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.
Which is maddening, given how much damage these existing policies are doing, and how many other zeitgeist issues (homelessness, affordability, robust economic growth etc) are downstream of this.
I wonder if this movement needs a form of performative extremism somewhere (think bridges being forcibly closed for causes), so that then the mainstream notices the sensible compromise and pushes for it. The YIMBY's have never played Overton Window games, but maybe they need to hold their nose and play it.
> think bridges being forcibly closed for causes
Has irritating the Average Joe ever resulted in political support from Joe? I can't help but think that these guys sitting in front of traffic, forcing normal people to be late for work, are just doing damage to their own causes, in hopes of just getting some "visibility" to those causes. Yea, it's visible now--visible as something annoying and ultimately counterproductive.
On principle I usually vote against anyone who harms me, my life, or my family’s life. I’ve never accepted the claims that people who hold up traffic to “raise awareness” for global warming were effective. We’re all aware of the phenomenon now. You’re just being an asshole and throwing a tantrum because people aren’t voting like you want them to.
>I’ve never accepted the claims that people who hold up traffic to “raise awareness” for global warming were effective
Martin Luther King wrote an essay about people with this exact attitude called "the racism of the polite liberal"
There were obviously just as many people back then who thought his type of activism - e.g. blocking a freeway would never achieve any of his goals. They thought it was just annoying, even though it was successful.
I find it fascinating when people make the argument that the reason the civil rights movement succeeded was the harm done to society, and not because it was morally right. The implications of this claim are frightening, and can be used to justify all manner of violence for any and all political causes. Should someone wish to restrict abortion rights, they just need to sufficiently terrorise the nation to the degree that they get their way? I strongly disagree that that is how laws and rights work in a democracy.
I believe the civil rights movement succeeded in America because it was morally right. Not because black activists caused social harm.
What is morally right is a matter of public consensus, not a self-evident fact to those outside that moral context. Law is the expression of morality at a societal level. How do you propose changing the societal expression of the public consensus without making a nuisance of yourself?
The same way all progress is made in a democracy: dialogue. Violence and domination has been frequently used throughout history, but we no longer solve our differences that way. At least, I don’t want to live in such a society.
How do you convince white people to have a dialogue with you when you're black in the highly segregated and extremely racist society we had 60 years ago? How can you make them understand what you live when there is a legal policy of separation between you? I don't think you really understand what segregation and racism being accepted facts of society ("morally right" in the views of many whites at the time) or lynching being not an unheard-of barbaric act but a form of popular vigilantism punishing any kind of "miscegenation" or "uppity" attitudes really means. The fact that the civil rights movement was largely peaceful was a marvel when you look at the actual facts of the time, because the oppression of non-whites and retribution activists faced was certainly not peaceful.
> How do you convince white people to have a dialogue with you when you're black in the highly segregated and extremely racist society we had 60 years ago?
The vast majority of black and white people had reasonable dialogue all over the U.S. in the 60s. There were obviously places where racism prevailed to greater degrees, and I think the record reflects that dialogue was less successful there. Which is why they were forced at the federal level to desegregate. The reason that the laws were passed at the federal level was dialogue. Outreach, lobbying, fliers, marketing, campaigning. All the things which make democracy great.
Remember that the reason the Civil and Voting Rights Act(s) (and their amendments) passed in the 60s was because white people - the major and predominant voting bloc - believed they were morally right. Black people didn't terrorise white people isn't submission. That would have backfired spectacularly.
> Remember that the reason the Civil and Voting Rights Act(s) (and their amendments) passed in the 60s was because white people - the major and predominant voting bloc - believed they were morally right. Black people didn't terrorise white people isn't submission. That would have backfired spectacularly.
Civil disobedience is not terrorism. Conflating the two is highly problematic. Civil disobedience was a large part of the reason white people changed their views. Without courageous blacks standing up and protesting and making themselves heard and seen in public, most white people wouldn't have cared. The government and other influential groups tried to suppress the movement until they couldn't anymore, and then they caved. Acting as if they did so at the first moment because everybody recognized the moral correctness of equality is totally ahistorical and a whitewashing of history.
"Terrorised" and "terrorism" have different definitions. I'm disappointed that you would attempt to conflate the two in an attempt to refute an argument I didn't make.
