these people have any actual citation for an instance in which doing something small was measurably worse than doing nothing, I will listen (and probably go check it out).
If they are making this claim off of vibes alone, I kind of want to hurl them into the icy grip of deep space.
(Remember: yeeting someone into the icy depths of interstellar space takes less delta v than hurling them into the Sun, so you can be energy-conscious with your removal fantasies)
you gotta be setting up processes that are self sustaining and can be implemented BY the affected population if you want it to really help, imo
lotta leftists, especially the ones from privileged backgrounds, end up replicating this sorta thing at a smaller scale for lack of community outreach
OK, so:
Is giving wheat actually worse than giving nothing at all?
If so, how?
That is the basis of what I'm saying. Not that there isn't nearly always something *better* one could do, but that doing something small is better than doing *nothing*.
This is a good example of yes but instead of yes and. People can't use any of those supplies of they dont have a good meal and clean water, to be healthy and strong enough. People need long term but also need short term so they can get to the long term.
I had some half-formed thoughts a while ago about the difference between "yes but" and "yes and" when talking about progress towards a goal. The former diminishes and degrades the hard work done, the latter acknowledges and encourages (and invites more people to join).
Older neighbour who kept at the City until they rebuilt an abandoned park building into a small solar powered community centre to support and allow the expansion of the community garden in our low income area. Small scale. But.
I have long had a theory about teaching that the reason some people say the best way to learn is by making a bunch of mistakes (which I feel is a total cop-out on the teacher’s part) is because we’re bad at giving specific POSITIVE feedback. Maybe working on that generally could do a lot of good!
It's easy to fall in a rabbit hole online, everything has to be negative or it doesn't get as much attention. The real world is beautiful and positive so much of the time when you're talking to real people doing real and helpful things.
It's not that "nobody cares." Rich people don't care. They don't want anyone or anything to prevent them from doing exactly what they want, all the time, with no consequence.
Rich people care, just not about you, and they're worried -- since there's a lot more of those they don't care about than there are of them -- that the restraints on our collective straitjackets aren't tight enough
So what I'm hearing is that im addition to working to improve our local spaces in small ways, we *really* need to be sharing more stories of community wins. This is how we remind folks that there are more of us & there's power in solidarity, even working at small scale! 💚
Exactly. The people with actual POWER don't care. We can all do our best to improve the world around us, but that doesn't change the reality that the people in charge are the ones that determine what happens to us.
And when something good gets mentioned, people bemoan and wail about how it isn't enough. OK, but if *more* people or groups did that one "small" thing...
(And I don't mean in a "personal responsibility!" way, I mean things like local litter picking groups. They make a difference to their area.)
About 25 years ago I said "humans are the plague" to someone, maybe a relative, and they pushed back on it, and I've reflected on that ever since: And of course I still recall that moment, including right now, reading your thread. So thankyou. Followed!
Human meat CPUs focus and latch on to negative circumstances as our heritage in our hunter/gatherer days.
"I'll remember this bad thing next time so it won't kill me." It doesn't matter if it's real or not.
This is also true. We dislike losing more than we like winning, so the less rational parts of our brains will emphasize threats and threat avoidance more than opportunities.
