Bleg: Read and learn, or become an activist?
Suppose a high school student is deeply interested in a particular social or political issue and interested in doing something about the subject. What advice would you give him/her?
You may assume that the high school student is roughly similar in profile to the typical active LessWrong participant when he/she was in high school.
Some candidate social and political issues are listed below.
Topics of particular interest to the LessWrong audience:
Existential risk, in particular unfriendly AI
Others that are more commonly perceived as important issues in the world today:
World peace
Global warming
Education policy
Effectively combating crime
I asked a few people to opine on the last two issues on the list (in Facebook posts linked above) and the respondents generally focused on the acquisition of background knowledge rather than direct activism (i.e., read and learn rather than proselytize). Prima facie, this seems like sound advice. But it’s quite possible that the set of people I interact with on Facebook is biased in favor of armchair stuff to the exclusion of activism. What do people here think?
Feel free to pick on one particular item in one of the above lists, or something not on either of the lists, and provide a specific answer for that. Or, provide general guidelines. Also feel free to specify additional assumptions (such as the country the student is in, or the student’s other abilities or interests) and answer within the constraints of those assumptions.
PS: For some of the issues, you may feel that the issue is overrated or misguided (for instance, you may think that global warming is a non-issue, or that the status quo is optimal with respect to civil liberties or migration policy). In this case, your advice to the hypothetical high school student might largely be directed at making him/her come around to your point of view of the irrelevance of the issue. Comments suggesting you’d give advice of that sort are also welcome. If you’d simply suggest to the high school student to refrain from thinking about socially or politically charged topics entirely, that would also be interesting to know (cf. politics is the mindkiller).
Read and learn. Then get a high paying job and pay people to be activists.
The marginal effect of one more activist with low social standing and low purchasing power especially with popular causes is near zero. For example I might think that global warming exists, has negative effects and these can be averted by reducing energy consumption. Then I could start nagging my friends about this particular issue, to reduce their energy consumption through ever more inconvenient measures. Or I could study my ass off on physics, chemistry and engineering until I find a way to conveniently reduce energy consumption through some convenient, affordable invention.
Or say there is some issue that needs popular awareness. The marginal effect of this young student nagging his local neighbourhood will be near zero. If he reads and studies he can get in a position to influence policy if that is needed, or build a reputation as a journalist to reach an extremely wide audience, or the student can get in a position with high amount of disposable income to buy ad space in cooperation with an existing organisation supporting the cause.
My argument comes down to time preference. If the marginal value of action now is lower than the time discounted marginal value the student can provide after reading and studying, they should read and study. In other words, any non-emergency should not be dealt with, assuming high return on education.
I close this sleep-deprived comment with a last example. People get in accidents on the road and suffer disabilites or die as a result of that. Activism is then to scour the roads and help these people in case there is an accident. Or one could study and become an EMT, then being able to help better. Or one could become a safety engineer, improve safety measures and have an even greater impact. Or one could become an emergency response manager and having an even greater impact. As we see, the options are only available if the person in question is to be expected to become sufficiently more productive. A first aid course will immensely increase the efficacy of nearly anyone. Though the majority of people lack the dedication to become a high performing medical doctor or emergency response manager.
And as always, if there is an oversupply of high-skilled people, being an activist is more valuable through marginal value argument. Though I am entirely certain that there is an oversupply of activism because activism feels good and learning is a chore for most people.
There’s one benefit in early activism, though: even if it doesn’t have a major impact, it will allow you to credibly signal your interest in the cause and thus network with other people who are active in the field. This may have a considerable impact on your ability to achieve things related to the cause later on.
E.g. when I started getting interested in educational games, I wrote a bunch of blog posts about the topic (as I was studying it), and even though I haven’t yet accomplished anything concrete, those posts helped me get on the radar of a bunch of people in the field who have offered useful advice. Similarly, even though my stint in politics some years back didn’t really accomplish anything concrete, it did net me lots of new contacts who liked what I did do. The early conference articles on AI risk that I wrote weren’t very significant by themselves but they helped me get to know the MIRI-(then SIAI-)folk better, and so on.
Interesting. This is one more reason for me to start a blog, getting actual exposure at a young age.
Let’s say we are going back in time to the early 2000s to advise Eliezer Yudkowsky on how to address AI risks. Do you think he should have aimed to get a high-paying job and paid someone else to blog about them? Or the Givewell guys—should they have paid some other people to start Givewell? How about Cognito Mentoring?
I think your logic makes sense if there are already competent, knowledgable, articulate, funding-constrained activists for your cause who know how to hire and have a pool of qualified, passionate-for-the-cause candidates they’d love to hire if they had the funds. I’m less sure that your idea is the best if there aren’t already such people. In the same way hiring contractors seems like a bad idea for getting all of the work done for your startup, it seems like a bad idea for getting all of the work done for your nonprofit.
You could think of money and qualified passionate volunteers as being the two reagents in a chemical reaction. Sometimes the limiting reagent is going to be money, sometimes volunteers.
