It was nice to see C S Lewis as a reminder we’ve kinda been here before.
One of the things which helped groups during the fight for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the US was Joanna Macy’s “despair work”, which was developed from individual grief work.
Joanna started in intelligence and has been facing X-risks and slow actions of governments with others since the 1970s, and built a network of people doing that, and she still does. She did a lot in Cernobyl, and did some of the earliest longtermism and deep time work on nuclear waste storage.
Her despair work has been adapted for climate change and rainforest protection, so I’m sure it could be adapted for AI and other Xrisks/Srisks too, and even tougher goals like achieving universal veganism, instituting rational policymaking or “dealing with parents” ;-)
It was nice to see C S Lewis as a reminder we’ve kinda been here before.
One of the things which helped groups during the fight for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the US was Joanna Macy’s “despair work”, which was developed from individual grief work.
Joanna started in intelligence and has been facing X-risks and slow actions of governments with others since the 1970s, and built a network of people doing that, and she still does. She did a lot in Cernobyl, and did some of the earliest longtermism and deep time work on nuclear waste storage.
Her despair work has been adapted for climate change and rainforest protection, so I’m sure it could be adapted for AI and other Xrisks/Srisks too, and even tougher goals like achieving universal veganism, instituting rational policymaking or “dealing with parents” ;-)
Trainers in despair work:
https://workthatreconnects.org/find-a-facilitator/, or ask me, or Dr Chris Johnstone for recommendations.
Trainer’s Manual for groups (recommended):
- Coming Back to Life, Joanna Macy
Books:
- Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age, Joanna Macy
- Active Hope, Chris Johnstone and Joanna Macy
More recent video:
(be ready to filter some of the 1970s vocabulary; they’re both confident with intense emotion)