I assume tragedy is referring to roughly that sort of statement, and inferring something about how the statement comes across or what it sounds like the person is imagining.
I think ‘the bay area should’ is a somewhat confused statement, or one that comes from a mistaken sense of what’s going on. And there’s a particular flavor of frustration that comes from thinking that there’s actually some entity that has the power to do stuff, which doesn’t exist, and I think if you properly understood that the entity doesn’t exist you’d do some combination of “redirecting your energy towards things that are more likely to fix the problem” or “realize that being frustrated in the particular way that you are isn’t actually helping.”
(where I think “things that might actually work” are “refactor your social environment into something that has boundaries and goals, and figure out how to be a leader.” The main problem is that the Bay Area is leadership bottlenecked, and that generally competent people are rare and the world is big, with many problems competing for their attention)
I actually think it’s quite useful to make a statement like “Man, it would be great if the community would.”
I think its’ a strawman to translate this to “I want the all powerful entity that runs the community to...”
And I think it stems from an attitude that “You shouldn’t complain about problems if you don’t have real solutions.”
Which seems wrong to me. People pointing out problems even when they don’t have solutions is useful. People pointing out better equilibria even if they don’t have plans to get there is also useful.
A lot of time this complaint seems to be hiding a deeper complaint which is “You pointing out problems without solutions makes me stressed and frustrated.”—Which is OK to state, but also I get this sense of like “OK, but that’s not really the person’s problem who pointed it out, learn to handle your own emotional reactions.”
Raemon is correct in surmising the thing I was pointing to.
mr-hire, I think both kinds of statements exist and I agree it can sometimes be useful to imagine what things a community as a group can do.
I wasn’t complaining about pointing-out-problems-without-solutions. Not everyone who makes “The community should . . .” statements are making a top down argument, but I think some are and I expect people thinking of entities in charge to become increasingly frustrated by the lack of top down coordination.
Recognizing the lack of top down coordination won’t solve the problems they care about immediately, but might allow them to feel less angry and/or pursue the thing they’re looking for in a different fashion.
I assume tragedy is referring to roughly that sort of statement, and inferring something about how the statement comes across or what it sounds like the person is imagining.
I think ‘the bay area should’ is a somewhat confused statement, or one that comes from a mistaken sense of what’s going on. And there’s a particular flavor of frustration that comes from thinking that there’s actually some entity that has the power to do stuff, which doesn’t exist, and I think if you properly understood that the entity doesn’t exist you’d do some combination of “redirecting your energy towards things that are more likely to fix the problem” or “realize that being frustrated in the particular way that you are isn’t actually helping.”
(where I think “things that might actually work” are “refactor your social environment into something that has boundaries and goals, and figure out how to be a leader.” The main problem is that the Bay Area is leadership bottlenecked, and that generally competent people are rare and the world is big, with many problems competing for their attention)
I actually think it’s quite useful to make a statement like “Man, it would be great if the community would.”
I think its’ a strawman to translate this to “I want the all powerful entity that runs the community to...”
And I think it stems from an attitude that “You shouldn’t complain about problems if you don’t have real solutions.”
Which seems wrong to me. People pointing out problems even when they don’t have solutions is useful. People pointing out better equilibria even if they don’t have plans to get there is also useful.
A lot of time this complaint seems to be hiding a deeper complaint which is “You pointing out problems without solutions makes me stressed and frustrated.”—Which is OK to state, but also I get this sense of like “OK, but that’s not really the person’s problem who pointed it out, learn to handle your own emotional reactions.”
Raemon is correct in surmising the thing I was pointing to.
mr-hire, I think both kinds of statements exist and I agree it can sometimes be useful to imagine what things a community as a group can do.
I wasn’t complaining about pointing-out-problems-without-solutions. Not everyone who makes “The community should . . .” statements are making a top down argument, but I think some are and I expect people thinking of entities in charge to become increasingly frustrated by the lack of top down coordination.
Recognizing the lack of top down coordination won’t solve the problems they care about immediately, but might allow them to feel less angry and/or pursue the thing they’re looking for in a different fashion.