I don’t strongly agree or disagree with your empirical claims but I do disagree with the level of confidence expressed. Quoting a comment I made previously:
I’m undecided on whether things like hunger strikes are useful but I just want to comment to say that I think a lot of people are way too quick to conclude that they’re not useful. I don’t think we have strong (or even moderate) reason to believe that they’re not useful.
When I reviewed the evidence on large-scale nonviolent protests, I concluded that they’re probably effective (~90% credence). But I’ve seen a lot of people claim that those sorts of protests are ineffective (or even harmful) in spite of the evidence in their favor.[1] I think hunger strikes are sufficiently different from the sorts of protests I reviewed that the evidence might not generalize, so I’m very uncertain about the effectiveness of hunger strikes. But what does generalize, I think, is that many peoples’ intuitions on protest effectiveness are miscalibrated.
[1] This may be less relevant for you, Mikhail Samin, because IIRC you’ve previously been supportive of AI pause protests in at least some contexts.
ETA: To be clear, I’m responding to the part of your post that’s about whether hunger strikes are effective. I endorse positive message of the second half of your post.
ETA 2: I read Ben Pace’s comment and he is making some good points so now I’m not sure I endorse the second half.
To be very clear, I expect large social movements that use protests as one of its forms of action to have the potential to be very successful and impactful if done well. Hunger strikes are significantly different from protests. Hunger strikes can be powerful, but they’re best for very different contexts.
I don’t strongly agree or disagree with your empirical claims but I do disagree with the level of confidence expressed. Quoting a comment I made previously:
I’m undecided on whether things like hunger strikes are useful but I just want to comment to say that I think a lot of people are way too quick to conclude that they’re not useful. I don’t think we have strong (or even moderate) reason to believe that they’re not useful.
When I reviewed the evidence on large-scale nonviolent protests, I concluded that they’re probably effective (~90% credence). But I’ve seen a lot of people claim that those sorts of protests are ineffective (or even harmful) in spite of the evidence in their favor.[1] I think hunger strikes are sufficiently different from the sorts of protests I reviewed that the evidence might not generalize, so I’m very uncertain about the effectiveness of hunger strikes. But what does generalize, I think, is that many peoples’ intuitions on protest effectiveness are miscalibrated.
[1] This may be less relevant for you, Mikhail Samin, because IIRC you’ve previously been supportive of AI pause protests in at least some contexts.
ETA: To be clear, I’m responding to the part of your post that’s about whether hunger strikes are effective. I endorse positive message of the second half of your post.
ETA 2: I read Ben Pace’s comment and he is making some good points so now I’m not sure I endorse the second half.
To be very clear, I expect large social movements that use protests as one of its forms of action to have the potential to be very successful and impactful if done well. Hunger strikes are significantly different from protests. Hunger strikes can be powerful, but they’re best for very different contexts.