From the essay: Personally, I needed to read this essay. My morning's reading included this The Onion article. I actually started weeping because satire is moribund, if not well and truly dead. I...
From the essay:
A lot of people would like to make the world better, but they don’t know how. This is a great tragedy.
It’s tragic not only for the people who need help, but also for the people who can help, because good intentions start to rot if you don’t act them out. Well-meaning people who remain idle end up sick in the heart and the head, and they often develop exquisite ideologies to excuse their inaction—they start to believe that witnessing problems is as good as solving them, or that it’s impossible to make things better and therefore foolish to try, or that every sorrow in the world is someone else’s fault and therefore someone else’s responsibility.
We get stuck here because we assume that there are only two paths to improving the world. Option #1 is to go high-status: get rich so you can blast problems with your billions of bucks, or get into office so you can ban all the bad things and mandate all the good things. Only a fortunate few are powerful enough to do anything, of course, so most of the people attempting to improve the world through the high-status route will end up either begging our overlords to do the right thing, or trying to drum up the votes necessary to replace them.
Option #2 is to go high-sacrifice: sell everything you have and spend your life earning $7/hr to scrub the toilets in an orphanage. Only a virtuous few will have the saintliness necessary to live such a life, of course, so most of the people attempting to improve the world through the high-sacrifice path will end up writing checks to the martyrs on the front lines.
These paths aren’t wrong. They’re just too narrow. Money, power, and selflessness are all useful tools in the right hands, but the world is messed up in all sorts of ways that can’t be legislated against, bought off, or undone with a hunger strike. When we focus on just two avenues for making the world better, we exclude almost everybody, leaving most of us with a kind of constipated altruism—we’ve got the urge to do good, but nothing comes out.
I don’t know all the ways to get our good intentions unblocked. That’s why, whenever I spot someone changing the world via a righteous road less taken, I write it down on a little list. I glance at that list from time to time as a way of expanding my imagination, and now I’m sharing it in the hopes that it’ll do the same for you.
Personally, I needed to read this essay.
My morning's reading included thisThe Onion article. I actually started weeping because satire is moribund, if not well and truly dead. I don't want to exaggerate, but too many people are influenced by fear, greed, willfully chosen misinformation, and learned helplessness.
If ever there was a time to do small good things, to demonstrate that we can make individual choices matter, it seems to be now.
I really enjoyed and appreciated reading this. If anyone is in the comments having a look before they click the link, I highly recommend it. Thank you for sharing!
I really enjoyed and appreciated reading this. If anyone is in the comments having a look before they click the link, I highly recommend it.
This was my favorite part. Very wholesome. But I also really liked the bit about switchboarding. I have a friend who fixes boats, and every time I ask him for help with my outboard motor he's like...
Sometimes when I think about everything that’s wrong with the world, I get indignant, like: why wasn’t all this fixed out by the time I got here? I mean, really? In 2024? We’re still doing this?
But then I think: why do I, uniquely, deserve to be born in good times? Am I the Most Special Boy in the Universe? My ancestors died in famines and plagues, they suffered under evil kings, they got cut down in stupid wars that were fought because some people thought God is literally a piece of bread and other people thought God is only figuratively a piece of bread.
They all deserved a better world than the one they got. So do I. So do all of us! If only we could convince God to fast-forward us to the future where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Alas, He cannot hear us, for He is a piece of bread.
This was my favorite part. Very wholesome.
But I also really liked the bit about switchboarding. I have a friend who fixes boats, and every time I ask him for help with my outboard motor he's like "Oh it's super easy just ____ the ____ and then check the ____ for ____. You might have to replace the _____ though, so see what condition it's in." And I just can't get it through to him that shit that is easy for him makes no sense to me. I don't even know what some of those parts look like, or where they are located, or what they are supposed to look like, or what the signs are if they are going bad. I didn't grow up with that and I don't do that for a living like he does.
I'm not sure if this is exactly the same thing as switchboarding, but it feels the same to me. I know that I exist. and I know that the information/knowledge/experience that I seek exists. But it's difficult connecting the two together. But watching him poke around in the motor for 10 minutes, just pointing out the stuff he sees that is working or not working (and why) is better than any youtube video I could watch or any google search I could do, since I wouldn't even know what to look up.
If you think about it that's similar to how a child learns how to talk - most of the words make no sense at first but through repeated contact within a comprehensible context it starts to click...
If you think about it that's similar to how a child learns how to talk - most of the words make no sense at first but through repeated contact within a comprehensible context it starts to click with them. So too with technical speak in adults. People you're in community with take meaningless gibberish and connect them with practical outcomes in your own life. Your friend may have picked up a lot of his own knowledge the same way. Quick convenient instructions tailored to fix your exact present situation doesn't have that same dimension to it.
Oh for sure. The specific information needed is one thing, but the whole background of knowledge that goes with it is often invisible and much harder to come by. Like it seems so easy to just look...
