In the latest edition of my Tactics In Practice (TIPs) series, I analyzed the research behind protest in the animal protest movement! The full resource is well worth reading for any activist who uses street demonstrations — check out the full thing here: Tactics In Practice: The Science Of Protests And Demonstrations.
Key Highlights:
Protest groups tend to have three main goals, shown below. I wasn't able to find empirical evidence on Goal 3 (positive or negative), but anecdotal conversations lead me to believe that protests can serve as good cultivation tools for other activists. But I was able to find more information on the other two goals.
Protests can’t change people’s diets; we need to pursue other targets. (That doesn't mean protest is a bad tactic! Just that it's ineffective if we apply it to the wrong target)
All protest has some form of backlash — this backlash is among the highest of animal advocacy interventions, if not the highest. While research shows this backlash fades over time, activists need to think critically about how to work with it. Either take steps to reduce the backlash (through media plans, carefully chosen tactics, etc.), or as part of a larger strategy. Which brings us to:
We need to think more critically about the “radical flank effect” (sometimes called “good cop, bad cop”) — if one protest group is perceived as more radical, a more moderate group will be more accepted. However, this requires careful strategy and coordination. I personally believe that groups involved in protest should consider which role they play in the broader ecosystem: are they radical? Moderate? And how will different groups engage with the key decision-makers?
Protest impact depends on the media in both the short-term and long-term, so protest groups need a media outreach plan.
Protestors need to think very carefully about the salience of their protest — where, when, and why is this protest taking place? Can activists carefully choose a cause more likely to garner media attention (something more specific than “animal rights”)?
Groups need to pick the goals of the protest carefully. As mentioned above, "go vegan" is unlikely to have much impact. This requires understanding opinion polling on a topic as well as the likelihood of specific stakeholders to create positive change.
Just how powerful are large swarms of AI agents? And how do their powers scale as more and more agents are added to the swarm?
We’ve seen two large and extremely capable swarms from OpenAI in the last few months:
* 1,200 agents were being evaluated separately, but found a way to illicitly set up a message board and coordinate as a swarm. In order to cheat on their tests, they developed advanced techniques to prevent their actions being logged by OpenAI and 700 of them launched...
Often folks hit us up because they are thinking of starting an incubator and want advice.
Typically their motivation is either that (a) they have a list of specific things they want built that no one is building, or (b) they think an ecosystem needs more new projects generally to absorb more talent and deploy more funding effectively.
Here are six questions we often ask prospective teams, to help them figure out what to do. If you're incubator-curious...
A century-old pill, given to the right people, could cost-effectively save many lives.
Summary
* Targeting low-cost prevention toward people at elevated risk may uncover highly cost-effective ways to address noncommunicable diseases. Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy could be a test case for this approach.
* ...
