impetus towards action, 22 Jan 2025.txt

Why You Should Do Something With This Idea

Most people are mostly happy. They live at a standard of comfort and safety unimaginable to people 1000 years ago. Either they have a family to care about and look after, or they have decided they are more comfortable without such a family. They also naturally don't want people to criticize them for living the way that they live. They may not be doing anything illegal, but acting in a legal but morally objectionable way often leads to strife, which with the anonymity of the Internet and the ease of spoofing phone calls can lead to harassment up to and including death threats against family members.

In China, it's common to frame debates in terms of what's best for society. In the US and many other Western countries, it's common to frame debates in terms of what's best for the individuals participating in the debate. In all countries, the majority tends to impose its view on any minority that wishes to think differently: in the US, the desire to avoid moral criticism leads to the majority stifling attempts to change the majority culture, such as its views or typical patterns of behavior.

We can see this in the comments of articles about global problems like climate change, or when a celebrity actor participates in an ad campaign for a charity and is criticized for not simply donating all of their money instead of trying to get other people to donate money.

So getting people to agree that a change is needed often requires some external stimulus: something that allows people to say that the attitude that some problem isn't important may not be acceptable now, but it was acceptable in the recent past, before some surprising event occurred. A great example is World War II: the United States had an official policy of neutrality despite openly attacking German submarines, and only declared war on Germany after a different country attacked an important naval base.

To sum it up: people need a start to a story that delineates when it's acceptable to start caring about a problem and thinking about its solution.