# Some Complaint-Action Gaps

[This was previously a shortform post]

Sometimes I scroll social media (because I am yet weak) and I see rationalists raising Concerns about various news topics and current events. I am bothered by what appears to be a high ratio of (raising awareness) : (taking action).

To better articulate this, here is a list of some of the concerns I hear a lot lately. Each issue has a sublist of potential actions, starting with the least useful. I’m definitely interested in hearing better ideas too.

*   Our institutions are losing trustworthiness and competence
    *   Shout about the CDC on social media
    *   #GhostTheNYT
    *   [Try to understand what leads to institutional success/failure](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/R4FX6wDmppvZ2JqpB/where-do-did-stable-cooperative-institutions-come-from)
    *   Try to advance incentive-compatible systems and social tech that can scale[^1]
*   Freedom of speech is under attack! Gatekeepers! Reality czar! The Narrative!
    *   Take traditional political action
    *   Less twitter, more substack
    *   Research and post about the economics and logistics of running your own servers.
    *   Experiment with [ring signatures](https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs/RST01.pdf)?
*   Social media is harming mental health, undermining individual & group epistemics, and enabling horrible actions in meatspace
    *   Complain about it on social media in between dunking on your outgroup.
    *   Await humanity’s inexorable slide down the fitness gradients toward [memetic collapse](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9GEw3DfTz7Nop7ZM/has-there-been-a-memetic-collapse).
    *   Promote more group activities in your group house. Establish device-free zones.
    *   Coordinate to stigmatize doomscrolling, hate-reading, and [contempt addiction](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CpZmtD9FBzyzueGfP/in-addition-to-ragebait-and-doomscrolling). While we’re at it, let’s stigmatize [using Twitter at all](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ot7GYQ4chmezcA9Ju/predictions-for-future-dispositions-toward-twitter).
*   Large, free, liquid prediction markets cannot exist, supposedly due to the global influence of burdensome US trading regulations.
    *   Traditional political action
    *   Pay a competent YouTuber to make a really good explanatory video (series) about prediction markets.
    *   Write a postmortem on [Augur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augur_(software)) to help similar endeavors in the future avoid the same pitfalls
    *   Research and post about why prediction markets haven’t gotten big even where regulation is looser
    *   Start up a competitor to [Kalshi](https://kalshi.com/), and launch before they do
*   Ongoing Uighur atrocity
    *   Share an article about it once in a while
    *   Take traditional political action, push for substantial international response
    *   Make fewer purchases from companies that profit from the abuse of Uighurs

[^1]: See Vitalik Buterin: [Credible Neutrality](https://nakamoto.com/credible-neutrality/), [Legitimacy](https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html), [Change The Incentives, Change The World](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2017/06/16/vitalik-buterin/change-incentives-change-world)