Ekho
from ekho

Things I learned from activism

  • Your carrier is the most important thing. Organizations like 80,000 hours, Probably Good and Animal Advocacy Carriers (sometimes) give personal consultation meetings, and their websites contain job boards and a lot of very important information. Inside impact carrier, there is the option of entrepreneurship. Several incubators, including Charity Entrepreneurship (Effective altruism causes), Kickstarting for Good (transforming the global food system), and Catalyze (AI safety) are examples of programs that can help you start the journey of starting an organization. You can also read the book How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit, which I found very informative (but "dry" in writing).
  • The Diminishing returns effect If there are already 200 lobbyists for animals in your Parliament, the 201 will probably not make such a big difference. But if there is zero lawless and you can be the first one, that could be very effective.
  • Your riding the wave, activism is going great? Don't think it is going to last. The natural force of society is working against you, especially if your activism is more "radical" --> less evolutionary friendly. The decline of the Israeli animal rights movement thought me that I am too optimistic; the society doesn't have an incentive to become more moral, the fight for animals is totally different than the fight for human groups, and the arc of the moral universe is long, and it is not necessarily bending towards justice.
    • Always prepare for rainy days, and remember outside circumstances are very influential as well. A startup CEO once told me ~“Sometimes it’s a bit depressing. The valuation of our startup fluctuates very rapidly because of global changes, and it often feels like my own work, whether I have an amazing month or a terrible one, has much less to do with the company’s valuation than those external forces”.
  • People are enchanted by contradictions. Give them something that doesn't fit, that keeps the rules but breaks them, and it will blows their mind. You need to surprises them, in a way that doesn't align with what they expect. It's like with music; in order to be enjoyable, the next chord needs to be surprising, but not too surprising.
    • Gary Yourofsky's lecture about veganism and the torture of factory framing was the single most influential act to bring people to activism and veganism in Israel. I think one of the reasons is it succeeded was that veganism and caring for animals was not represented by macho figures like Gary. It seemed contradictory. If you put his speech on mute and only look at his rhetoric and looks, you can think he's promoting meat. Same is true for this Israeli investigative show host.
  • Think community, think Glocal, think about your part of the world's directors working for the most oppressed, biggest groups
  • Enhance cooperation among activists is extremely important. Always be a friend to the whole community, invest time in helping the whole community which sometimes come on the expense of your own work. How much community helping time do you do every week? Rolling out a red carpet beneath the feet of every activist, whether new or veteran, is extremely important. I also used to think Envisioning a Central Knowledge Hub for the Animal Advocacy Movement is essential, but I became a bit doubtful about that.
  • Mitigating infighting is crucial.
  • We need to tell more individual stories, there are many ways to do so. I wrote about it in Are We Leaving the Individual Behind? The Role of Animal Storytelling in the Animal Rights Movement EA forum post, and in this lecture about Animal voices on AVA, the animal rights biggest yearly conference in the US.