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Comment by RamRodification | Hacker News Reader

...and let someone else pay the price in the end for letting these things happen unchecked. Perhaps your children :)

This. I can't keep myself from quoting another 20th century lesson from Snyder:

> Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

you caring a lot doesn't change reality in your favor. You get one vote that you can exercise once a year or so. Thats about all the agency you have on the wider world (and probably rightly so, if its to be proportional to the population)

Being informed just enough to choose the less horrible of the two clowns the systems presents you... takes very little effort. Everything past that is a waste of brain cycles. Spend your energy on things you can affect. If you care about your children then spend the emotional energy on your friends, family and community. It'll help them more

That's right, one person caring and not acting doesn't change reality, neither does one person caring and acting (most of the time). A relatively small number of people caring and acting, however, can change the course of history.

While it is in nobody's interest to care, individually, we're all better off if we care and act just a little bit.

i assume caring and acting here you mean in the context of larger issues. bc effort spent on your immediate world definitely does change reality

there is no mechanism past voting to change the big picture. Nor should there be. The person going around with the megaphone convincing other people their right inherantly feels their feelings are more right than others'

And you dont need to care an aweful lot when it comes to voting. Any caring past that is basically like getting worked up about the weather

> there is no mechanism past voting to change the big picture.

I hope I’m not reading this too narrowly, but this seems too reductionist. Everything probably rolls up to a vote at some point, sure, but there are lots of things citizens can do to change the big picture between filling out their ballots every few years.

During the Great Depression, protests were a driver of policy change (New Deal, labor rights…) that still endure, and protests laid the ground work for the American Civil Rights Movement in the 60s.

Ultimately, these work because politicians do need to win elections, sure. But there are plenty of ways to organize or be a part of a movement to change society that aren’t simply filling in a bubble in a ballot box.

This is straight nonsense, why do you think Jimmy Kimmel had his show reinstated yesterday? The pendulum is constantly pushed and pulled in different directions outside of elections, if you decide you don’t need to care all you do is give way to those that do.

That's silly. Talking about such things; with friends, family, online, etc; raises awareness of it. And the more people that are aware of such things, the more likely they are to vote against it. So if you're relying on votes to change things, then discussing it helps.

i think when it comes to big picture stuff it makes sense that everyone has proportionate input. just bc you care a lot, doesnt mean you should have more say

just make your opinion, cast your vote and let other people make their own decisions. Feeling youre right and gotta go convince all the wrong people is sort of inherantly a bad selfrighteous place to come from

EDIT:

I think there is a broader sentiment that we all just have to care more and everything will get sorted out. I think recent history hasn't bore that out. People seem to care and have extremely strong emotional opinions about everything now a days.. and I don't think in the net it's brought anything positive

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