[gavman]

I don't have a direct answer to your question, but in thinking about these issues here's a quote I heard that has always resonated with me:

> When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.

- Rabbi Israel Salanter (1809-1883)

[dredmorbius]

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

-- George Bernard Shaw

[sifar]

I used to admire this but have come to realize it is true in certain context only, while the GP one is much more humble

The key word here is change v/s progress.

The classic example of this is commuting via car v/s bicycle. The staggering amount of resources dedicated to solving this problem can be termed as progress with better infrastructure, cars (self-driving even) - contrast it against the change that those who can change to commute via bicycle.

We can only know progress in hindsight and only at things that can be quantified. It is self-serving in that sense, when you exclude the non-measurable.

[dredmorbius]

It's possible to be humble without surrendering completely.

I'm rather aware that change is difficult.

It's far more difficult if you give up before you begin.

And it's helpful to have an understanding of the problem and its space (see my long comment to this thread, and the failure / success chain). Often the obvious / simple solution won't work, though again, if you simply give up you'll never recognise that and seek other options.

[sifar]

If you hit a mountain that you cannot climb or tunnel through, you simply go around it - you don't try to move it or worse start a movement to move it.

It is not about surrendering or giving up. There is difference between when you have to stand up for something, when you find yourself in a situation where you have to go beyond yourself and where you "want" to be a hero. This myth of the hero needs to die. Think about it, a society that doesn't need heroes is a better one.

I am not sure if you realize but there is nothing humble about starting a social movement to "change the world" - which is what the original question was about. Engineered v/s emerged - one is hubris, the other one is just is. I wish one could ask all the successful people who "started" a social movement (as opposed to one that emerged), whether with the hindsight of how it played out over the decades, would they still have done it.

To paraphrase the life comment - change happens while you are busy wanting to create it.

[dredmorbius]

Your allegory of the mountain is precisely what I'm getting at.

Attempting the physically or logically impossible, or the effectively counterproductive. The point is to identify a problem, an achievable preferred state, and to work toward that.

Note that even towering mountains, given time, technique, or resources, can be overpassed, leapt over, or tunneled through. And that there are projects which take generations. The Swiss Alps are now laced with roads (rail, cable, and automobile), overflown by aircraft, and pierced by tunnels.

The best heros aren't of the Charge of the Light Brigade variety. They're the ones who identify a viable method and exploit it --- Odysseus and his Horse, Turing and his cipher-breaking tools, Gandhi and his Salt March.

A social change that doesn't need to be engineered ... doesn't require heros. One that won't happen without a specific concerted effort, or which might tip in any number of directions with some vastly preferable to others, do. I'd argue that part of the genius and heroism comes from recognising such loci, recognising the societal magnitude of the task, and searching for a solution space. As with scientific, engineering, and business innovation, even failures teach lessons, and diversifying investments over multiple strategies --- not in the blind sense of blindly inspiring cannon fodder to charge into fire (the Light Brigade, again), but to seek out more favourable options and avoid obvious low-probability / high-risk attempts --- is all but certainly the way to go.

And again: declaring defeat in advance, or throwing up ones hands and declaring that "all is foreordained" won't get you there.

I do advice research (see again previous) and marshalling and conserving your own energies. But not doing nothing at all.

Even slow moving water and the blowing wind can, in time, cut through or wear down that mountain.

[sifar]

>> And again: declaring defeat in advance, or throwing up ones hands and declaring that "all is foreordained" won't get you there.

I am not sure why what I said comes across as defeatist :).

>> I'd argue that part of the genius and heroism comes from recognising such loci, recognising the societal magnitude of the task, and searching for a solution space

I agree. Thank you for the thoughtful responses and the references.