Our Bizarre World: Everybody Thinks THEIR Idea is Better!
Doesn't matter where you turn, the world is filled with people who think KNOW they have "a better way" to do things.
Homeowners' Associations, City Councils, Facebook, Hive, your local stamp collecting club, parenting, school boards... the venues may be different, but the show is almost invariably the same.
Well, with very few exceptions.
Problem being that most of these "better ways" are presented through the filter of a certain type of "cognitive myopia" in which the person who has whatever "better idea" is on the table at the moment operates under the delusion illusion that that "clearly" everybody else in the world thinks like them and wants the same thing as them.
And those who step up and suggest that the proffered idea actually won't work — or be very effective or practical — are immediately branded as "obviously idiots" because they don't immediately embrace and bow down to the "better idea" being presented.
Hence the world is filled with everything from petty skirmishes to multinational wars...
... all of which (sadly) seems to simply be part of what we might call human nature because only a tiny minority of the world will reflect and then admit that perhaps their idea wasn't so great, after all.
When it comes to things like organizations and communities, I have witnessed literally dozens of splinter groups break off from a larger group to create something centered on their particular "better ideas" with the almost invariable two-part result:
One, they experience the momentary joy of having created something that's finally exactly as they envisioned and wanted, followed by...
Two, the bitter pill they get to swallow upon realizing that only a very tiny minority actually wants what they had to offer. A "soft" way of saying that the allegedly "better idea" — when put to the acid test of functional and tangible application — is actually a royal and dismal failure and suck-fest.
Hive is actually one of those very rare exceptions where the "breakaway" surpassed the "original."
Regardless, in the vast majority of examples, I invariably come back to looking at the old truism that "you can't make everyone happy, all the time." At best, you can make some of the people, somewhat happy, some of the time.
That is... unless you are perfectly content to have a "community of ONE," namely yourself. Or maybe you and your five best friends. And maybe there are those — typically they are "legends in their own minds" — who'd be OK, with that. Only problem being that they tend to start whining and crying because they no longer have the "benefit of numbers" that comes with a larger group.
Which leaves me pondering: Is what you created really a "community?"
You can infer what you want from this post... or not. The pattern tends to be pretty universally applicable... which — I realize — is also why I have always had close to zero desire to be "in charge" of anything, nor to be any kind of "change agent."
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
What do YOU think? Do you have any experience with "splinter groups?" Have you mostly seen them FAIL... or SUCCEED? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20220621 00:52 PDT
0595/1841
Hive is definitely the exception, but I think it's because the people who made Steemit a community were ostracized, and the digital world lets us rebuild more easily. We're the ones who made Steemit work in the first place.
This issue of "my way or the highway" zero-sum game is a consequence of how we structure our politics. We don't have this kind of dispute over what car you should buy, what shoes you should wear, or what music you should listen to when my choice does not impose on you. Our vaunted "democratic" process does make that into a problem every time it is used, from the homeowner's association to the UN.
What you say is definitely true, and in our particular case we had a "common enemy" we were working to get away from so a lot of differences were set aside to focus on building an alternative.
I think the situation in the US is exacerbated by the fact that we have (effectively) a two-party political system. "Them... or us." In such a binary system there is little incentive for cooperation and reaching for resolutions... unlike multi-party systems where you have to negotiate and compromise in order to form a majority coalition. But "either-or" thinking runs throughout US culture... it was a thing I first noticed in sports when I arrived here... football, baseball, whatever games don't end in a draw; I came from soccer in the rest of the world where a draw is typically an acceptable outcome. We have been trained to REQUIRE a "winner" and a "loser."
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STOPThe people who don't want any responsibility should be forced to be in power... (Except me of course because I make some very cryptic art that is very important for world peace). The ones that actually are attracted to power are seldom any good.
So you will have to be president of the US now... and lead ideologist of Hive.
Conversely, the people who could do a good job of running things typically want no part of it because it's an insane shitshow!
Yes, power might not corrupt, but it certainly attract the corrupt.