[marginalia_nu]

Isn't individual action the only action? The only ones with hands and thoughts are individuals, whether they imagine themselves part of a collective or imagine themselves to be alone.

Yeah sure you may not be able to fix the world yourself, but you can undeniably make it better. Waiting for some grand wave of collective action to arrive and fix the problem seems like it would above all stand in the way of even making an effort and trying.

[rambambram]

I completely agree. And then I saw your username and knew you've put in the work. Thanks for doing something and putting your money/time/energy where your mouth is! A lot of people approach these problems by waiting for the stars to align or waiting until everybody on this planet agrees with them and then take action. It has to be this, it has to be that, no choices, no priorities, no decisions. In their minds they take on all of the world's problems at once.

For a couple of years I have been working on my website software to make the internet more open again (or at least, keep some of the openness around). I'm by no means making any dent in the universe sofar, but I rolled up my sleeves, I bet on the open internet, and started to work. No need to wait for other people.

For me, it has all to do with RSS and the curation of content. Yeah, curation is more work than having someone else's algorithm decide what you eat for infodinner. The internet itself - and the web in particular - already take care of the sharing and distribution of this curated content. With my software, if I 'retweet' an RSS item from a website that I follow on my own 'timeline', it already spreads further than the initial target group of that item. Virality and connectedness is already baked in the internet. The techniques for a social internet are already there, for years.

[velcrovan]

Individual action takes place in a context of social cues and incentives. Those who understand this try to work together to change those things, which in turn changes the “easy defaults” for everyone. This is a million times more effective than limiting your approach to nagging people to do better for ideological reasons.

[marginalia_nu]

> Individual action takes place in a context of social cues and incentives. Those who understand this try to work together to change those things, which in turn changes the “easy defaults” for everyone.

I think this discounts the fact that people are not mindless automatons following the path of least resistance. Individuals are capable of difficult things that fly in the face of collective theory, and time and time again such individual actions have changed history.

> This is a million times more effective than limiting your approach to nagging people to do better for ideological reasons.

This is ultimately a false dichotomy, blind to a third option, which is to act as an indiviual, act according to what you think is good, in spite of what anyone else is doing or thinking.

If you try to do something yourself in such a way, people will flock to tell you to stop trying to change the world, because it is not pointless and cannot be done. If it is indeed pointless, I ask, why must the attempt be aborted?

I haven't had anyone rushing to tell me I must stop watching a 4 hour video essay on youtube, which is surely even more pointless.

[velcrovan]

> I think this discounts the fact that people are not mindless automatons following the path of least resistance.

That is nowhere implied or required by what I am arguing. I am just saying changing incentives is more effective at a broad societal level than nagging people. This is plainly observable and undisputable.

For example, add a mortgage interest deduction to the tax code. Doing so in no way reduces or discounts the ability of every person in that jurisdiction to make financial decisions based on a million factors that are weighted uniquely by each individual. But behavior of the market overall will inevitably change, because the incentives have changed.

[hotnfresh]

Individual action directed toward the problem itself is what you do to feel like you're making a change, often at cost far in excess of the benefit of that change (which is part of why this mechanism often fails, even when a large majority want that change). There's nothing wrong with it, but at a society level, you can't count on it to get much done.

Individual action directed toward affecting policy in organizations that can overcome coordination problems (largely government) is where you focus if you want to have a big effect, but maybe not get as much immediate satisfaction.

It's still individual action.

[ants_everywhere]

> Isn't individual action the only action?

Yes, in an important sense. But, you know, architectural layers something something.

At the end of the day maybe everything is logic gates, but there's a difference between `cat`ing /dev/urandom and computing a trajectory for a plane, say.

Organizations and corporations basically exist (if you squint hard enough) to achieve this sure of layering. And to your point, a lot of what organizations do is manage incentives for individuals so that the collective work gets done.

BTW thanks for marginalia!

[marginalia_nu]

I find this mindset debilitating. Every person on earth, the very people who might accomplish real change, they are all individuals. Yet every one of them can deflect responsibility onto collectives, collectives that in turn consiting of individuals who can do the same, resulting in inaction and indifference.

Someone else is always to blame, someone else is always more responsible, and that someone else isn't even a human being, it's a corporation, a political faction, an ideological movement. None of those entities are of course ever going to seize that responsibility, because there is no agency in any of them to do so.

[ants_everywhere]

Yes, I think we're actually talking about the same problem from different angles.

The problem you mention in the second paragraph is sometimes called "diffusion of responsibility" [0]. A related concept about the difficulties of individual and group action is "belling the cat" [1]. You may be familiar with these, I'm just throwing them out there in case anyone reading is also interested in this topic.

Framing in terms of agency, I guess I'd say I agree with you that each agent has a responsibility or an obligation to take action. But it's not clear to me how to ensure that the actions build on each other rather than canceling each other out in the aggregate. It may take a strong person with a sense of duty to get things started but eventually they will need help.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat

[carlosjobim]

If hackers pray five times per day to the European Union, they will one day step down from the sky regulate and ban all our dreams into being.

Jokes aside, you're completely right, but I think individuals should remember to limit their effort when it's without reimbursement. In order to not burn out and become bitter, etc.

[marginalia_nu]

> I think individuals should remember to limit their effort when it's without reimbursement. In order to not burn out and become bitter, etc.

You're projecting your will onto the world and making it more like how you think it should be. It's nice when other people share your vision and chip in to support the effort, but I don't think that can be a prerequisite. If it is, then you will never be true to your vision, and that is, if anything, recipe for crashing and burning.

[carlosjobim]

Some goals are so great that they can not be reached alone. Space flight for example, was a dream for many, but it required massive joint effort to finally achieve.

Even people seeking hyper-individualistic goals are paid, for example in sports. I don't mean that getting paid is a prerequisite, but if you're struggling alone you have to check after some time if it's really worth doing.