It would be coput to say that I mentioned marginal value and supply. So I will repeat my rule of thumb from the “How valuable is volunteering” thread: If the task at hand is low skill, work more and donate the salary, if the task at hand is high skill, learn more and do it yourself.
Thanks, this is an insightful comment and it largely agrees with my own views.
Well thank you, ackknowledgement feels nice.
You could also become an administrator or fundraiser for activists. There are plenty of roles in non-profits that can make an outsize impact, and many people will be more motivated when they’re working directly for their cause. Also, many people lose their motivation to give substantially to a cause once they actually start getting their paychecks.
Beware false dichotomies. Why are these options exclusive?
Study and learning is required to understand the theory of a topic. Active participation is required to understand the social clusters that form around a topic. If you want to have an effect on the world, you need a bit of both. Exactly where the balance is varies widely, but you should avoid the idea that you can skip either one.
I was a high school student deeply interested in a particular social or political issue and interested in doing something about the subject. My advice to my high school self (which my high school self would not have followed) would be to join the military. Buckminster Fuller credits his time in the Navy with initiating his thinking about global resources and some of his mathematics. Military experience would have helped me do what I do now better. I think it would do many young people better.
The capability of a random high school student to affect any of the issues you’ve mentioned is pretty much zero. He can be a foot soldier in an activist army and get some warm fuzzies out of it, but his impact is going to be negligible.
I agree with you. One argument in favor of activism is that, even if it doesn’t effect immediate change, people learn how to become activists (i.e., they get practical training in activism). That’s the typical argument I’ve seen in favor of activism. What do you think of that?
The original question is somewhat of a false dilemma. The student does not have to decide between learning and activism for the rest of the year but for the next hour. Picking up the examples from above, reducing energy consumption is a form of activism—though with the possible added benefit of having more disposable income—and will also inform any later attempts to reduce energy consumption on a large scale, e.g. by seeing how low the convenience threshold for the end user is. Similarly, in the case of road accidents part-time employment as an EMT will inform any later management policy.
So we see that not only do we have to optimise a mix of activism and learning (or more generally work and learning as the whole argument applies similarly there) but we do have to consider that the exact same task might be both learning and activism.
I do not value and see no particular virtue in activism by itself. In particular, the kind of activism that a high school student is likely to be exposed to.
I don’t think that’s true. Youth activists have often been very influential in changing the political direction of the country, several times in our history. High school and college aged activists have played a big role in changing policy on issues like civil rights, the Vietnam war, gay rights, and so on. They’ve also played a significant role in recent elections.
To an extent, high school-aged and college aged activists can often do more and have a bigger impact then older people, simply because they have more free time, have less responsibilities, and tend to be less risk-averse about risks like “being arrested”. They also tend to be less tied to the status quo and more able to imagine a world that is significantly better then the current one, which can be important.
...high school?
[citation needed]
High school students played a significant role in some SNCC civil rights protests, such as sit-ins at lunch counters. In many cities the sit-ins were actually ran and done entirely by high school students. One well known example is that a number of students from Dudly high school participated in the famous Greensboro sit-in.
Edit: They’re only just mentioned in this source, but they were there.
http://www.sitinmovement.org/history/greensboro-chronology.asp
I’m not claiming that high school students played as big a role as college students, but their impact wasn’t zero, either.
So, looking back at recent history, what wouldn’t have happened if the high schools students didn’t participate?
Hmm. It’s hard to say. I think the SNCC sit-ins were a vitally important part of the civil rights moment, though, they played a big role in drawing attention to and eventually ending segregation in a lot of places, and high school students did or helped in a significant percentage of them. High school students played a significant role in the SNCC organization in general.
I mean, it’s hard to say what the overall effect is; that’s like saying “would the civil rights movement has been as effective if there had been a third less protests”. It seems likely that it would not have been, but it’s hard to say with any certainty or to quantify it.
In Germany we have political parties that are open and that matter in the political landscape. If you want to do something about a political issue then it’s very ineffective to see yourself as an activist because that means you usually aren’t around the people who make policy decisions and you are an outsider from their perspective.
In Berlin there’s nothing stopping a high school student from sitting in the rooms in which the educational policy agenda of the main political parties is made.
The adult might even like having you there to have your perspective which is different from their own. That doesn’t mean that they will do everything that you want, but you might contribute ideas.
In Germany the recommendation would be to focus on joining one political party and paying your dues in it. Pick one political issue in which you want to contribute. Research that issue and try to get motion on the topic passed within the party infrastructure. At best you also read what other people outside of your party have to say about the issue.
If you are in the process of writing a motion on topic X, it might be easy to simple tell other civil society actors in that space to say: “Hey, I’m in the process of writing a motion on topic X for the next party congress of party X. I want to have your thoughts on the matter.” Then you go out and meet people to refine your thinking. The best learning happens by talking to knowledgable people
Solving societal issues is not about doing the obvious things but about understand the issues and the stakeholders in the issue.
