An important thought. What we tell ourselves needs to be true, or at least be believable, in order for us to take action. I tell myself that whether we reach such and such a goal in my lifetime, I want to have contributed to moving whatever tiny amount closer to the goal. It would be disappointing to me to not have tried to contribute something.

I like the Le Guin quote because it touches on that mental block to action, "Is trying to make change pointless?" On the one hand it is pointless, because we all die. On the other hand, it's possible to contribute to a multigenerational project.

Unfortunately there is no double blind studied alternative to capitalism that demonstrates without a doubt that it's statistically significantly better than capitalism as a system so I'm sorry to tell you that your children deserve to die because you're too poor, hope that helps

If you’re going to propose a communist paradise as an alternative to human-sacrificing Bronze Age god-kings, I’m going to call you out as being a little bit unrealistic. Government isn’t just an idea, it’s a technology, and it relies on other technologies (communication, record-keeping, organization) to function.

The kinship networks of pre-agrarian indigenous groups worked just fine when everyone knew each other. Where things started getting difficult is when agriculture paved the way for population explosions.