Bret Devereaux of NC State has a good take on the activism part. From a pragmatic point of view, one can view activism as taking and spending from the account o

Bret Devereaux of NC State has a good take on the activism part. From a pragmatic point of view, one can view activism as taking and spending from the account of 'good-will'. That's fine, but you also have to fill that account as well. Typically, this is via some sort of outreach effort and speanding time in the community helping with some thing or another. The issue that Devereaux points out is that the income and outflow are asymmetric. You spend at a greater rate that you put in. So, for every hour/dollar/gadget/etc that you spend with activism, you must put in somewhere between 5-10X the outreach time/money/gadgets/etc.