Kawoomba comments on Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yeah.
I feel like I have a duty before a community that I see massive potential in. To stand up for my values and denounce all the shit I hate here in an articulate, reasoned manner. But I'm very much not up to the task, and this makes me feel frustrated and miserable. And angry at my own impotence in the matter.
It'd be a big amount of work to even call out the most egregious shitty shit here on a regular basis, with some citations and explanations for why I did so. And it feels like people hardly even care.
I understand. However, there isn't some binary pass/fail criterion. This community can become incrementally better (obligatory "less wrong") or worse. Your contributions are helping steer it along a good path (ahem, usually).
If you've set extremely ambitious goals for yourself ("I will make this community live up to its full potential"), and those then stop you from pursuing more realistic milestones along that trajectory, then you've shot yourself in the foot:
The perfect is the enemy of the good, and all that. Compare "Can't stop world hunger altogether [assuming that's your ultimate objective], so I should stop donating anything towards that goal."
People care, at least more than we allow ourselves to think from within our protective cynical bubble.