I’ve since learned that overly online keyboard warriors are the least important people to convince. The most important people are on your local city council or state legislature. Furthermore, instead of wasting time with hard cases or elected officials who are dead-set against your ideas, you’re much better off finding and working with people who are already interested in your principles. This often means giving up on your own city or state, at least for the time being, and pursuing a “succeed anywhere” strategy instead.
We're about to have a board vote eliminating single-family zoning (I expect us to win) and this rings extremely true about local politics. If you count "votes" in Facebook comments --- Facebook is where all our local politics happen --- you'd think this is the most contentious issue in the world. But in our last mayoral election, you'd draw the same conclusion about the race being tight, and in fact the progressive rinsed the moderate by a huge margin.
The same thing is very true of public meetings; the turnout for comment at those things is almost never representative of the area's median sentiment. "No" turns out for everything; "yes" rarely does.
I spend a lot of time in online arguments with opponents, on the theory that I'm not really writing to the person I'm arguing with but rather to everyone quietly reading comments. But it's almost certainly the case that the only conversations that have really mattered have been with electeds themselves.
> you’re much better off finding and working with people who are already interested in your principles
after five years in the trenches of local housing/urban policy in my city, this is my biggest takeaway. i don’t think i’ve ever even once changed someone’s mind who was a staunch NIMBY, even with a reputation as one of the most accessible and persuasive local policy advocates/writers. but I have been able to build coalitions of hundreds of people by finding people who were already mostly with me, and just shifting them from inactive->active.
there’s also a lot of power in the energy of building for the future. when we passed our big SFH elimination ordinance two years ago, we had a packed city council meeting that, numerically, had 50/50 of residents speaking for/against. but for the city council, watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously.
> watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously
"Yes you worked your whole life for that house that you carefully chose and maintained, but we want to send its value through the floor because we're more powerful".
When I was fresh out of college, I got the advice to invest a part of my salary in bonds and stocks.
I luckily stumbled upon a good pick and basically a month's salary showed up on my account overnight. It's been a puzzling occurence morally speaking, that I gained so much money by essentially doing nothing.
While I certainly didn't mind the money and still don't I'm puzzled by the 'rich people' who inevitably show up in every discussion claiming 'dammit I worked for what I have with sweat and blood, while freeloaders and parasites loafed about! I deserve every penny I have'.
No you didn't (I didn't either), please shut up. I worked hard for a lot of stuff I cherish that made me very little money, and the place I own went up a lot in value, to which I had zero contribution.
Land is a little different from shares because you can meaningful affect the value of your land by spending your life improving your community if everyone else does too. You can be a good neighbour much more easily than a good shareholder.
I picked up some rubbish from the street on my way home yesterday. That act probably raised all our property values by some microscopic fraction of a cent. Then global macroeconomic conditions affected the property value by a huge amount more. It would be incorrect to attribute any gains to picking up rubbish, but it would be a very understandable human mistake, I think.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
We're about to have a board vote eliminating single-family zoning (I expect us to win) and this rings extremely true about local politics. If you count "votes" in Facebook comments --- Facebook is where all our local politics happen --- you'd think this is the most contentious issue in the world. But in our last mayoral election, you'd draw the same conclusion about the race being tight, and in fact the progressive rinsed the moderate by a huge margin.
The same thing is very true of public meetings; the turnout for comment at those things is almost never representative of the area's median sentiment. "No" turns out for everything; "yes" rarely does.
I spend a lot of time in online arguments with opponents, on the theory that I'm not really writing to the person I'm arguing with but rather to everyone quietly reading comments. But it's almost certainly the case that the only conversations that have really mattered have been with electeds themselves.
jakintosh · · focus · HN ↗
after five years in the trenches of local housing/urban policy in my city, this is my biggest takeaway. i don’t think i’ve ever even once changed someone’s mind who was a staunch NIMBY, even with a reputation as one of the most accessible and persuasive local policy advocates/writers. but I have been able to build coalitions of hundreds of people by finding people who were already mostly with me, and just shifting them from inactive->active.
there’s also a lot of power in the energy of building for the future. when we passed our big SFH elimination ordinance two years ago, we had a packed city council meeting that, numerically, had 50/50 of residents speaking for/against. but for the city council, watching a parade of retirees 65+ come up and say the same thing over and over again (“i’m not sure this is right for our city”) vs an equal sized but diverse group of people of all ages and life stages speak about all of their different housing needs and dreams for the future, the weight in the room was overwhelmingly in favor; the new zoning passed unanimously.
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
"Yes you worked your whole life for that house that you carefully chose and maintained, but we want to send its value through the floor because we're more powerful".
ahtihn · · focus · HN ↗
What did you do to deserve the massive raise in value of land since you bought that house besides buying early?
torginus · · focus · HN ↗
I luckily stumbled upon a good pick and basically a month's salary showed up on my account overnight. It's been a puzzling occurence morally speaking, that I gained so much money by essentially doing nothing.
While I certainly didn't mind the money and still don't I'm puzzled by the 'rich people' who inevitably show up in every discussion claiming 'dammit I worked for what I have with sweat and blood, while freeloaders and parasites loafed about! I deserve every penny I have'.
No you didn't (I didn't either), please shut up. I worked hard for a lot of stuff I cherish that made me very little money, and the place I own went up a lot in value, to which I had zero contribution.
strken · · focus · HN ↗
I picked up some rubbish from the street on my way home yesterday. That act probably raised all our property values by some microscopic fraction of a cent. Then global macroeconomic conditions affected the property value by a huge amount more. It would be incorrect to attribute any gains to picking up rubbish, but it would be a very understandable human mistake, I think.