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Comment by TheHydroImpulse | Hacker News Reader

> Imagine if even 5% or 10% of the 61,179 people who signed that petition instead organized rallies in their cities, or a kind of Leave The Internet Alone rally in DC.

Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort). There will always be the activists that are local to the cause who will do everything they can to fight, but everyone else, living their own lives, working, being parents, having hobbies or what have you have their own personal problems to take care of.

It's just routine. With the added regular news from the regular sources, who knows how manipulated they are, they're just so removed from what's actually going on. Not to mention, many people won't ask "What can the people do?" but "What can I do?" and their answer will be: "Nothing!"

We live in a world where people are told to live their lives, handle their business and the rest will be taken care of.

Maybe that's just common in Canada.

I don't like this situation, but this is what I'm seeing.

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A slightly more charitable argument would be that people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes.

And in this particular case, there are ancillary issues too. The Aaron Swartz case doesn't immediately sound important to non-hackers, and there are no shortage of people who will helpfully point out, over and over and over again, that, "Aaron actually did break the law, and if he didn't want to go to jail, he shouldn't've broken the law, and he had a mental illness besides so the outcome is nobody's fault but his own." I disagree with those people, but they're still able to move the discussion away from where it should be: federal prosecutors acted absurdly.

Gay rights have only recently made serious political progress, obnoxious drug enforcement is being fought against, people are talking about the NSA in light of Snowden's leaks (and, fortunately, the law-worshippers' "Snowden is a traitor and a coward" position didn't stick).

People aren't totally inactive. They're just broke and stressed-out and overwhelmed by a relentless tide of political issues.

"A slightly more charitable argument would be that people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes."

When has this not "currently" been the case? This is exactly the problem. You are always going to be under financial and day-to-day stress. Aaron is the only person I'm aware of whose reaction to the removal of everyday stress was to get more involved in politics and not become a venture capitalist.

There is time today, tomorrow, next week, and next month - not _only_ tomorrow, next week, and next month. The latter mode of thinking yields an infinite number of "todays" with no time for doing anything.

Do something! You can! Start small. Talk to a stranger about an issue of concern, and stop crying in the choir chamber.

Well, congratulations, I guess, to earning the title, "Dude who will probably piss me off the most today."

Listen.

Last month my personal account was overdrawn by $400 (people don't pay their invoices in December). It typically hovers well under $1000. Would you like screenshots, would that be satisfying in any way to you? I bust my ass all week long for an awful lot of other people and businesses in my area, including non-profits like Habitat For Humanity. I've been doing this for several years now. And somehow I still find the time and resources to be involved in other ways -- in my community.

And I'm not alone. A huge number of people are struggling really bad right now. It's been a frequent topic of journalism the last few years, maybe you missed it.

Aaron? With all due respect to Aaron, he had a family that I didn't have, that was financially well enough off to support him in whatever he wanted to do, and then he cashed out of a startup with more damn money than I expect I'll ever see in my life -- money that gave him the luxury of pursuing whatever subject interested him.

Good for him. I respect what he did, I do. But you deserve a punch in the face for trying to make someone else feel bad for not doing the same, especially when you can't even bother yourself to get to know anything about them.

You've still got a bit to learn about encouraging other people to take up a cause.

Maybe you could start with your Instagram profile, it makes you look a bit of a hypocrite.

>people do care, but are currently under too much financial and day-to-day stress to simply drop everything and participate meaningfully in lots of political causes

I used to believe this was the case, but now I wrestle with it. I'm not sure what people think any more, but I find that a core problem is that too many don't tend to think critically or independently and are thus far too easily led.

It's partly implicit in the other points of your comment (e.g. the way the narrative around Mr. Swartz redirected away from the relevant discussion), but the whole of it is difficult to explain. It's very Matrix-like in that they seem to want to be misled, bury their heads in the sand, and pretend that everything is OK.

Maybe this is why people spend an inordinate amount of time on utter distraction, and seem to prefer that to addressing real matters, even when those matters directly affect them.

This has been a tenet of humankind forever, "...many don't tend to think critically or independently and are thus far too easily led.". My grandfather told me that it was the responsibility of those who did think critically and independently to lead others toward a better future.

