On: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

[thatfrenchguy]

But they also are a cop out to not solve the real problem.

If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit, you don’t solve the college debt and education accessibility problem, but it makes people who did it feel better.

[cardiffspaceman → thatfrenchguy]

> If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit

Or pay someone to plant a tree when you fly to offset the carbon.

[ghettoimp → thatfrenchguy]

Is it not... something?

One could always not give tuition money to a few poor kids. That fails to solve anything too.

I really dislike the knee-jerk, blanket dismissal of people who are trying to do small but good things.

"If nothing we do matters then the only thing that matters is what we do." - Joss Whedon

[AnthonyMouse → ghettoimp]

> Is it not... something?

Basically, it isn't. The theory that everyone should do a little bit is based on the idea that if 1000 people each solve 0.1% of the problem then we solve 100% of the problem. Which in general isn't a bad idea.

The problem comes when somebody tries to sell it with bad math. Because then you have a hundred million people each solving one trillionth of the problem, which accomplishes effectively nothing. And worse than nothing, because then you have a hundred million people each thinking they've done their part and no further action is required, even though no one has made the slightest dent in the actual problem.