[vog]

Doing useless stuff is actually worse than just complaining, because in addition to not accomplishing anything, it wastes resources that would have been better spent elsewhere.

Also, the phrase "we must do _something_" is often used by politicians to justify stupid laws or contracts that don't help to solve the intended problem, but sometimes make things even worse. That's quite a high price to pay for the publicity shows of certain people.

[forza]

That's it not how things tend to work out in my experience. Resources are almost never limited in the way you describe. Even if they are you would have to know the same people would be doing something better, which most of the time you don't. You're far more likely to transition into something useful when people are actually engaged. At least whatever you're doing can be proven wrong by it not working. If you're only complaining, you can be right forever.

To me entrepreneurship, startups, community open source software etc. is all about trying new things. Sadly I far too rarely get the feeling that people share this view in forums like this one. Even though the barrier to entry of these types of project are so low, people still rather be "right" than join in or start their own.

Politics is very different from these types of projects, in that the amount of responsibility is far greater. I don't think it's a valid comparison.

tl;dr: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Nature-of-Attitude---3-Types-o...