Not surprisingly this is the core principle behind governing, a few who are willing to spend their time doing the work of leading while the rest just follow along.

The tricky bit though, is that the people need a choice of leaders. So it becomes incumbent on people who do think critically and independently to offer themselves up as leaders so that if they have a constituency that was looking for them, they might be found.

Well put.

>a few who are willing to spend their time doing the work of leading while the rest just follow along

That's the theory! And, it works, as long as the critical-thinking leaders are well-intentioned, are acting in an environment that allows them to effect change, and are acting in the interest of a better future for all; rather than a narrower set of interests for a few.

>The tricky bit though, is that the people need a choice of leaders. So it becomes incumbent on people who do think critically and independently to offer themselves up as leaders

I think it's trickier than that!

Of course, there are would-be leaders who are eager to capitalize on this human shortcoming for their own gain. Entire systems (including our two-party political system here) are devised and manipulated to leverage the tendency of the masses not to engage in critical-thinking. The current "leaders" aren't so much leading the masses to a better future as promoting an agenda that tends to serve the relatively few constituents who paid their freight.

So, there's a bit of chicken-and-egg here. Those leaders who truly want to implement change rely upon the masses to buck the well-heeled narrower interests and push it through. But, those masses are distracted and not engaged sufficiently in critical-thinking.

In other words, there's a minimum level of thought and engagement required on the part of the masses. Otherwise, they are just as easily led (or misled) by the critical thinking "leaders" who have in mind their own self-interest as by those who want to lead them to a better future.

Yeah, would you like a list of several hundred things I believe I should be protesting?

I go a couple two protests or demonstrations each year (fewer than I should), but not one every day, which is what I'd have to do to hit every issue I care about.

If we had a single issue in this country/world, I think people would be dealing with it. But we have hundreds.

An even more charitable argument would be that people who care might happily put effort behind their convictions if a solution presented itself that had half a chance of working. There always seems to be at least one Gandhi/hippie wannabe in a discussion who thinks that a demonstration can magically solve any problem. This is foolishly simplistic and unconstructive.

And if you use the phrase "Take to the streets!" please be quiet while the big people are talking.

Exactly. This is called slacktivism. Which is also a major reason why none of these online petitions which require a simple mouse click and nothing more are not taken seriously by most folks.

As long as we have internet, we will be complacent. I believe the internet has fragmented our minds so far and wide that with it, nothing will ever get done. The internet is the worst invention of the 20th century. I wish the internet was regulated purely for education, not gaming, not buzzfeed, or facebook, or any such bullshit distractions.

If interests were kept local, issues would become local, and communities form. The internet allows us to pick and choose our own communities, so while we're together, we're further apart than ever. We'll never have a common localized goal.

If we live on the internet, we do our "activism" on the internet, our communications, our entertainment, everything.

Until either the internet dissolves or becomes regulated/boring, and/or the governments policies physically affect us, nothing will ever happen.

I remember as a young boy my Grandmothers only wishes her entire life was to dip her feet in the ocean and see a mountain in person.

Our desires became more contrived with the endless information stream we experience every day. There's no communities. There's no real passion or ideology anymore. Just cynicism, ego, competition, and sarcasm.

The internet lets you vicariously live through every body, and we lose that essence of what it means to be human, the passion to discover what is unknown.

Once you are exposed to how truly chaotic everything really is, that everything operates under the illusion of a master plan but is really just one headless blunder, you realize you are completely helpless and stop caring, You seek to drown out that underlying passion for something with bullshit because you don't know what it is, because you haven't given yourself the time of day to try until one day you're nothing but a sum of your plugs, like a swiss cheese without the cheese, just the holes, just a skeleton of who you should have otherwise been.

This is a very extreme point of view. Asserting that education is the only worthwhile use of the Internet is dogmatic and an unfair generalisation. Is entertainment and pleasure not a worthwhile and fundamentally human thing to pursue?

While I agree with your point of view that there is a lot of "bullshit", I don't believe it's for any one individual to control. You have to trust people to regulate their use.

Your post also states that all forms of entertainment are Internet-based, but this is simply untrue. What of people who read, cook, rock climb, play instruments. The list goes on.

Perhaps if your Grandmother had access to the Internet, she may be have been inspired by a "pointless bullshit" YouTube video to actually a climb a mountain, not just see one?