Oh for sure. The specific information needed is one thing, but the whole background of knowledge that goes with it is often invisible and much harder to come by. Like it seems so easy to just look up some information that you need online, I'm sure someone has asked the same question before right? But how the hell do you know what the right questions to ask are if you don't know what's causing the issue in the first place? And how do you parse through the answers for stuff that might actually work when you don't understand the jargon being thrown around? This applies to a lot of things, especially hobbies: computer stuff, woodworking, mechanical issues, etc.
"My computer keeps crashing" sounds like a simple problem, but can have hundreds of different causes and solutions that all sound totally plausible to someone whose computer literacy ends at microsoft word and internet explorer. My friend with the boats could diagnose a failing outboard motor by ear alone but couldn't figure out how to print a document double-sided. So telling him to 'just check the print properties' sounds to him how 'just check if the carbs are running' sounds to me.
I'll learn eventually, but it takes time. Which is why switchboarding is so important. Just showing someone how to do something could cut HOURS of work off their plate simply because you have that background knowledge and familiarity that they lack. Or better yet - it can potentially keep them interested in the subject instead of getting frustrated at not finding the answer and eventually giving up.
Honestly in recent years I've been coming to the conclusion that a lack of stuff like this is the reason we see so many burned out or unmotivated workers in recent years. We've lost many...
Honestly in recent years I've been coming to the conclusion that a lack of stuff like this is the reason we see so many burned out or unmotivated workers in recent years. We've lost many opportunities for interpersonal forms of learning and instead end up trying to do all that switch boarding from first principles.
Not knowing the right questions to ask has been the root of most of my bad experiences (and performances) on the job in my early career. "Read the docs and ask... someone if you have any problems" is not good enough by any standard, but if the office is short staffed and time is tight, that's often all you get.
It is related to switchboarding in that is about teaching people and conveying information at the right starting point. The situation you are describing falls under the curse of knowledge as...
It is related to switchboarding in that is about teaching people and conveying information at the right starting point. The situation you are describing falls under the curse of knowledge as people who are specialized in something tend to overestimate what the base knowledge is whatever they are talking about.
You've shared a valuable and insightful article—thank you! I often think of this parable, taught to me at summer camp when I was 13 (I'll paraphrase): It's easy to become jaded with all the...
You've shared a valuable and insightful article—thank you!
I often think of this parable, taught to me at summer camp when I was 13 (I'll paraphrase):
An old man walks along the beach just after a storm. Scattered across the wet sand are thousands, millions of starfish washed ashore by the powerful waves. They are slowly baking, soon to die, as the tide goes out and the sun rises.
The man sees a figure in the distance reach down and motion toward the sea. Then again, and again, and again. As he approaches, he sees that it's a young boy picking up starfish and hurling them as far as he can past the breakers.
The man asks, "Why do you labor so, on such an endless task? Do you not see how many starfish lie suffocating on the sand? You're wasting your time. You can't save them all—what you're doing doesn't matter."
Taken aback, the boy stops and puzzles over the statement for a moment. Then he bends down to grab another starfish, and with all his might flings it back into the sea.
He turns to the old man and says, "It mattered to that one."
It's easy to become jaded with all the troubles of the world. We are often overwhelmed and fall into apathy. But there's a better path, and it starts with seeing possibility in the little things. There's a democratic whiff to this: working also from the ground-up rather than just from the top-down.
This was a great essay and this from the comments also makes a great point I’ve seen these “Ruiners” get louder and louder over my lifetime, especially online. A good reminder that simply refusing...
This was a great essay and this from the comments also makes a great point
Very inspiring. I would like to add perhaps the most important role I’ve discovered as an adult: if you want to do good in the world, don’t try to be the best person or even a good person, just don’t be that guy who ruins it for the people doing good, and don’t support Ruiners. There are all kinds of Ruiners—those that shut down promising and important ideas over technicalities, corrupt crooks who won’t let good things succeed unless they get a cut, and of course Nay Sayers. Whenever anyone asks me how to do good in the world, I tell them, there are already people working on it, and unless you’re careful, you might accidentally ruin it for them one day. So start doing your research, identify your ruining habits (pessimism, jealousy, cynicism, zero-sum thinking, greed, a need for fame or moral superiority) and get rid of those before you go off trying to change the world, lest you ruin what you’re trying to accomplish.
I’ve seen these “Ruiners” get louder and louder over my lifetime, especially online. A good reminder that simply refusing to join them helps make space to improve the world.
The article is definitely and interesting train of thought on how to make the world a better place, yet I think the most important things to make the world a better place are still things that...
The article is definitely and interesting train of thought on how to make the world a better place, yet I think the most important things to make the world a better place are still things that cost neither time nor money: empathy, love, kindness, humbleness, humility, charity. These things have been teached by nearly every religion for millennia and non-religions too, by generations of parents and parents' parents but we still forget these simple things. If we want them in life, we have to be the first to give them. If everyone gives, everyone receives.
