> Personally I'd like to get back to a world where the fate of civilization is not the responsibility of every individual to worry about on a daily basis.

It always has been every individual's responsibility.

What is different now is the loss of individual agency. People no longer believe that they can make a difference individually, nor do they believe that individuals can be actually be responsible for their actions.

Instead we are taught we are part of a system and that system determines outcomes we face in our lives. That we are not individuals, but belong to a group that defines how we think and how we act and it is not something we can escape from.

And what happens is that the only people in a position to do anything about solving any of our world's problems is the ones in central state government. That it is up to the government to free us or solve world hunger or save the environment or whatever else we think is the problem with society.

And the result of this is the loss of individual agency. We don't feel in control nor do we feel that we can make a difference. Instead we feel as if we are dependent on an external locus of control; politics.

So this compels people to obsess about politics. The only control we have over government is vote, but our individual vote doesn't matter. So to make a difference we need to "game" the system, forced to create narratives and convincing arguments and debates and stories to convince everybody else to agree with us.

However this 'external locus of control' we place in government is illusionary.

The government can't solve poverty, it can't fix the environment, it can't provide universal health care. All they can do is seize the wealth generated by the public and repurpose it to try to address those problems while causing a whole raft of other problems along the way.

The truth of the matter is that society is not defined by government. It doesn't work because of government and it never did.

Instead society is constructed through the individual relationships and voluntary associations people have with one another. The places you work, the churches people go to, the stores you shop at. Your friends, associates, and neighbors and, in turn the relationships those people have with everybody else. with everybody else. These casual and formal groupings and links that individuals create between them are the fabric in which society is constructed.

It is also the place where problems get solved. It is from this social fabric we get grocery stores, truck drivers, policemen, hospitals, plumbers, construction workers, and every other type of person, profession and jobs that goes into creating the resources on which human life depends.

So your personal responsibility for actually "doing something" and "changing the world for a better place" resides in your relationships with those people. How well you do your job. How well you take care of your family. How often you are willing to help out other people. The volunteer jobs you take. The financial aid you provide for other people and other initiatives.

You can tell you are doing a good job when you profit and other people profit from your existence among them.

Arguing on twitter and "taking up causes" online accomplishes nothing. It is not the signaling, or arguing, or showing solidarity or icon changing that provides any meaning. It is in the doing. It is the same now as it was 200 years ago.