If you believe that black people harming white people - whether by the use of force, preventing free movement, or any aphorism you would like to use - was a "large part of the reason white people changed their views" then I would like to see evidence of that. Force works in dictatorships but I don't think it's effective in democracies. Why would someone vote for a person who has materially harmed them or made their lives worse? Surely that would make it less likely to win a vote.
Civil rights wasn't decided by plebiscite - it was decided by elected representatives. They saw huge crowds gathering in support, tremendous amounts of dialogue about what and how and why activists were doing and what government was doing at various levels. The activists made some people temporarily angry by blocking traffic or violating their ideas about proper societal organization, but the TV and newspaper coverage reached many more and managed to convince enough of them speak up that the representatives went along with it. Of course dialogue was a huge part of this, but that dialogue wouldn't have existed on the same scale or been nearly as effective in bringing change if activists hadn't caused a big fuss in the first place.
If a child is bullied at school and suffers in silence, chances are they will continue being bullied. If they fight back or make a scene, a teacher is far more likely to take notice and possibly be convinced to correct the situation. The same principle is at play in most political movements. To get people to care, you have to make them pay attention first! You have to make them outraged, make them react, make them think, make them do something. When representatives see people in a furor they know they have to take a side, and usually the side that makes more noise wins.
The US itself was founded like this - the Boston Tea Party is one of the most famous acts of civil disobedience in history. Our electoral system is a process of continual revolution, continual change and upheaval. This process is necessarily just as messy and ugly as our own society. The fact that even in the very ugly and full-of-contradictions pre-Civil Rights era USA we could have a revolution with relatively little loss of life and mostly minor disruptions to the lives of people should be celebrated rather than bemoaned. Look at what it took to be rid of monarchy and slavery and see that the way we overcame/are still overcoming segregation and racial bias shows vast improvements and gives hope for even more civil revolutions in the future.
Lest you forget, the people vote for the representatives. There were 18 different consequential national elections between 1955 and 1968, in which every single member of the House, Senate, and Presidency were up for election multiple times. To characterise this as legislative activism is outrageous and without any historical corroboration. The vast majority of voters were not harmed by black people. They voted for change because they believed it to be moral, not because they saw black people harming white people on the news. I asked you to substantiate your claim and given this response it seems clear you know that you cannot.
> If a child is bullied at school and suffers in silence, chances are they will continue being bullied. If they fight back or make a scene, a teacher is far more likely to take notice and possibly be convinced to correct the situation.
This is not how it works in most parts of the Western world anymore. The child who is being bullied reports the bully and the authorities (usually a teacher or other faculty) address the issue with various forms of remediation. I feel sorry for you if this was your experience at school. It sounds awful.
> The US itself was founded like this...
I'm not sure if you understand the implication of invoking the founding of the nation as a cultural pillar for future change. At this time slavery was moral and legal. Women couldn't vote. They were effectively property. It seems you're being selective about one aspect of the past to justify a vision for the future in which force is required for change.
Do you believe that it is moral and just for anti-migrant protestors to use force against you? Or is it just the things you personally care about where force is acceptable? I think we both know the answer to that question. This is why in a democracy we give everyone one vote, and we require them to follow the law. That means not using force to coerce others. If you were to succeed in your vision for society, you'd have to accept that others would use force against you for their aims, and you'd be a hypocrite to condemn it.
> This is not how it works in most parts of the Western world anymore. The child who is being bullied reports the bully and the authorities (usually a teacher or other faculty) address the issue with various forms of remediation. I feel sorry for you if this was your experience at school. It sounds awful.
It's very hard to take your opinions as sincere when you're in one comment selectively pruning hundreds of years of history to make your point and then pretending that bullying is a solved problem in another. Just a reminder that we're living in the realm of rising teenage suicide rates, much of that rooted in the trauma caused by bullying.
If nothing else it's unkind to make the people you're responding to put in the effort when you're clearly not doing the same.
