Is It Proveable & Doable?
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“99% of what passes for news is of the nature that the average person can do nothing about. There was a time when the purpose of information was to solve specific problems in the environent, people sought information because they needed it to do something in the world. We’ve become inundated with information from all over, mostly input with no output from us. We can watch a murder on television or something as lurid and awful and continue to eat our chicken sandwich. We’re not invited to do anything here. This may have created a sense of impotence. If you’re constantly getting information about which you can do nothing, it can suggest that you are impotent. Maybe this accounts for a surprising indifference people have for toxicity in the physical environment. Wouldn’t people be interested in warming or rainforests? Its possible that we’ve become conditioned to think information has nothing to do with us, its just a kind of commodity. We need to convert information into knowledge.” —Naked Ape to Superspecies with David Suzuki |
There are a lot of things competing for our attention. It is helpful to apply 3 simple tests to any matter:
- Is it important? Does it really matter and make a difference in people's lives?
- Is it proveable? Can you expain it to anyone, substantiate it with hard evidence and defend it against criticism?
- Is it doable? Can you do something about it or persuade someone to help you?
There are a lot of things we could pay attention to. If we focus on what matters most, we can make the most of the energy we've got.
This becomes relavent when you are choosing issues.
We are generally trained to just accept ideas and suggestions that we pick up from the world without preforming this kind of personal analysis. When you hear about a new issue that you are considering campaigning for make sure that you consider these three points.
Is this issue really important to yourself and the world around you? Can this issue be explained and it's importance proven to any non-initiated person? Can you practically get something DONE about this issue or will you just be spinning your wheels forever?
Asking these kinds of questions will help prevent against focusing on ideas and campaigns that you can't do anything for. It will also ensure against accidently focusing on non-important issues or issues with very limited scope.
When an idea first presents itself to an empowered individual and tickles their initial fancy they must try and decide if they can inspire others to feel the same about the same idea. As you attempt to hammer an idea down into talking points you also ensure that the issue really does make sense by trying to figure out what counterpoints will exist for each segment of said issue.