Political Memes

It's classic prisoner's dilemma from game theory. Will my participation matter against the millions of people who won't ever care? Realistically no. But participating will hurt me financially because it takes away a low-cost alternative. There's a ton of stuff I can't buy locally at any cost, or can but at a much higher cost. If I go buy these things on individual websites, I'll pay shipping, negating savings. So, why would I hurt myself financially to affect no change, when others will take advantage of the system without ever caring? It just gives them an advantage over me on an individual level. Even if I convinced 1,000 people to act like me, meaningful change to the system isn't affected, only weakening of our group. And honestly that means 1,000 people who have less resources to affect OTHER change with.

Prisoner's dilemma doesn't mean that the prisoners are bad or evil, it just means there are too many individuals acting in self-interest. We are too big a country. Too big a world population.

The solution is top-down, we have to elect leaders who then make rules we ALL abide by for our own benefit at the macro level. That's the only way problems of this scale can be changed anymore. And the systems themselves know this and factor it in, locking us out. Late stage capitalism is called "late stage" for a reason, it's too late for a cure.