[Cross-posted from my Substack here] If you spend time with people trying to change the world, you’ll come to an interesting conundrum: Various advocacy groups reference previous successful social movements as to why their chosen strategy is the most important one. Yet, these groups often follow wildly different strategies from each other to achieve social change. So, which one of them is right? The answer is all of them and none of them. This is because many people use research and historical movements to justify their pre-existing beliefs about how social change happens. Simply, you can find a case study to fit most plausible theories of how social change happens. For example, the groups might say: * Repeated nonviolent disruption is the key to social change, citing the Freedom Riders from the civil rights Movement or Act Up! from the gay rights movement. * Technological progress is what drives improvements in the human condition if you consider the development of the contraceptive pill funded by Katharine McCormick. * Organising and base-building is how change happens, as inspired by Ella Baker, the NAACP or Cesar Chavez from the United Workers Movement. * Insider advocacy is the real secret of social movements – look no further than how influential the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights was in passing the Civil Rights Acts of 1960 & 1964. * Democratic participation is the backbone of social change – just look at how Ireland lifted a ban on abortion via a Citizen’s Assembly. * And so on… To paint this picture, we can see this in action below: Source: Just Stop Oil which focuses on…civil resistance and disruption Source: The Civic Power Fund which focuses on… local organising What do we take away from all this? In my mind, a few key things: 1. Many different approaches have worked in changing the world so we should be humble and not assume we are doing The Most Important Thing 2. The case studies we focus on are likely confirmation bias, where

Americans, we need your help to stop a dangerous AI bill from passing the Senate. What’s going on? * The House Energy & Commerce Committee included a provision in its reconciliation bill that would ban AI regulation by state and local governments for the next 10 years. * Several states have led the way in AI regulation while Congress has dragged its heels. * Stopping state governments from regulating AI might be okay, if we could trust Congress to meaningfully regulate it instead. But we can’t. This provision would destroy state leadership on AI and pass the responsibility to a Congress that has shown little interest in seriously preventing AI danger. * If this provision passes the Senate, we could see a DECADE of inaction on AI. * This provision also violates the Byrd Rule, a Senate rule which is meant to prevent non-budget items from being included in the reconciliation bill.   What can I do? Here are 3 things you can do TODAY, in order of priority: 1. (5 minutes) Call and email both of your Senators. Tell them you oppose AI preemption, and ask them to raise a point of order that preempting state AI regulation violates the Byrd Rule. * Find your Senators here. * Here’s an example of a call:  “Hello, my name is {YOUR NAME} and I’m a resident of {YOUR STATE}. The newest budget reconciliation bill includes a 10-year ban pre-empting state AI legislation without establishing any federal guardrails. This is extremely concerning to me – leading experts warn us that AI could cause mass harm within the next few years, but this provision would prevent states from protecting their citizens from AI crises for the next decade. It also violates the Byrd Rule, since preempting state AI regulation doesn’t impact federal taxes or spending. I’d like the Senator to speak out against this provision and raise a point of order that this provision should not be included under the Byrd Rule.” See here for sample call + email temp