From the essay:
Personally, I needed to read this essay.
My morning's reading included this The Onion article. I actually started weeping because satire is moribund, if not well and truly dead. I don't want to exaggerate, but too many people are influenced by fear, greed, willfully chosen misinformation, and learned helplessness.
If ever there was a time to do small good things, to demonstrate that we can make individual choices matter, it seems to be now.
Fred Rogers told us to look for the helpers.
Edit, having now read the article, thank you.
It is timely, thoughtful, interesting and encouraging.
I really enjoyed and appreciated reading this. If anyone is in the comments having a look before they click the link, I highly recommend it.
Thank you for sharing!
This was my favorite part. Very wholesome.
But I also really liked the bit about switchboarding. I have a friend who fixes boats, and every time I ask him for help with my outboard motor he's like "Oh it's super easy just ____ the ____ and then check the ____ for ____. You might have to replace the _____ though, so see what condition it's in." And I just can't get it through to him that shit that is easy for him makes no sense to me. I don't even know what some of those parts look like, or where they are located, or what they are supposed to look like, or what the signs are if they are going bad. I didn't grow up with that and I don't do that for a living like he does.
I'm not sure if this is exactly the same thing as switchboarding, but it feels the same to me. I know that I exist. and I know that the information/knowledge/experience that I seek exists. But it's difficult connecting the two together. But watching him poke around in the motor for 10 minutes, just pointing out the stuff he sees that is working or not working (and why) is better than any youtube video I could watch or any google search I could do, since I wouldn't even know what to look up.
If you think about it that's similar to how a child learns how to talk - most of the words make no sense at first but through repeated contact within a comprehensible context it starts to click with them. So too with technical speak in adults. People you're in community with take meaningless gibberish and connect them with practical outcomes in your own life. Your friend may have picked up a lot of his own knowledge the same way. Quick convenient instructions tailored to fix your exact present situation doesn't have that same dimension to it.
Oh for sure. The specific information needed is one thing, but the whole background of knowledge that goes with it is often invisible and much harder to come by. Like it seems so easy to just look up some information that you need online, I'm sure someone has asked the same question before right? But how the hell do you know what the right questions to ask are if you don't know what's causing the issue in the first place? And how do you parse through the answers for stuff that might actually work when you don't understand the jargon being thrown around? This applies to a lot of things, especially hobbies: computer stuff, woodworking, mechanical issues, etc.
"My computer keeps crashing" sounds like a simple problem, but can have hundreds of different causes and solutions that all sound totally plausible to someone whose computer literacy ends at microsoft word and internet explorer. My friend with the boats could diagnose a failing outboard motor by ear alone but couldn't figure out how to print a document double-sided. So telling him to 'just check the print properties' sounds to him how 'just check if the carbs are running' sounds to me.
I'll learn eventually, but it takes time. Which is why switchboarding is so important. Just showing someone how to do something could cut HOURS of work off their plate simply because you have that background knowledge and familiarity that they lack. Or better yet - it can potentially keep them interested in the subject instead of getting frustrated at not finding the answer and eventually giving up.
Honestly in recent years I've been coming to the conclusion that a lack of stuff like this is the reason we see so many burned out or unmotivated workers in recent years. We've lost many opportunities for interpersonal forms of learning and instead end up trying to do all that switch boarding from first principles.
Not knowing the right questions to ask has been the root of most of my bad experiences (and performances) on the job in my early career. "Read the docs and ask... someone if you have any problems" is not good enough by any standard, but if the office is short staffed and time is tight, that's often all you get.
It is related to switchboarding in that is about teaching people and conveying information at the right starting point. The situation you are describing falls under the curse of knowledge as people who are specialized in something tend to overestimate what the base knowledge is whatever they are talking about.
You've shared a valuable and insightful article—thank you!
I often think of this parable, taught to me at summer camp when I was 13 (I'll paraphrase):
It's easy to become jaded with all the troubles of the world. We are often overwhelmed and fall into apathy. But there's a better path, and it starts with seeing possibility in the little things. There's a democratic whiff to this: working also from the ground-up rather than just from the top-down.
This was a great essay and this from the comments also makes a great point
I’ve seen these “Ruiners” get louder and louder over my lifetime, especially online. A good reminder that simply refusing to join them helps make space to improve the world.
The article is definitely and interesting train of thought on how to make the world a better place, yet I think the most important things to make the world a better place are still things that cost neither time nor money: empathy, love, kindness, humbleness, humility, charity. These things have been teached by nearly every religion for millennia and non-religions too, by generations of parents and parents' parents but we still forget these simple things. If we want them in life, we have to be the first to give them. If everyone gives, everyone receives.