Focus your energy. I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t be able to contribute. Most people don’t produce change because they don’t focus or because they rather associate with people who are like themselves than sitting in rooms with serious people.
Doing this builds also the connections that you need to have a political career in Germany.
There seem to be plenty of cases where some seems to think it’s a perfectly sensible use of their time to be an activist in favour of law X, and other people think it’s a perfectly sensible use of their time to be an activist against law X. Same goes for politician Y or party Z. And people also seem inclined to donate money for/against law X / politician Y/party Z.
(In your lists, Effective Altruism, World Peace and Global Warming don’t fall under this pattern, but immigration, crime and maybe educational policy do)
Two possible explanation:
People are stupid, and pick causes for reasons that are very unrelated to how good they actually are → in this case, additional effort figuring out which causes are actually worthwhile seems much better.
People are actually acting out of self-interest, in order to give “their group” more power and prestige and influence as opposed to “their group”, in which case, it’s not irrational, but it’s also not really something that admirable either.
There’s also the combination, where hapless irrational activists are suckered into spending energy in support of something that is just some kind of power play by a group they’re not really part of.
Anyway, “read and learn” seems better both for figuring out which issues are worthy of support, and for figuring out how to better support those issues.
This ignores quite a few other possible explanations. The most obvious to me is that people have different values.
There are several ways to understand “people have different values”:
The easy case: Japanese people in Tokyo value each other more than they value Mexicans in Mexico, and vice-versa. This falls squarely in my second category. I don’t think there’s too much debate about whether those people “really” value each other that way.
The tougher case: some people claim to value, say, “freedom”, whereas others claim to value “marriage” or “respecting your elders” or “art” or “self-actualization” (and more complicated values). And often those differences will lead to political opposition, trying to pull laws one way or another.
BUT, I think that this is the wrong approach. Saying “our values are different” is a curiosity stopper, people should investigate whether they really have different values, or whether they just disagree about something empirical (like “does grading children help them learn in the long run?” or “which of social taboos around sex, or sex education is more effective at preventing unwanted teenage pregnancies?”), and people should spend more effort trying to resolve their differences and/or look for compromises that satisfy everybody, rather than taking sides and defending “their side”.
Case in point. This a value judgement that not everybody shares.
Calling this a “value” does not clear things up here (I view the word “value” with suspicion, it’s a bit of a curiosity stopper).
If by that you mean a terminal value, then I don’t think humans really differ much in terms of terminal values (except when it comes to “I value myself, you value yourself”, etc.), though they may often act as if they did (i.e. consider their “enemies” to be mutants) - I think people (even here) are too quick to claim that their values are Terminal Values That Can’t Be Changed And Are Not Up For Discussion.
If you mean instrumental value, then maybe all people don’t share that value, but they should (because it indirectly helps them reach their other values), for roughly the same reason should cooperate on the prisoner’s dilemma with “others like them”.
Why?
Another is that people have different information, which leads them to different conclusions. You don’t need to be stupid to be wrong.
Well, “stupid” in the broad sense (as in “all humans are stupid, not “muggles who haven’t been Enlighthented By Saint Eliezer are stupid”) - if two people have different information and come to different conclusions, and notice they disagree, they should still be able to try to share that information see if it makes them closer, rather than going “OMG you must be evil!!!”.
“Read the Politics is the Mindkiller Sequence.”
And then, some of the other suggestions in this thread.
I think the best option is to try to get as close as possible to the most effective person that the highschool student can find working on that cause. This might be through volunteering, through an internship, or through simply asking to shadow them. I believe this would net more value than reading or direct activism.
Select one and only one cause to join that you really care about.
Activism is useful for networking as already mentioned. Treat it as a tool, not as an achievement.
Read to find out what really needs to change. What are the root causes? What keeps the movement from being effective?
Again select just one of these according to your abilities.
Edit: Oh and please just do it. Don’t get lost in “I will be more effective by earning money and paying someone to do it.” mindgames. You can’t pay them to actually care, they will do a lousy job. Find something you can do and grow with the challenge!
I think the only real answer is “both”.
First you need to read and learn and study everything you can about the issue. Make sure your challenge your own beliefs, and make sure you do everything you can to confirm that you are correct, keeping in mind that the worst possible outcome would be for you to accidentally become an activist for the wrong side of an issue (and that even being an activist that’s right 70% of the time but wrong 30% of the time is a great deal of harm.)
Once you really understand it, then you need to become an activist on the issue. Learning is always helpful, but at some point you have to take that knowledge and use it to influence the world, or else it’s not going to do much good. Take that knowledge you’ve learned and use it to educate other people, to communicate to politicians, to raise the stature of the issue, ect.
Fundamentally, a lot of political issues come down to helping people understand why X is better then Y for most of them and for the country or the town or the species as a whole. You need to have a significant amount of understanding yourself first, or else there’s no point and you’re not adding anything but randomness to the system; once you do have a significant amount of understanding, you have to take that knowledge and act, or else it’s not doing anyone any good. That doesn’t mean you stop learning; you always have to do both.