It does seem like there's a qualitative difference between that framing and its parent comment: there are always problems facing society, but once activists have organized around a specific category of problem, they seem to react to success by intensifying within that category rather than diversifying their efforts to address whatever's next-most-pressing on the overall list of issues.
I strongly disagree. Problems always exist, and new ones pop up app the time. And organizing people to advocate for fixing the problems they face is a job that's worth doing in any society.
You would never accept this logic for programmers. Should they just give up their salaries once the product is good enough?
It seems like you (and the author of this pretty blatant propaganda) are assuming the very strange and unfounded premise that most activists believe that there is exactly one problem with the world worth solving.
Of course activists move onto the next problem once the problem they’ve been focusing on is solved. Similarly, I brush my teeth once I get out of the shower. I haven’t “moved the goalposts”; I’m just attending to the next priority.
I don't classify groups like the United Way as activist organization - they are an organization that are broadly focused on making things better, rather than single focus organization, which have to pivot (or move goal posts) once they reach the ends of their goals.
> It seems like you (and the author of this pretty blatant propaganda) are assuming the very strange and unfounded premise that most activists believe that there is exactly one problem with the world worth solving.
But this is exactly how it works. Very few activists are activists "for good causes in general", most of them identify themselves with a very narrow set of issues and build their identity around that.
We’re just arguing anecdotes at this point, but I’ve known a lot of left wing activists, and I have never met one who only cared about a narrow set of issues. In fact, the more typical failure mode is wanting to fight on so many fronts at once that they seem to struggle to focus.