i’m a bit too lazy to look up the exact quote or source but it goes something like, the reasonable person adapts themselves to the world, while the unreasonable person adapts the world to themselves. all progress depends on unreasonable people.
am i being unreasonable to want inat to adapt to my preferences? here’s a quote that’s easy to find because i added it to the wikipedia entry on creative destruction…
But have you ever asked yourselves sufficiently how much the erection of every ideal on earth has cost? How much reality has had to be misunderstood and slandered, how many lies have had to be sanctified, how many consciences disturbed, how much “God” sacrificed every time? If a temple is to be erected a temple must be destroyed: that is the law – let anyone who can show me a case in which it is not fulfilled! – Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality
let’s say that i’m correct and inat should become a market where we can use our donations to improve the distribution of time and attention within the site. but for whatever reason, inat doesn’t adapt. so i save up my pennies and start a site basically just like inat, but it’s a market. my creation would destroy inat. well, this is how evolution works. kinda.
here’s something else i added to the same wikipedia entry…
In the Origin of Species, which was published in 1859, Charles Darwin wrote that the “extinction of old forms is the almost inevitable consequence of the production of new forms.” One notable exception to this rule is how the extinction of the dinosaurs facilitated the adaptive radiation of mammals. In this case creation was the consequence, rather than the cause, of destruction.
i can’t even remember how long ago i wrote that. must be easily more than a decade ago.
somebody can look at wikipedia or inaturalist and say, “look at what can be accomplished solely with intrinsic motivation!” my response is, i haven’t contributed to wikipedia in a very long time. and it’s not like i can show you my contributions which don’t exist, but would, if the correct extrinsic motivation had been used.