While I agree with you that these things should go without saying, I think I’m not so surprised that they don’t actually go without saying? In particular, I often notice that most of these things don’t seem to go without saying even for myself? There is obviously a good way of doing things, but (I assume ultimately because of something like a low opinion of one’s own competence, warranted or not), noticing that we’re doing something else instead is hard, and carefully tracking one’s impact is also hard. It is our job to do things better, but noticing that might come with eg. anxiety, beyond the fact that doing things better is in itself hard? Etc.
I kinda wish I wasn’t writing this: anyone reading this was most likely already aware of the point I’m making, and I don’t particularly feel proud of going “yes, motivating ourselves to become better and improve the world is awesome, but have you considered that sometimes it’s mildly inconvenient?”. Still: sometimes it is in fact difficult, and, in the examples that come most readily to my mind at least, the bulk of what makes it difficult is some kind of anxiety of not being competent enough, or something along these lines.
Hence the question: the content of this post, while obviously true, does not in fact always go without saying: how could we make it more likely that it goes without saying more often and for more people?
Thanks for this post, I found it very useful.
While I agree with you that these things should go without saying, I think I’m not so surprised that they don’t actually go without saying?
In particular, I often notice that most of these things don’t seem to go without saying even for myself? There is obviously a good way of doing things, but (I assume ultimately because of something like a low opinion of one’s own competence, warranted or not), noticing that we’re doing something else instead is hard, and carefully tracking one’s impact is also hard. It is our job to do things better, but noticing that might come with eg. anxiety, beyond the fact that doing things better is in itself hard? Etc.
I kinda wish I wasn’t writing this: anyone reading this was most likely already aware of the point I’m making, and I don’t particularly feel proud of going “yes, motivating ourselves to become better and improve the world is awesome, but have you considered that sometimes it’s mildly inconvenient?”. Still: sometimes it is in fact difficult, and, in the examples that come most readily to my mind at least, the bulk of what makes it difficult is some kind of anxiety of not being competent enough, or something along these lines.
Hence the question: the content of this post, while obviously true, does not in fact always go without saying: how could we make it more likely that it goes without saying more often and for more people?