Don’t invite people because “they’re part of the community” or “I want to make sure they’re not lonely”;
Yeah; “taking care that people are not lonely” can in a proper context be a valuable project in itself, but it usually doesn’t mix well with other projects, so you have to decide what kind of project are you going to do today.
For example, you could have a separate project of providing social opportunities for e.g. old people in your community. And that would be a great project. But in such project, you would clearly distinguish between the organizers and the target audience. Which does not mean that the old people can’t contribute to the project—for example, if an old lady offers to bring home-made cookies for the party, you would include her as a specialist organizers. But you would expect that in general the two groups are distinct. And more importantly, it wouldn’t create any negative feelings in you, because you would see that as how things are supposed to be.
On the other hand, when I e.g. organize a local LW meetup, it is very simple to make a mistake and assume that the target audience wants to (and should) become organizers at some moment. Maybe not all of them, but… well, more than zero would be nice, right? Nope, that’s an unrealistic assumption. There is no law saying that if you have dozen audience members, at least one of them must be an organizer in disguise.
Yeah; “taking care that people are not lonely” can in a proper context be a valuable project in itself, but it usually doesn’t mix well with other projects, so you have to decide what kind of project are you going to do today.
For example, you could have a separate project of providing social opportunities for e.g. old people in your community. And that would be a great project. But in such project, you would clearly distinguish between the organizers and the target audience. Which does not mean that the old people can’t contribute to the project—for example, if an old lady offers to bring home-made cookies for the party, you would include her as a specialist organizers. But you would expect that in general the two groups are distinct. And more importantly, it wouldn’t create any negative feelings in you, because you would see that as how things are supposed to be.
On the other hand, when I e.g. organize a local LW meetup, it is very simple to make a mistake and assume that the target audience wants to (and should) become organizers at some moment. Maybe not all of them, but… well, more than zero would be nice, right? Nope, that’s an unrealistic assumption. There is no law saying that if you have dozen audience members, at least one of them must be an organizer in disguise.