This is reminding me of something I heard about, but don’t know how to find—a resource about informal but legal methods of hacking the government.
The example (and the only bit I remember) was about a woman who had an issue she couldn’t get noticed by her local government. Then she got advice from someone who noticed that a politician who could affect the issue was in an uncontested election. So the woman with the issue signed up to be the opposition from the other party. The politician called her and said, “What do you want?” The woman has been active in politics ever since.
The example (and the only bit I remember) was about a woman who had an issue she couldn’t get noticed by her local government.
How to interface with your local government depends a lot of knowing how your local government works. For Berlin I can tell you where you can go if you want to talk with the politicians that matter about an issue but the same solution might be totally different for another location.
I’m sure there’s a lot of local variation, but perhaps stories of finding out whet’s possible would make people more likely to believe that they can find out what they need to do rather that seeing government as an incomprehensible immovable blob. It would also be worth having an estimate of how much time and effort is likely to be needed to get a change.
It would also be worth having an estimate of how much time and effort is likely to be needed to get a change.
I don’t think either time and effort are central. If the change you want to propose is something that sounds good to politicians but that politicians simply haven’t thought about because they are to stupid to come up themselves with an idea or they lack the domain knowledge, very little time investment and effort can have an effect.
If you want to create a change where there are strong reasons for the status quo for which you are oblivious, you can spend a lot of time and effort and will get nowhere. Getting a politician who spend a lot of time thinking about an issue to change his opinion if you don’t really understand the issue is really hard.
A lot of activists make the mistake of assuming that they know the optimal course of action and it’s just a matter of putting energy behind that course of action.
On the other hand a discussion with a politician in which both sides are open to change their opinion is more likely to achieve something.
I remember someone at my toastmasters club giving a speech on a local political issue. He was gathering signatures about that issue. Basically he wanted a decision that the government isn’t allowed to do X.
After his talk I asked him, isn’t example Y which is what our government usually does these days when they do X, a good idea?
His basic response was: I didn’t know that Y was an instance of X.
That kind of political activism is rather typical. A bunch of people who don’t understand an issue get together and think they know better and then they try to lobby to get a change. Their emotional attachment to the issue makes them mind-killed. Then they mostly get ignored and complain that politicians aren’t listening.
This is reminding me of something I heard about, but don’t know how to find—a resource about informal but legal methods of hacking the government.
The example (and the only bit I remember) was about a woman who had an issue she couldn’t get noticed by her local government. Then she got advice from someone who noticed that a politician who could affect the issue was in an uncontested election. So the woman with the issue signed up to be the opposition from the other party. The politician called her and said, “What do you want?” The woman has been active in politics ever since.
How to interface with your local government depends a lot of knowing how your local government works. For Berlin I can tell you where you can go if you want to talk with the politicians that matter about an issue but the same solution might be totally different for another location.
I’m sure there’s a lot of local variation, but perhaps stories of finding out whet’s possible would make people more likely to believe that they can find out what they need to do rather that seeing government as an incomprehensible immovable blob. It would also be worth having an estimate of how much time and effort is likely to be needed to get a change.
I don’t think either time and effort are central. If the change you want to propose is something that sounds good to politicians but that politicians simply haven’t thought about because they are to stupid to come up themselves with an idea or they lack the domain knowledge, very little time investment and effort can have an effect.
If you want to create a change where there are strong reasons for the status quo for which you are oblivious, you can spend a lot of time and effort and will get nowhere. Getting a politician who spend a lot of time thinking about an issue to change his opinion if you don’t really understand the issue is really hard.
A lot of activists make the mistake of assuming that they know the optimal course of action and it’s just a matter of putting energy behind that course of action. On the other hand a discussion with a politician in which both sides are open to change their opinion is more likely to achieve something.
I remember someone at my toastmasters club giving a speech on a local political issue. He was gathering signatures about that issue. Basically he wanted a decision that the government isn’t allowed to do X. After his talk I asked him, isn’t example Y which is what our government usually does these days when they do X, a good idea? His basic response was: I didn’t know that Y was an instance of X.
That kind of political activism is rather typical. A bunch of people who don’t understand an issue get together and think they know better and then they try to lobby to get a change. Their emotional attachment to the issue makes them mind-killed. Then they mostly get ignored and complain that politicians aren’t listening.
I think Ryan Holiday’s post on analysing issues is right on the mark.