I live in a single apartment building among hundreds of others in a city that is just one of thousands on a planet that is one of billions inside a galaxy that is one of trillions. Every single person I have ever met or interacted with in any way is comfortably less than 0.0001% of the human population.
Meanwhile, our entire life exists within a tiny moment of time and space. Within my single city we have people going hungry, underfunded schools, corrupt politicians, racist police, public transit falling into disarray, and it goes on and on. To function, we must have a process for deciding which problems to spend our time thinking about and which to let slip away. The simplest process is:
Can this thing plausibly impact my life?
Can I influence the outcome?
The answer to both questions must be yes, or the problem does not pass the test. It may be objectively a utilitarian problem, it may be a problem for others for whom it does pass their test, but it is not a problem for our tiny sphere of existence to be concerned with.
Imagine that a planet-destroying meteor is on a crash collision course with Earth in one year’s time. Clearly, this impacts our life- but just as clearly, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We acknowledge the problem but then move on- make the most of your last year and don’t waste precious time stressing over something you can’t control. On the other hand, the 2020 pandemic is an obvious yes to both questions. Not only did this have immediate implications for everyone on the planet, but your decisions at the time had a significant impact on your life prospects. This was a problem worth spending time on!
In politics, much is made about how poor voter turnout is. In the 2024 American presidential election, there was 65% turnout1. But an even more incredible stat is that local elections average just 27% turnout2 despite being extremely relevant to most Americans’ lives.
Local governments are responsible for providing services critical to daily life. They oversee zoning decisions—which determine where you can live, work, and shop—along with housing services, parks, libraries, fire departments, law enforcement, emergency medical services, public transportation, road maintenance, trash collection, utilities, and more.3
What does our process have to say about this? Well, it’s not wrong to care about national elections. But it is wrong to care about them more than your local elections, where your vote counts for more and in many cases the direct impact on your life is even greater.
Stay local, not global. The closer the problems are to your life, the more focus they deserve. It would be better to spend your time wondering whether or not to continue eating seed oils (which passes the test) than it would be to stress over the chances of an extermination meteor.