Note: This is very much a work in progress. Comments welcome!

Ever hear the phrase “write your congressman?” Those sorts of actions I like to call “participating in the tide.” Combined, perhaps the millions of people who write with you will together make a difference, but not you specifically.

I would argue that, even for great inventions, most of the time we are participating in the tide, not shaping it. Look at, for example, Alexander Graham Bell. You might argue, “Of course he changed the world! Dude invented the telephone,” and by some definition, you’d be right. But when it comes down to it, the telephone was bound to be invented; there was even someone else inventing it at around the same time, and people argue over who was first.

If actions are individually insignificant, why should we as individuals care what we do?

1. Don’t give up on the tide: History is often changed by movements. The fact that our one contribution is small doesn’t change the fact that if all of our small contributions stopped, so would the world. Whether or not we want to do something more deliberate, being a part of the greater trend is important.

2. Point: This should make us feel better: We needn’t worry about changing the world or making a huge difference. Even if we don’t build a successful social networking service, someone will do it. Even if we don’t make solar power, someone else is still probably working on it.
And many of the more obscure, unique inventions that wouldn’t have flowed naturally out of a lab somewhere have become less important, their impact smoothed over by time and trend.

3. Counterpoint: What if it doesn’t: Perhaps we still have an urge to make a unique, individual difference? If so, then what?

1) Stop wanting: There are arguments not to try and shape society in such a non-inevitable manner. Stalin changed Russia, Kim Il Sung changed Korea, and certainly one way to change (short term, though likely not long term) history is to exert power. But history has not conclusively demonstrated that individuals who held this kind of world-shaping, not-likely-to-happen-on-its-own power have really made the world better, despite their best intentions. Perhaps it’s better just to participate in the tide and make sure we’re moving the world in the best way we can.

2) Work on ideas: A more powerful way to influence the world is through thought. Someone may have invented the press and changed the world if Gutenburg didn’t, but would someone have come up with Marxism, capitalism, or freedom of that press? I suspect for certain ideas, someone would have invented the term. But not all. Would we definitely have open source if no one coined it? An interesting question.

3) ???