[SavantIdiot]

> The irrationalities of power fascinated him, but he found the irrationalities of activism exasperating. Most activists, in his experience, would launch big campaigns about big issues and do things that they guessed would be beneficial, like running television ads or sending out direct mail, but they never did the work to figure out whether what they were doing was actually changing policy.

This is the frustrating thing about any activism: it moves slowly. For someone who cannot finish projects, or needs immediate feedback, it appears to be constant failure. However, activist movements are less like drag racers (the cars ;) and more like xenon ion thrusters that NASA tested a few years back: they spew out tiny ions that individually barely move the satellite, but slowly, over time, the sheer number of the small exhalations translate to colossal speeds. The activists seem to be mired in failure, but they are slowly moving the needle.

I wonder if as he got older he would have learned discipline to stick with longer-lead feedback loops. Or maybe not, perhaps his brain wasn't wired that way.

[santoshalper]

Or maybe he was right and most activism is emotionally driven rather than rational or data driven, and is ultimately ineffective.

[stathibus]

Swartz was a rare breed of what I think of as real activism. Self-proclaimed activists these days have no skin in the game and don't go further than signal boosting. To really make a difference you have to get burned; most people don't have the guts.

[SavantIdiot]

What has been your experience working with activists in NGOs/nonprofits? I've worked with several over the past few decades and emotions certainly are part of it, but trying to change a government doesn't happen overnight. For example, when Working with HIFIVE (Haiti Integrated Financing for Value Chains and Enterprises) I found that having government support was much more effective: things happened on a schedule, same when I worked with Habitat for Humanity. However, when I worked with a local homeless shelter in my city, they were struggling due both outreach and a logistics system that was sadly inefficient b/c none of them had experience with this: the heart was there but not the experience.

I'd be eager to hear what you ran into while working in a nonprofit that turned you off due to being "too emotionally driven." Please share!