There’s a lot of people on here who are part of what I’d call losing causes, causes that run counter to the consumerist capitalist mono-culture, I.e. socialism, veganism, FOSS, anti-car urbanism, even lemmy and the fediverse.
I want to know what made you switch from being a sympathizer to an active participant. I believe it’s important for us to understand what methods work in getting people involved in a movement that may not have any immediate wins to motivate people to join.
EDIT: A lot of people objecting to my use of losing so I’ll explain more, all of these causes benefit from popularity and are weakened by there lack of adoption and are thus in direct competition with the capitalist consumerist mono-culture, a competition which they are currently losing.
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Socialism on a small scale cannot solve the inherent issues of a capitalism that surrounds it.
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Veganism benefits from more people becoming vegan and restaurants and grocery stores providing vegan options.
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FOSS, or more specifically desktop Linux, benefits from more people being on it and software developers designing for and maintaining applications for it.
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The more people that use transit, the more funding it gets and the better it gets.
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the fediverse benefits from more people veing on it and more diverse communities so those with niche interests besides the above causes can find community here.
On the flip side the capitalist consumerist alternatives to all of these benefit from there popularity and thus offer a better value to most people. The question is about what made you defer that better immediate material value in favor of something else.
How is (F)OSS a loosing cause?
Same for cars.
That may be true for car-centric countries/infrastructures like seemingly in the US (never was there. Only know what I read here) but Europe is not as dependant on the car.The world is fucked and nobody is going to win, all causes are losing causes. I might as well pick one that align with my principles so I die with some dignity
I’m a loser
I’m stubborn as shit and kind of a masochist.
Also in video games I like the adrenaline rush that comes with being on the losing side. Usually you just lose but sometimes you manage to do some badass shit and come out on top and that gives you one of the highest highs there is.
I’m a hipster.
I do what I want. Has someone really gone and fabricated a narrative where that is somehow losing? I cry for the “winners”
If you manage to convert just one or two others to the cause, it’s a win already. If not, at least you are not part of the problem.
And for many of the things you listed I see a lot of progress compared to even 10 years in the past. Slow but steady.
All the things you list are things people choose for other reasons than just “winning”.
People choose to be socialists because it’s morally right, not because it’s popular.
People choose Linux and open source software because it benefits them, not because it’s popular.
People choose veganism because it’s morally right and it benefits them, not because it’s popular.
When you say capitalist options offer “a better value” - that’s where you’re making a mistake. These alternatives do benefit people, individually, no matter how few other people join in. And that’s why people join them.
So if you want to motivate people to join a movement, show how it’ll benefit them to join - physically, emotionally, financially, or spiritually.
Minor addendum, historically arguments for socialism, at least from the Marxist viewpoint, have avoided the moral argument in favor of the scientific argument. The moral argument can be framed as perspective, the scientific argument cannot, and is much more solid. That doesn’t mean socialism isn’t morally correct, it is, it’s just also scientifically indisputably correct.
Id argue Linux is also the moral choice, or rather, the other two choices are immoral.
I understand people making choices despite popularity, it seems a lot of people here are of that category, I’m concerned with the people who are choosing not to join a cause because of its lack of popularity, leading to the issues mentioned above. I think this second group is a larger percentage of the population then the first group. I think we can agree that these causes gaining popularity is good, even though they can have value without popularity. So getting that second group into the cause would be good.
I think what your advocating is to just evangelize the benefits and then people will come. But I think there are a lot of people that even if I could explain every benefit of Linux, they’d still stay on windows citing one of the above benefits of popularity, same with a lot of the causes listed above. If we are to say evangelizing is the best/only method then we leave a lot of those people for which education is not enough.
I was looking for people who were at that point of being educated about a cause, but weighed it it less then those benefits of popularity and continued on in the capitalist consumerist system. Then maybe something else pushed those scales to the other side and they chose to join the cause. What was that experience? Was it having a child? Was it an experience with death, spiritual experience, revelation, drug trip, etc. I guess that’s the question.
I was looking for people who were at that point of being educated about a cause, but weighed it it less then those benefits of popularity and continued on in the capitalist consumerist system. Then maybe something else pushed those scales to the other side and they chose to join the cause. What was that experience? Was it having a child? Was it an experience with death, spiritual experience, revelation, drug trip, etc. I guess that’s the question.
I think education about a cause is a continuum, not a binary. When I changed from popular lifeways to less popular ones, it wasn’t because of a road to Damascus moment that made me suddenly change my mind. It was because, as I gradually learned more about a particular topic, I ultimately reached tipping point and decided the perceived benefits of switching to the less popular option outweighed the benefits of sticking with the popular option.
(And I’m using benefits in the broadest sense - being able to feel good about myself for doing the right thing is a benefit that outweighs mere physical or financial gain in a lot of cases.)
The other major factor in my switching, when I think back on it, was the capitalist alternative getting worse. I quit using Google’s search engine, for example, both because I learned more about online privacy and because Google’s searches were providing increasingly shitty results.
I kinda agree with you. Very often people with strong moral convictions (a good thing, in my opinion) believe that evangelizing alone is the only ‘valid’ approach, while popularity and convenience are seen as somehow ‘dirty’. But it is impossible to ignore the reality of how much people in their everyday lives want and need convenience. And when it comes to social media, popularity is inherently important, because people want to hang out where their real life friends hang out too. So convenience and popularity are a material necessity if a cause is not to be a losing cause.
I wouldn’t say Palestine is a losing cause. All the ones I listed are minoritarian, some in the low single digit percentage of people, especially in the US. A majority of people in the US and a large majority of the world want a ceasefire. It’s not failing due to lack of popular support, its failimg because a small minority of very powerful people really want this genocide.
A majority of people in the US and a large majority of the world want a ceasefire.
That is only a very recent development though. And “a ceasefire” is very different to an actual free Palestine anyway
thanks, johnny silverhand.
Sir or Madam, I’m a fan of the Cleveland Guardians and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Both of those are losing causes and will probably be forever.
Hope that the work we do will over time become the shade of a tree our grandkids will be able to enjoy.
I wouldn’t really consider any of those ‘losing causes.’
None of us have a crystal ball and know what the future will bring.
Because I’d rather be right than win. Nice to be both, but the former is a higher priority for me.
This answer goes hard. I guess stubbornness is needed in some cases.
Because it’s saving me craploads of money to bike instead of drive. Our city put in protected bike lanes. It’s faster and cheaper than driving in traffic in a state with $5.60 gas.
I still object to your definition of losing. Ethics diets are on the rise, and if Linux became less popular at any point that’s new information to me. I’d say we’re underdogs but things are going well.
As for actually answering, I think I just have a weird attachment to abstract conceptual correctness. Or rather, other people don’t seem to, and that’s why they can ignore things like animal welfare and creepy digital mega-corporations even if they know, on some level, that it’s inconsistent with their stated priorities and values.
