This is a really good thing about @robinhanson’s style of activism that more people should emulate: he makes actual, novel, positive proposals. “We could do this, and here’s why it would be better than the status quo.” Right or wrong, it contributes new information.
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A *serious* proposal, even if it’s a rough draft, is written to and for the people you’re trying to recruit to do the thing. It says “here’s something you might want to do.” It’s constructive in that sense.
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If you’re writing about how the Establishment is bad, who are you writing to, and what are you teaching them or encouraging to do?
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You could be doing the “journalism” thing I mentioned earlier — informing people that their leaders screwed up. That’s good.
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Or you could be trying to change minds about a broader cultural attitude...which is what I’m constitutionally suspicious of.
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Telling people “you don’t think this yet but you Should” or “you won’t like this, but it’s true” is a dominance trick. It’s a neg. it plays on the fear of being criticized.
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“Only a [insert terrible name here] would disagree with me” is a rhetorical tactic for getting weak-minded people to passively go along with you. It’s not a way to attract competent people to actively buy in and help you.
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It’s kind of like — I find it skeevy to guilt-trip people into giving to charity. “You SHOULD be more generous.” The reality is, people are already pretty generous. You can provide donors *value* by offering them unusually good opportunities to help.
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“Put more effort/attention into MY favored project or I’ll withdraw my approval from you” is a song anyone can sing, and the loudest, nastiest voices are the best at it. I don’t think it’s a smart tactic for those whose causes are actually good.
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Yes, I admit I’m sensitive about this personally. I think shaming people for not being good enough causes a lot of toxic side-effects. I know sometimes the right thing to do *is* to try harder, but there are ways to encourage effort that install less malware, I think.
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Good exhortatory content makes doing a hard thing look necessary, exciting, and *doable by you*. Skip the last part and you just demotivate people.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
I suspect almost all the failures can be attributed to funding cuts over the years rather than incompetence. It is highly disingenuous of small government types to undermine state and international agency funding and then attribute failures to incompetence.
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Replying to @vgr @s_r_constantin
this argument makes sense for things like not having an adequate strategic national reserve, but it's difficult to see how the FDA making it illegal for local entities to create tests is a problem of inadequate funding or power
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