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0 pointsKarunamon5y ago0 comments

That ties right back into the original comment, though. The quantity of suffering in the world is great, and even those of us with the ability to do something about some small part of it (already a pretty small number) are severely limited in their impact.

For the most part, it's non-actionable info. You bring up "relatives being deported or shot by the police", but the number of people on HN that describes is going to be tiny. The average HN user is less likely than most to have been burned by COVID due to the remote-friendliness of tech jobs.

For me, the calculus works out like this:

1. Is it possible for me to do anything substantial about it? (Throwing a few bucks at a charity or "raising awareness" about the large social problem everyone already knows about does not count as "substantial")

2. If it is possible, do I have the ability? (Financially, mentally, physically, temporally)

3. If the answer to both of these questions is "no", then it is non-actionable and not worth expending my own limited energy on.

The vast majority of things you hear from the news media fail both of these tests. They are intended to provoke you or scare you about something that is mostly out of your sphere of influence.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

tehjoker5y ago· 3 in thread

This is a profoundly dispiriting stance. Many individuals have made a difference in the past and will continue into the future. The primary way individuals make differences is either by changing the way people think about something, by assembling a group to strategize around their issue, or physically preventing the bad thing from happening.

BeetleB5y ago

> The primary way individuals make differences is either by changing the way people think about something, by assembling a group to strategize around their issue, or physically preventing the bad thing from happening.

As someone who spent time in both volunteer groups and activist groups, I can assure you that well intentioned people can easily make things worse, not better. It's why I got out of such groups.

The first method you cite: "Changing the way people think about something" is a common example of this. It's very easy (in fact, I would say it is the norm) that people's beliefs are strengthened the more they feel besieged, and that often happens by others trying to make them think about something differently (or about something they don't want to). Easily 80-90% of such interactions have this outcome, and definitely over 50% even here on HN. I noticed this earlier in life, and it was confirmed when I started studying communications and influence (almost all books will mirror what I have said).

That's not to say you can't change people's minds. You do need to have the skills to do so, and the ability not to make things worse in trying to do so.

It's great if you want to change things, and I don't aim to discourage you. It is, however, your responsibility to be able to gauge how effective you are, and know whether you are causing damage or not. Do it poorly, and you will merely make it harder for those who do have the skills.

Giving money is the safest way to help without doing harm - provided you have the ability to identify which organization to give the money to.

In that sense, I have no problem with folks who tune out. They could make things much worse by trying to help.

KarunamonOP5y ago

All of those people you mention had something where they could physically and practically do something about the problem. My comment addresses the vast majority of instances a human learns about a problem where that isn't the case.

Your sphere of concern and your sphere of influence are two different things at the end of the day. If you've decided some social problem is within your sphere of influence, then by all means, take whatever helpful action you can - just do not pretend that this encompasses all problems, or for that matter that the number of problems is not infinite.

Down that path lay depression and burnout.

tehjoker5y ago

You get to pick which problems you want to work on, just don't pretend you can't work on them.

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rchaud5y ago

> They are intended to provoke you or scare you about something that is mostly out of your sphere of influence.

And yet, every post about H1B visa rule changes will have hundreds of comments bemoaning the selling out of the American IT worker. There will also be much hand-wringing about the on-shoring of foreign jobs and anecdotes about how terrible it is working with Indian consultancy firms.

HN commenters want to vent as much as anyone else. They just do it on political posts that they feel affect them personally, even if it's not something they can change directly.

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