Additionally, you say that there aren't communities, but there are. Reddit, HN and many other sites connect thousands (and more) of people with similar interests, possibly more than could ever hope to meet in real life.

As I mentioned earlier, you have to trust people to regulate the balance of online and "offline" activity.

a) Yes it is, but when the never-endingness and unregulated internet is a thing, most people lack the self control to stop.

b) Nearly everybody I know wastes their time. I can’t find a single person who doesn’t go crazy on the internet. People are not to be trusted at the most basic level. They are duplicates of each other, consuming the easiest of material day in, day out, relaying it to each other, discussing it, embodying it. Questions like "what book did you read last?" and "discover any new albums recently?" do not exist in their universe. They have no concept of shame, only ego. If you asked them "why don't you read books?" the answer will be "because I'm not into books". The real reason is because they were distracted from the good things in life, to a point where the bar has been brought down so low that books become "hard" not "fun". Math becomes hard, doing anything exerting effort beyond consumption becomes hard.

c) Those are GOOD forms of entertainment. Reading false news, engaging in internet shit throwing, all things that don’t actively increase your “human capital” are detrimental.

d) I mentioned my grandmother and those simple goals precisely because she will never realize them or strive for them if she had internet, which she won’t, which is the whole premise of the hopes in the first place (meaning her situation is so bad that if she could enjoy even those simple pleasures everything would have been worth it).

e) That is literally my exact point, the fact these communities exist is awful, it dupes the mind into believing you are connected. You aren’t.

I don’t trust people at all until they give me a reason. We are all fundamentally scum. The only reason we aren’t is because infrastructure and quality of life fill our voids enough where we don’t rely on killing one another. Take a mans meals away for 3 days and he’s a different person.

We are fundamentally weak, and to break that curse it takes a lifelong journey of dedication and struggle. If you picture this journey on a timeline, the internet becomes a little hole early on in the journey, a booby trap of sorts.

I realize the irony in posting this, but HN is the only website I go on besides reading documentation directly related to my job + sideprojects.

Do you see where I'm going with this? The net effect of the internet is negative, not positive. You may say that everything is sped up, and everything is, but the side effect of that is that it made us shittier humans, not to each other, but just at being ourselves. Being comfortable in our own skin.

I find it hard to believe that the possibilities are purely negative, but I understand where you're coming from.

Coming back to the idea of personal connection and community - is this not connection right now? Yes, there are numerous things that a real-world connection has that are missing, but there is still a connection that allows two people to discuss their views. Nothing like real life, but still something, no?

Given that, would you agree that the Internet has increased the range of human experience at both the good and bad ends of the spectrum? As in, it has simultaneously increased an individual's options for both learning and connection (even if "virtual") but also indolency?

My personal take on the Internet and all the communication tools that sit on top of it are that they are just that, tools for communication. How people use those is up to them. And inevitably they will be used for both "valuable" and "invaluable". Value to one person is a waste of time to another, so judgement on what tools have "worth" ends up being a subjective personal view.

We are more connected than ever, but instead of in clusters, we're fragments of small communities existing within each other, unaware of each other.

If we can take a step back to before the negative/positive potential has taken effect on an individual, it exists purely in potential. It tilts either way with every click you make. You can endlessly consume garbage, or you can choose to grow yourself. The potential is there, but we don't grasp it for a variety of reasons, one of which is crap not being filtered.

The internet is like living in a society that has no rules. You wouldn't have the same conditions we're living in now in a lawless society.

I disagree. While there is no objective measure of "worth", you can quantify worth against any medium. If I asked you if buzzfeed had journalistic integrity, you'd most likely say no. Then I ask you why does it exist then? What would you say?

I see things like this as a mutation. A negative effect as a byproduct of not being filtered out. What that filter would be, or could be, I don't really have any idea.

Hm, we can all agree then that making an app for this and that won't change the world? Just don't tell Silicon Valley..

You can make money selling activism just as well as you can selling entrepreneurism.

Indeed. It took me over a year to get off Credo's mailing list. They even followed me to other addresses. I only stopped getting their ads in the mail after I moved overseas. No sense selling cut-rate "libwashed" cellphones to foreigners who can't use them, I guess.

