the default way that people make their voices heard in politics these days is by stopping things or banning things or blocking things or slowing things down.
Maybe because it is easier to agree on a binary question (“should this be allowed or banned?”) than on an open-ended one (“something should be done—but what specifically?”). Give people a binary choice, and there is a chance that enough of them will agree. Give them an open-ended question, and most people will come with their own proposals, unwilling to support anyone else’s proposal (unless they are allowed to do large modifications, which other people will oppose).
(Here an individualistic culture probably makes it worse, because coming with your own proposal is high-status.)
I guess most people have this experience, so they don’t even try to make proposals to the public. Instead, if possible, they act alone, or with a small group of friends.
We can go around the neighborhood, show everybody the mockup and say, “Are you excited about us doing this to the park?” Then if we have a reasonable number of signatures on a petition, we get to build it.
I am often too pessimistic, but I would expect many people to say “no”, for reasons including “no specific reason, it just sounds suspicious to me: why you? why now? is this perhaps some kind of scam?” or “I will only agree if you update your proposal to include <my pet peeve, completely unrelated to the project>”, plus a few people saying “I don’t give a fuck, so I will vote ‘no’ in principle (maybe try to bribe me if you want my ‘yes’)”.
However, there are two situations near me where people somehow succeeded to build something for the community, so I should probably try to learn the details. In one case, it is a community garden: area between two garages was surrounded by a fence, and how there are tables and chairs, and about once in a month someone organizes some activities for kids there. In another case, in place of a former shop, a community center was set up. I think the latter is just one person’s activity who someone got grant money to rent the place (maybe also made a non-profit for that purpose) so I would still kinda classify that as a pro-social grant-supported unilateral action. No idea how the former may have succeeded.
BTW, you seem impressed by George Church very much, because you linked his page 3 times. :D
Maybe because it is easier to agree on a binary question (“should this be allowed or banned?”) than on an open-ended one (“something should be done—but what specifically?”). Give people a binary choice, and there is a chance that enough of them will agree. Give them an open-ended question, and most people will come with their own proposals, unwilling to support anyone else’s proposal (unless they are allowed to do large modifications, which other people will oppose).
(Here an individualistic culture probably makes it worse, because coming with your own proposal is high-status.)
I guess most people have this experience, so they don’t even try to make proposals to the public. Instead, if possible, they act alone, or with a small group of friends.
I am often too pessimistic, but I would expect many people to say “no”, for reasons including “no specific reason, it just sounds suspicious to me: why you? why now? is this perhaps some kind of scam?” or “I will only agree if you update your proposal to include <my pet peeve, completely unrelated to the project>”, plus a few people saying “I don’t give a fuck, so I will vote ‘no’ in principle (maybe try to bribe me if you want my ‘yes’)”.
However, there are two situations near me where people somehow succeeded to build something for the community, so I should probably try to learn the details. In one case, it is a community garden: area between two garages was surrounded by a fence, and how there are tables and chairs, and about once in a month someone organizes some activities for kids there. In another case, in place of a former shop, a community center was set up. I think the latter is just one person’s activity who someone got grant money to rent the place (maybe also made a non-profit for that purpose) so I would still kinda classify that as a pro-social grant-supported unilateral action. No idea how the former may have succeeded.
BTW, you seem impressed by George Church very much, because you linked his page 3 times. :D
thanks, fixed