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.
pj_mukh · · focus · HN ↗
I wonder if this movement needs a form of performative extremism somewhere (think bridges being forcibly closed for causes), so that then the mainstream notices the sensible compromise and pushes for it. The YIMBY's have never played Overton Window games, but maybe they need to hold their nose and play it.
ryandrake · · focus · HN ↗
Has irritating the Average Joe ever resulted in political support from Joe? I can't help but think that these guys sitting in front of traffic, forcing normal people to be late for work, are just doing damage to their own causes, in hopes of just getting some "visibility" to those causes. Yea, it's visible now--visible as something annoying and ultimately counterproductive.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
pydry · · focus · HN ↗
Martin Luther King wrote an essay about people with this exact attitude called "the racism of the polite liberal"
There were obviously just as many people back then who thought his type of activism - e.g. blocking a freeway would never achieve any of his goals. They thought it was just annoying, even though it was successful.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
I believe the civil rights movement succeeded in America because it was morally right. Not because black activists caused social harm.
t-3 · · focus · HN ↗
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
t-3 · · focus · HN ↗
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
The vast majority of black and white people had reasonable dialogue all over the U.S. in the 60s. There were obviously places where racism prevailed to greater degrees, and I think the record reflects that dialogue was less successful there. Which is why they were forced at the federal level to desegregate. The reason that the laws were passed at the federal level was dialogue. Outreach, lobbying, fliers, marketing, campaigning. All the things which make democracy great.
Remember that the reason the Civil and Voting Rights Act(s) (and their amendments) passed in the 60s was because white people - the major and predominant voting bloc - believed they were morally right. Black people didn't terrorise white people isn't submission. That would have backfired spectacularly.
t-3 · · focus · HN ↗
Civil disobedience is not terrorism. Conflating the two is highly problematic. Civil disobedience was a large part of the reason white people changed their views. Without courageous blacks standing up and protesting and making themselves heard and seen in public, most white people wouldn't have cared. The government and other influential groups tried to suppress the movement until they couldn't anymore, and then they caved. Acting as if they did so at the first moment because everybody recognized the moral correctness of equality is totally ahistorical and a whitewashing of history.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
If you believe that black people harming white people - whether by the use of force, preventing free movement, or any aphorism you would like to use - was a "large part of the reason white people changed their views" then I would like to see evidence of that. Force works in dictatorships but I don't think it's effective in democracies. Why would someone vote for a person who has materially harmed them or made their lives worse? Surely that would make it less likely to win a vote.
t-3 · · focus · HN ↗
If a child is bullied at school and suffers in silence, chances are they will continue being bullied. If they fight back or make a scene, a teacher is far more likely to take notice and possibly be convinced to correct the situation. The same principle is at play in most political movements. To get people to care, you have to make them pay attention first! You have to make them outraged, make them react, make them think, make them do something. When representatives see people in a furor they know they have to take a side, and usually the side that makes more noise wins.
The US itself was founded like this - the Boston Tea Party is one of the most famous acts of civil disobedience in history. Our electoral system is a process of continual revolution, continual change and upheaval. This process is necessarily just as messy and ugly as our own society. The fact that even in the very ugly and full-of-contradictions pre-Civil Rights era USA we could have a revolution with relatively little loss of life and mostly minor disruptions to the lives of people should be celebrated rather than bemoaned. Look at what it took to be rid of monarchy and slavery and see that the way we overcame/are still overcoming segregation and racial bias shows vast improvements and gives hope for even more civil revolutions in the future.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
> If a child is bullied at school and suffers in silence, chances are they will continue being bullied. If they fight back or make a scene, a teacher is far more likely to take notice and possibly be convinced to correct the situation.
This is not how it works in most parts of the Western world anymore. The child who is being bullied reports the bully and the authorities (usually a teacher or other faculty) address the issue with various forms of remediation. I feel sorry for you if this was your experience at school. It sounds awful.
> The US itself was founded like this...
I'm not sure if you understand the implication of invoking the founding of the nation as a cultural pillar for future change. At this time slavery was moral and legal. Women couldn't vote. They were effectively property. It seems you're being selective about one aspect of the past to justify a vision for the future in which force is required for change.
Do you believe that it is moral and just for anti-migrant protestors to use force against you? Or is it just the things you personally care about where force is acceptable? I think we both know the answer to that question. This is why in a democracy we give everyone one vote, and we require them to follow the law. That means not using force to coerce others. If you were to succeed in your vision for society, you'd have to accept that others would use force against you for their aims, and you'd be a hypocrite to condemn it.
chownie · · focus · HN ↗
It's very hard to take your opinions as sincere when you're in one comment selectively pruning hundreds of years of history to make your point and then pretending that bullying is a solved problem in another. Just a reminder that we're living in the realm of rising teenage suicide rates, much of that rooted in the trauma caused by bullying.
If nothing else it's unkind to make the people you're responding to put in the effort when you're clearly not doing the same.