I think this is basically true. We’ve got a tendency towards hero culture as a society, in which we expect one person to solve the problem. That fails on almost any problem of reasonable size and impact - you yourself cannot solve, say, climate change - and it leads us to feel like we’re not doing anything if we’re not doing everything.

I’ve come to think of it more like I’m on this boat with everyone else - I can’t do anything on my own, but taking my turn at the oars contributes to the journey. You can’t do everything, so at least be a net positive - be the kind of person where if everyone acted like you, it’d make the world you want to live in.

> you yourself cannot solve, say, climate change

Could one person maybe catalyze the solving of climate change though?

They can maybe make an impact... Maybe... but the problem I find is that anyone out front who's not actually "doing" anything beyond "catalyzing" is often viewed by the converts as a messiah and the skeptics as a charlatan. See: Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, etc. If they have a track record of execution in a different field they get a little more credibility, but still lots of derision. Ex: Bill Gates.

In theory, sure, maybe. In practice, there’s a lot more oars than wheels and a lot more of them seem to sit empty for want of people willing to do the work.

Maybe, but most of what I see people doing is doomscrolling and shitposting. It feels like doing something but the primary output is anxiety.

Absolutely. Although the most impactful changes need to be done at a large level, there are two things that need to happen locally that one person absolutely can do:

1. Lots of issues within local government related to transportation, buildings, energy (these issues intersect closely with climate change) come up without members from the public saying anything. Having one voice from a normal member of the public (not a lobbyist, not an activist, not a government staff person, not a journalist, not someone paid to be there) gets attention from policy makers, it says people really care and elected officials should act accordingly.

2. There are a lot of groups out there doing work and pushing for policy changes with varying levels of “spice” (spice being how much they try to influence elections and get public attention) these are groups like rotary clubs, environmental voter project, citizens climate lobby, 350.org, Sierra club, sunrise, third act, extinction rebellion, and many more. Some are active in your community. The work of connecting between them and other parts of the community is crucial because coalitions need to be made and that is hard work. If you are involved in a group (company, neighborhood association, hoa, club, trade group, professional organization, any kind of group) that is interested in doing anything on climate, you could be a connector between them and a policy advocacy group. Find ways to work together towards a set of common goals. That’s when outcomes really start to proliferate.

> be the kind of person where if everyone acted like you, it’d make the world you want to live in.

My wife and I think exactly this way and we did just that: precisely for that very reason, we decided to have one kid. Not three. Not two (could have happened with twins but that's uncommon).

And if everybody were to do like us for a few generations, most of our problems would be solved in a few generations (and couple could start having two kids on average again).

And I do not care about the broken promises of failing states who need ever more young people to pay for the impossible-to-sustain pension schemes.

What makes the world valuable to you (or say more valuable than some other beautiful planet lightyears away)? Probably that more people (or intelligence in general) can experience it. Less people seems counterproductive then.

I think your reasoning only works as a concept in your head. As a short-lived dream were you can enjoy an image of the world in a future state.

Depopulation won't fix it. The problem is greed. But you live the life you want to live. It ain't hurting anyone.

>We’ve got a tendency towards hero culture as a society, in which we expect one person to solve the problem. That fails on almost any problem of reasonable size and impact - you yourself cannot solve, say, climate change - and it leads us to feel like we’re not doing anything if we’re not doing everything.

Being a hero is far more exciting and feels more "action-oriented" than the actual solution to most problems: consistent concerted effort over a long period of time. But it's the latter that actually works, whether in something as personal as healthy living or something as broad as national policy.

> We’ve got a tendency towards hero culture as a society, in which we expect one person to solve the problem. That fails on almost any problem of reasonable size and impact

We're past hero culture as far as I can tell. We're firmly in superhero culture aka entertainment divorced from reality.

Also, I don't think there exists a coherent culture anymore. 'Anyone can do whatever they want as long as I get mine' is not a culture - it's a canary in the coalmine and the canary is dead.

I'm glad that I recognized that we (Gen Z) were growing up with this narrative pretty early on--if you get a job, you have to be best in the field. If you start something, it has to be big. Small successes or positive changes just weren't adequate. I wrote about this in more detail here: https://www.tor.com/2021/05/25/anyone-can-be-a-hero-in-brand... and I said it better in this paragraph than I can right now:

"Because the real world has never been saved by a few superheroes. It has always saved itself on its own, each person doing their own little bit. In the real world, although many people feel—and sometimes are—helpless because they’re not the “right” gender or race or caste or class, there are many, many more people who have made their own little impacts on the lives of others, be it buying groceries for elderly neighbors during the lockdown, running a lemonade stand to raise funds for cancer treatment, offering free therapy, teaching kids in slums, or distributing food to protesters. Our world is humanity’s collective effort, one big project that we always keep working on.

The problems all of us are fighting are too big to change individually—they are too massive in scope, with too many variables. But collectively we have changed some things for the better, and we’ve done it by being whoever we are and doing what we can, while also learning and taking tiny steps forward..."