But the people selling activism are not doing activism. Sorry.

The good news is, being an activist and being employed are not mutually exclusive! Activism is a way of life.

> Maybe that's just common in Canada.

You should visit Montreal :-)

The next "Earth day" (April 22nd) should probably be an interesting festive day.

c.f. student strikes, petrol pipeline opposition, charter protests, mining projects opposition, urban cyclists, mesh networks, etc. There is a very big disconnect electorally, and with the rest of the province, but under the rug a lot of changes are happening.

On the other side of things picture what happens if 100 million people sign a petition. Realistically if < 1 million people sign something like this it's a political non issue that can be safely ignored.

There are only around 300 million people in the U.S., around 230 million of which are of voting age, fewer still being actually eligible voters, and far fewer still who would understand or agree with the importance of this particular issue.

I can't quickly find the all-time most popular petition on the site, but I'd wager it's well under 1 million signatures, which is probably at least partly due to how quickly the uselessness of the petitions site became obvious.

True enough, but 300+ thousand people have physically traveled to DC for some protests. Getting ~3x as many people to just sign a petition is a much smaller hurdle.

Granted, these are just focused on getting a response so people don't waste a lot of effort 'running up the numbers'. Still, I suspect if you combine similar petitions you will see large numbers of people supporting things like legalizing pot.

I'm content with life, my ways have not been changed and I do not feel a threat, so I continue on with life. Only when my rights or way of life is altered will I voice or take action.

This is pretty much how the world is working.

> Because the truth is that people generally don't care enough to do anything worth while ("signing" a petition is pretty minimal in terms of effort).

Isn't the truth not that people don't care, but actually don't have the power to do anything?

Democracy in Athens came about at a time when it was dependent upon its navy and thus its thousands of rowers.

Unions (for example) are destroyed, not by union busting, but by industry disappearing.

When the government is the largest employer, the people depend on the government and not the other way around.

The US no longer depends on the majority of it's voting population. The right to vote of any adult in the US at this point is largely vestigial, as is evidenced by the divergence of actual government policy from the interests of the voting public.

The majority of the voting population are voting one way it appears. I'm an outsider, but it seems that the issue is that not enough people are voting.

Apologies if this is ill-informed, I'm an Australian so I'm quite possibly wrong.

They are voting the way they are meant to vote. PACs exist for a reason.

Also, why vote? When democracy emerged in the U.S., the voting population was about 800,000. The current voting population is 206,000,000. The power of an individual's vote has decreased immensely.

I use federal numbers because the federal government has most of the power now, as opposed to the states, in which an individual's vote is worth relatively more, but still massively less than it was at the time the constitution was written.

> why vote? When democracy emerged in the U.S., the voting population was about 800,000. The current voting population is 206,000,000. The power of an individual's vote has decreased immensely.

I agree that the power to change the outcome of an election is minimal, roughly equal to every other voter.

Voting does much more than change election outcomes; it signals the electorate's priorities. Win or lose, every vote from your neighborhood, district, town, county, etc. signals that people there care, and pressures elected officials to pay attention to them. Every vote for your issues, win or lose, signals your priorities. Your representatives' jobs depend on pleasing voters. Democrats elected in districts where people vote for gun rights are not going to push gun control in Congress (and vice versa for Republicans). Counties where 75% vote will get politicians' attention and have their issues addressed; those where 30% vote will be overlooked.

And every non-vote in your neighborhood, district, town, county, etc. tells your elected officials that you don't care and that they can safely ignore you.

If what voters thinks matters, why is so much money spent on campaigns? Answering my own question, I would say that it is because votes can be bought.

Who is more powerful? Someone with $10M to spend on a campaign, or someone with the best political thinking who has no money to spend on a campaign?

> If what voters thinks matters, why is so much money spent on campaigns?

Hmmm... The obvious answer is: To persuade voters to think your way. But I suspect I misunderstand the question.

> Who is more powerful? Someone with $10M to spend on a campaign, or someone with the best political thinking who has no money to spend on a campaign?

Clearly the former. With $10M, you can persuade many voters to agree with you. But since that fits with my above post, I think I'm missing your point.

In the end, however they are formed, it's still voters' opinions (and actions) that matter.

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