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.
I know you phrased it as "losing" here, but it still made me think of that moment in Firefly when somebody refers to Mal having fought on the wrong side in a battle, and he says "May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
When a person has convictions and is put at a certain sort of fork in the road, they would rather do anything else before ever seeing themselves transform into the sort of person who would take one of those paths. Some would sell their souls to survive, and some know that their cause is worth several times more than their souls are worth, and the bill comes due at some point.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
I think you nailed it with the Firefly quote. I’ve always loved that one.
Even if our movements don’t succeed, I want to be able to say that I did my part and didn’t go down without a fight.