The way I see it is that all living systems inevitably grow in complexity until they decay and die. This is their nature. As we are part of the system we can't help feeling trapped when the decay and pain is creeping in, but if we can take a larger (Taoist) look at the processes and flow itself then we can find peace as well as our own place within that flow.

By letting go we can achieve the greatest well-being for ourselves and others. We can perform our work and step back, letting things be as they are. The only way they can ever be.

100%

My biggest example of this is cutting out reading the news. It's been great - all the news brought me was constant negativity about things out of my control

I believe this is a relatively recent construct, because "the news" isn't really about that anymore. Even the last hold-outs, the national or public outlets have stopped presenting balanced "state of the world" and shifted to either negative, headline, click-driving OR agenda-based propaganda. My wife is still very in-touch with current events and finds it hilarious when I tell her about this "new topic" when in reality I'm coming in to the third or fourth wave of the story fresh. My life is better without "The News" IMO.

Your particular life might be, but it's likely because you are comfortable.

The point of news is social change or social control (depending on who owns it), and the kind of news you lament being gone was never actually neutral. It also was in no way how news started.

You want your power company to not dump coal waste in rivers? Get some press.

You want buildings to be retired to be accessible because you are a wheelchair user? Get the press to care about it.

If you are a service member or a NYC firefighter who wants the government to be accountable for giving you cancer because of burn pits or 9/11 toxic waste? Hammer the gov in the press

You want to stop the NSA from spying on Americans? Leak insider docs to the press.

You want better media? Subscribe and pay for it.

…the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

- Thomas Jefferson

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3237870-the-man-who-never-l...

If your mental health demands it, sure. Save yourself first. Wear your own mask before helping others.

But helping others is not optional. Not for a moral person anyway. Apparently no one nowadays is.

The problem with this sort of thinking is that there are people who actually put energy into that and actually change the world.

The last decade, it was the alt-right folks who managed to transform the society up to a point where governments and lives of those targeted by the alt-right have changed significantly.

Voting, policy on civil or environmental matters, rights etc. all seem like nothing ever changes by activism and yet they changed quite significantly over time.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

That sounds like a great slogan for a kinky dating web site.

It's relevant because good sex probably has a diminishing effect on polarization between the participants.

Or in some encounters, among the participants. :)

I offer into evidence the social behavior of bonobos when they get stressed.

> civboot.org

I'm guessing you are already familiar with the Long Now Foundation? Visiting their social hub (it's a bar with weekly talks) in SF, called The Interval, is lovely for many reasons, one of them being their Manual of Civilization[1], a curated library of books whose aim is to collate all the information necessary to build civilization back to where it is now in the event of some catastrophic disruption.

[1] https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/manual-for-civili...

I thought I was familiar, but now I think I confused it with a different project. I'll have to look into it more deeply, thanks.

I think there is great wisdom in your comment, but I am struggling to recieve it. Can you give examples for #1 please?

It's mostly derived from ancient Stoics and Taoist thinking.

Think about death and it's inevitability. Since it is inevitable there is little value in fearing it.

Or think about trying to change other people's minds. You have little/no control of their thinking. As long as you are enjoying the process of discussion then great, discuss for its own sake. But being stressed about it makes no sense.

You have quite a lot of control of your own habits, circumstances and growth -- and by focusing on them the world will be a better place than if you focused on things you had no control over. There will always be pain and evil as long as there is joy and life, so don't worry too much about fixing that.

Those are the values of a housewife - family, relationship, sunset, hobbies.

Then there are the men who build and maintain the world the housewife and the kids live in.

Unless we're cool with the modern way of life collapsing and us going back to 'the good old days' - men need to care deeply about the modern way of life and understand what makes it tick.

Not every man of course but the overall direction of men adopting the values of housewives and thinking modern society is just this given, that it'll just continue chugging along and I can only care about myself (and my family) - that's a very dangerous fantasy.

Tao de ching 42

---

All things have their backs to the female

and stand facing the male.

when male and female combine,

all things achieve harmony.

----

Ordinary men hate solitude,

But the Master makes use of it,

embracing his aloneness, realizing

he is one with the whole universe.

If you think meditating on a cushion in your bedroom whilst your kitchen is on fire is harmony - life will soon show you otherwise.

Author here. These are also things I believe in, although it took several years of climate anxiety and therapy to understand that one person alone can't fix everything. So I've started focusing on doing some good every day--most days, it's the small things, like doing extra chores, babysitting the neighbor's kid, tutoring a little girl who lost her father recently, etc. These won't change the world, but at least I'm adding some good to it.

> MOST things you can read about on the Internet fall into this category

This is why I deleted almost every social media and am very selective about the content I consume, so the stuff that does land in my inbox is stuff that has scope for taking action--I unsubscribed from everything that talked about things I couldn't do anything about personally.

Hey thanks for the article. 100% agree on social media and doing the small stuff. HN is about the only one I use and i try to take month long breaks regularly