[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.