Let’s say a bunch of friends hang around a beach on the weekends. There isn’t food there and they wish there were. It’s really easy to become the person who brings a cooler of goodies and some veggie hot dogs to grill.
The Berkeley community is like a beach that already has a really good taco truck. Sure, maybe it’d be nice if there was another food truck down the beach a ways, or with a different type of food, but food isn’t really NEEDED in the same way. The low hanging fruit is taken. It’s harder to establish a brand new thing when there’s a pre-existing thing. And maybe the person running the taco truck would like to step down, but it’s a lot bigger ask to hand off running a fully licensed taco truck, than bringing some goodies in a cooler.
I think this metaphor is absolutely true, and the emphasis on doing The Most Optimal Thing makes it worse.
However on the literal axes of “can you low-effort create value by providing a few snacks?” this was, at least for a while, extremely available. When I started volunteering to be the snack person post-covid, people were overjoyed to give me money to make this happen. When I offered someone the deal “it’ll be about $n, I’m getting what I think is good and I’m not providing receipts”, they were delighted (it ended up working out in their favor, since the other party I was doing that weekend was under-attended and the second party got the excess for free- but my impression is they would have been fine being fleeced on the deal, as long as food showed up at all).
OTOH, I’m not sure this is sustainable. At an event I provide food for monthly (where I’m paying for it, not just handling the shopping), the rate of kudos declined really quickly over the last six months. It went from many people being extremely appreciative, to a handful of people saying “oh hey, thanks for food”, even though the quality is improving as I learn. The core organizer of that event remains very appreciative so it’s not in jeopardy, but if that wasn’t present and the decline in kudos continued indefinitely, I can easily see myself getting fed up and stopping (I also expect it to plateau rather than crater).
I also feel I owe some karmic debt on this, because for years I was a pretty unappreciative party guest. I wasn’t awful, I didn’t make extra work for people, but I didn’t understand the amount of work inherent in running a party and so didn’t give others the recognition for it they deserved, a problem I expect is widespread.
So I think there is low-hanging fruit in the sense of “ways you can create value”, but much less so in the sense of “ways you can generate appreciation in others”.
Let’s say a bunch of friends hang around a beach on the weekends. There isn’t food there and they wish there were. It’s really easy to become the person who brings a cooler of goodies and some veggie hot dogs to grill.
The Berkeley community is like a beach that already has a really good taco truck. Sure, maybe it’d be nice if there was another food truck down the beach a ways, or with a different type of food, but food isn’t really NEEDED in the same way. The low hanging fruit is taken. It’s harder to establish a brand new thing when there’s a pre-existing thing. And maybe the person running the taco truck would like to step down, but it’s a lot bigger ask to hand off running a fully licensed taco truck, than bringing some goodies in a cooler.
I think this metaphor is absolutely true, and the emphasis on doing The Most Optimal Thing makes it worse.
However on the literal axes of “can you low-effort create value by providing a few snacks?” this was, at least for a while, extremely available. When I started volunteering to be the snack person post-covid, people were overjoyed to give me money to make this happen. When I offered someone the deal “it’ll be about $n, I’m getting what I think is good and I’m not providing receipts”, they were delighted (it ended up working out in their favor, since the other party I was doing that weekend was under-attended and the second party got the excess for free- but my impression is they would have been fine being fleeced on the deal, as long as food showed up at all).
OTOH, I’m not sure this is sustainable. At an event I provide food for monthly (where I’m paying for it, not just handling the shopping), the rate of kudos declined really quickly over the last six months. It went from many people being extremely appreciative, to a handful of people saying “oh hey, thanks for food”, even though the quality is improving as I learn. The core organizer of that event remains very appreciative so it’s not in jeopardy, but if that wasn’t present and the decline in kudos continued indefinitely, I can easily see myself getting fed up and stopping (I also expect it to plateau rather than crater).
I also feel I owe some karmic debt on this, because for years I was a pretty unappreciative party guest. I wasn’t awful, I didn’t make extra work for people, but I didn’t understand the amount of work inherent in running a party and so didn’t give others the recognition for it they deserved, a problem I expect is widespread.
So I think there is low-hanging fruit in the sense of “ways you can create value”, but much less so in the sense of “ways you can generate appreciation in others”.