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Ask HN: What can an engaged citizen do to contribute to the world?

6 points by samh748 ↗ HN
(Note: This is not a criticism-post although it might sound like it.)

What can an engaged citizen do to contribute to the world?

Sure, we can vote, we can protest (at least in North America), but what else can we do to help steer our society forward? What are some things that we, as ordinary people with bills to pay and mouths to feed, can do in our daily lives to contribute constructively towards positive social change?

Write a book? Make art? Make music?

Study science? Study culture? Research the world's problems? Innovate solutions?

Be a better parent, spouse, family member? A better boss, employee, colleague? A better friend, neighbor, stranger?

Listen more? Understand more? Love more? Take better care of yourself so you can be more present to the world and all the people in it?

These all sound great of course, but the key question is, of the ones that we can do, how do we make it significant and concrete enough to matter?

For example, how do we make actions like reading books and exchanging ideas on the internet non-trivial?

11 comments

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omardo
Great question. İ think first we should agree on a definition of better. I'll give the classical anti example of Nazi definition of "better" or good.

What i know that good or bad is up to our Creator, Lord.

Sure we can figure out few things by our own but our minds have a limit and we need an outside guide -- a manual for humans. Who can prescribe a better guide than our creator?

İ suggest that you read some Quran verses mentioning good and bad. Once you have solid guide, whatever good you do will be appreciated no matter big or small.

samh748
Genuine question: How do you pick which Creator is the true Creator? That is, there are so many religions/belief systems out there, how do we pick which one to follow?
omardo
Very good question. Unless there's a proof to a certain claim it should be dismissed. That's because anyone can claim their belief to be true.

I've done my own studying and proof checking for a couple of years on the Quran so far and i haven't found anything that suggest it would have been a human made book.

Even the English translation with its inaccuracies is unusually powerful. Lots of history, future predictions, biology descriptions and social system(s) that are either proved to be true, or hasn't been disproven yet.

Yet no human have claimed its authorship, unlike any other book out there which clearly mentions a human author or a human writer can be inferred.

samh748
That's fascinating. Thanks for that. Always happy to learn about other perspectives :)
CLPadvocate
what about just directly helping people in your local area, your neighborhood, your city? it may not change the world, but for these people it would mean a lot. i am living in Europe, currently there are refugees from the Ukraine coming to my country, so I help them to get registered, to find housing, to get some basic stuff, and just feel welcome in the new country. that may not sound like a lot, but if you're fleeing from the war and have lost everything, even a little bit counts.
pizza
Wherever you are, that's where the world is. Do what you think increases harmony while giving you some kind of flow. It's likely there are people right in your back yard who could use some help. All there is to remember to make sure you are increasing harmony (to a good approximation) is that people are ends in themselves, and not means to ends.
WaxedChewbacca
When people say there are problems with the world, they almost always really mean problems with the human world, i.e., bad behavior and suffering within the human realm. Well, the bricks of the human realm are made of humans. So if you want to make the human world better, you have to make humans better. And the one human you have the most control over is you. But it's rare to find an activist who has put in significant effort on themselves. We have a tendency to want to go out and fix things out there when really the most beneficial thing we could do is stop going out and start going in, fixing the problems within, stopping serving as a repeater and amplifier for harm and suffering.

If you want to work on yourself, this is the way I advocate: https://library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/the...

samh748
I definitely agree with this. Really appreciate your wisdom, as usual!

> it's rare to find an activist who has put in significant effort on themselves. We have a tendency to want to go out and fix things out there when really the most beneficial thing we could do is stop going out and start going in, fixing the problems within..

I see this all too often as well, and that's almost always why we have arguments that never reach consensus, because neither side wanted to change themselves.

_spduchamp
Electoral Reform. There is so much waste and hardship caused by our First-Past-The-Post electoral system, or any system delivers 100% power to a minority of votes. Most people living under this system don't even understand how problematic it is. Policy lurch, caused by alternating majority governments leads the undoing of policies, and that leads to further climate stalling. Find your local group working towards electoral reform. In Canada we have groups like Fair Vote Canada, and Unlock Democracy. Both amazing groups to support. This is where I put my efforts as it is the underpinning of longer lasting sustainable policy.