As I read this, the Sword of Good screams in my head. I cannot think for the noise. Something must be done. I must do… something.
I am aware of steps I could take, that would fulfill parts of what is needed.
I could seek the right question to ask. Say it clearly and publicly enough to spark truly useful debate. Trust in our virtue and reason to converge on the right actions. It would not be enough.
I could start holding court with my closest friends. Build the charter of our greater values, and live them unflinchingly one evening at a time. It would not be enough.
I could set my ruthless ambition to tear down or force out the institutions I see standing in the way of progress. In the power void, other seeds would have a chance to grow. It would not be enough.
I’m glad this rang true enough to trigger the Sword of Good, but also worried that that mental state leads to burnout real fast, so I’m gonna offer my current best read of the strategic situation and feasible next actions. This is just my impression, and should not displace a model or plan that you yourself think is better.
The key bottleneck we face right now is common knowledge. Once we have a sense of what the problems are, and how prevalent they are, and how many people in our communities are affected by them, etc., we can begin to consider solutions. (Until then, maybe hold off.)
Right now, that’s hard to do, in part because a lot of people are worried they’ll be socially slapped down for talking about this, that people will dismiss them as too stupid to understand gains from trade or something, or monstrously selfish not to be spending all their time thinking about developing-world deaths or the far future. And this worry of social censure is not entirely unjustified, but we do live in a time of nearly unprecedented safety and freedom of speech, so that’s basically the worst that’s likely to happen. (If you’re wielding the Sword of Good, that carries a major bonus to social courage, which gives you an absolute advantage at speaking up despite implicit social pressure not to.)
How do you do this? One way is, when you see someone articulate unaddressed problems in a way that seems important, publicly affirm which parts seem accurate to you, which parts you have personal experience with, etc. Extend on things that you think are incomplete, share your perspective. And, of course—since we want to get an accurate picture of what’s going on, not just a compelling one—talk about what seems wrong too, if anything seems substantially off.
Don’t worry about being maximally defensible—just report your honest impression, as your impression, and see what happens.
If you want to do more, you could take a page from early second-wave feminists and try organizing a consciousness-raising meeting. A venue for people to simply talk about what they see in relevant domains, how stuff affects them. Framing this will take some work, and you might have to iterate a few times before you find a thing that actually helps with information-sharing but I suspect it’s worth it for someone to do, and I’m happy to try to help.
Not every problem will be politically on topic, and that’s fine. Arguments aren’t soldiers, they’re intelligence assets. Sometimes there won’t be a systemic cause demanding a systemic solution. Sometimes someone else in the group will have an easy fix. If so—great! But sometimes they won’t, and other people with the same problem will know they’re not alone.
This isn’t a complete answer, but we can’t really plan until we have good intel—and we’re in the dark. The good news is, we don’t actually know that we’re in a direct confrontation with the forces of Evil—just the forces of Darkness, which can be vanquished by turning on the lights. Let’s find out what’s going on.
As I read this, the Sword of Good screams in my head. I cannot think for the noise. Something must be done. I must do… something.
I am aware of steps I could take, that would fulfill parts of what is needed.
I could seek the right question to ask. Say it clearly and publicly enough to spark truly useful debate. Trust in our virtue and reason to converge on the right actions. It would not be enough.
I could start holding court with my closest friends. Build the charter of our greater values, and live them unflinchingly one evening at a time. It would not be enough.
I could set my ruthless ambition to tear down or force out the institutions I see standing in the way of progress. In the power void, other seeds would have a chance to grow. It would not be enough.
(This is my Lo Dayenu.)
What do I do?
I’m glad this rang true enough to trigger the Sword of Good, but also worried that that mental state leads to burnout real fast, so I’m gonna offer my current best read of the strategic situation and feasible next actions. This is just my impression, and should not displace a model or plan that you yourself think is better.
The key bottleneck we face right now is common knowledge. Once we have a sense of what the problems are, and how prevalent they are, and how many people in our communities are affected by them, etc., we can begin to consider solutions. (Until then, maybe hold off.)
Right now, that’s hard to do, in part because a lot of people are worried they’ll be socially slapped down for talking about this, that people will dismiss them as too stupid to understand gains from trade or something, or monstrously selfish not to be spending all their time thinking about developing-world deaths or the far future. And this worry of social censure is not entirely unjustified, but we do live in a time of nearly unprecedented safety and freedom of speech, so that’s basically the worst that’s likely to happen. (If you’re wielding the Sword of Good, that carries a major bonus to social courage, which gives you an absolute advantage at speaking up despite implicit social pressure not to.)
How do you do this? One way is, when you see someone articulate unaddressed problems in a way that seems important, publicly affirm which parts seem accurate to you, which parts you have personal experience with, etc. Extend on things that you think are incomplete, share your perspective. And, of course—since we want to get an accurate picture of what’s going on, not just a compelling one—talk about what seems wrong too, if anything seems substantially off.
Don’t worry about being maximally defensible—just report your honest impression, as your impression, and see what happens.
If you want to do more, you could take a page from early second-wave feminists and try organizing a consciousness-raising meeting. A venue for people to simply talk about what they see in relevant domains, how stuff affects them. Framing this will take some work, and you might have to iterate a few times before you find a thing that actually helps with information-sharing but I suspect it’s worth it for someone to do, and I’m happy to try to help.
Not every problem will be politically on topic, and that’s fine. Arguments aren’t soldiers, they’re intelligence assets. Sometimes there won’t be a systemic cause demanding a systemic solution. Sometimes someone else in the group will have an easy fix. If so—great! But sometimes they won’t, and other people with the same problem will know they’re not alone.
This isn’t a complete answer, but we can’t really plan until we have good intel—and we’re in the dark. The good news is, we don’t actually know that we’re in a direct confrontation with the forces of Evil—just the forces of Darkness, which can be vanquished by turning on the lights. Let’s find out what’s going on.