Agency, change making, mini-guide
This is a guide to using your individual agency to impact the world
This is a guide to using your individual agency to impact the world.1
Ask yourself:
What institutional mechanisms are available for change ?
Where might you have influence?
(Tail option2: do you need a new institution or new arm of an old institution?)
What story and scale-up mechanisms might suit you ?
Blogs, podcasts, meet-ups, newsletters, social media, campaigns, letters
Inside-outside mechanisms
Who or what are your strong and weak social and relationship ties ?
Where do they need strengthening and how
How are you learning about your domain interests ?
Do you delegate in order to free up more time?
Are you travelling or checking primary sources, people and places ?
Do you deeply understand the culture / entity / system / company you are trying to change ?
What’s your stamina like? Building over moaning. Thoughtful Action over learned helplessness. Making over breaking.
I will briefly highlight these people and projects which use various methods of agency.
Share Action: individual shareholder activism and agency
Aella, polls and social media use; also podcasts and blogs
Leopold Aschenbrenner: blog, research paper, moving to study at 15; also Ben Southwood, progress studies, urban planning (Create Streets)
Coal campaigning
Start-ups, Climate Tech VC, Sophie Purdom
Micro grants: Nadia Asparouhova, Me
Podcast: How to Fail, Elizabeth Day; Fin Moorhouse
Substacks: Matt Clancy, Anton Howes, Sophie Purdom
Art documentary: anti-abortion and evangelicals
Disability rights activism: UK rights
My own experience: meet-ups, blogging, newsletters, Podcasts, UnConference
Mechanisms for change. What institutional mechanisms are available for change ?
If you are looking at systemic change, whether small and local, or big and global, you need to identify what institutional mechanisms you can influence. Typically only small problems can be self fixed.
Re: Small problems and opportunities, if you see a small problem you can fix, you should go ahead and fix it. Probably there and then. Tiny examples: you see fly tipping/trash, take a picture and tweet the local government/council, water leaks in street, snap and tweet the utility; rail buildings in disrepair; I once saw Japanese knotweed on charitable land, I tweeted the Trust. Repair or make small items yourself; I make cards, mix tapes, fix washing machines, build computers, grow plants. For small things, you can answer the call; if not you, who?
For bigger things, you need to identify the mechanism for change. Social scientists have called this a “theory of change”, but for many problems and opportunities it’s not a grand new institution needed but more simply, to influence relevant decision makers in the system. That might be local government, or national.
Example: disability rights movement. Activists identified the political mechanisms needed to enact law and policy (and then built on those laws and policies) to give fundamental rights. We will talk about the mechanisms they used to influence those decision makers, but first of all they Coordinated to pin point those mechanisms.
Example: buying coals assets, and leaving them in the ground. This is hard to do for non-billionaires but is an example of having identified a mechanism of action to use.
Climate, pandemic preparedness, voting rights are all areas that fall into this. (My view) it’s worth exploring whether you are thinking about a positive opportunity change eg. More climate innovation; or, a restrictive change, eg, no child labour as the tactics for this differ.
To be effective, you can use “inside” methods or “outside” methods, but each method requires a deep understanding of the problem and why the different actors are incentivised to act in the way they are.
(See above) A big challenge example would be campaigns against new coal plants and mines. There are individual campaigns against against specific projects, but upstream of that are the analysis, comms, influences at government policy level.
Another example here is the work of Share Action. Here, the charity has a theory of change (use individual shareholder votes to influence management) trains individuals to use that mechanism/power, and empower the individuals agency to talk to CEOs at AGMs.
See Catherine Howarth on this: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2021/7/25/catherine-howarth-on-shareholder-activism-growing-back-better-and-change-makers-podcast
Occasionally, you might have a big idea that needs a new institution or a new arm of an old entity. I wish to encourage this as the leaps of imagination needed to do this, is where I think humans progress. Still, I would caution that it does not suit everyone, but perhaps suits more people than you might think. Examples here are startups, new think tanks and new science institutes.
See:
Alec Stapp on starting a new Think Tank focused on Progress ideas. Podcast/Transcript: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/2/28/alec-stapp-policy-for-progress-under-researched-areas-science-of-science-biosecurity-podcast
Carl Pizzie. An actor with £300 and a van starts a sustainable grocery delivery company and grows to £30m+ revenues. Podcast/transcript: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/5/20/carl-saxton-pizzie-building-a-30m-sustainable-grocery-delivery-company-mental-health-sustainability-podcast
You’ve identified your mechanisms of institutional change, now how do you influence?
Influence. What story and scale up mechanisms might suit you ?
Broadly speaking, you can influence more directly by starting blogs, newsletters, podcasts and meet-ups; and, or, you can influence at the “meta” level by helping coordinate, build community (outside an institution) or build, influence inside an institution. This is using your Voice (cf. Hirschman on Voice, Exit, Loyalty)
The barriers to entry for blogs/newsletters for most people is close to zero. Go on to substack and signup and start writing. You can use blogs for several goals:
To record a place for your thoughts
To argue your views and position
To discuss emerging ideas (help build a community)
To capture links and resources for interests
You can then refer to your very best blogs to those you want to influence, and you will find those who share your interests. There are so many examples of how blogs and substacks are building and influencing audiences that a list is somewhat unhelpful. But looking back at the early days, you would note a blog like Slate Star Codex and the critical rationalist community, many early econ blogs (eg Tyler Cowen, Noah Smith, Brad Delong - all of whom still write) these have become globally influential with reach easily in the millions! But now there are many substacks of note. I think back to my early days of theatre blogging. A small niche, but very influential to be part of your community’s conversation. While much of that happens on Twitter / IG etc, nowadays there is still good space for longer form thoughts on blogs.
It’s a similar idea for podcasts (see Rob Wiblin on long form pods3, and Fin Moorhouse on how set up a pods4). The extra elements to pods is that you get to understand in depth the work and thinking of people you are interested in and you can reach audiences that blogs do not. You can also ask to go on others peoples podcasts.
But podcasts do synergies with blogs, your own website and Twitter or other platform you might want to use.
Personally, I still recommend blogs but because writing can clarify your own thinking and it still has a larger plausible audience.
You can write a paper letter and put it in the post. This is particularly effective in writing to certain types of people, but as hand written thoughtful letters (or typed) are so rare they are noticed by the receiving party and you can use this to influence or start a correspondence.
A subset of this is to perform a “gift bomb”. This is where you send some one a gift, I have used folded paper cranes, I know some who have sent a poem or a piece of knitting. The use of a gift is partly a show of good faith engagement. Partly, as it raises the chances of a reply from the other side.
You can combine these. Take Aella.
She has blogs, a strong twitter presence and uses Twitter polls very effectively to communicate her ideas.
You can take your blog and go one step further and turns this into a more fully formed paper or essay. In the longer essay format, see Nadia Asparouhouva (nee Eghbal). Or Nintal, Gwern.
This puts ideas into the world.
You can crystallise your ideas into a paper, or form of paper. For instance, Leopold Aschenbrenner put out his idea on growth and existential risk into a paper (He also moved from Germany to the US at 15 to go to University and find a better fit for him).
I put my idea on fast COVID vaccine development as a paper. https://www.mercatus.org/publications/covid-19-crisis-response/regulators-could-allow-early-use-covid-19-vaccine-or-treatment
Ben Southwood (albeit teaming up with Tyler Cowen) put out an essentially self-published piece on progress, initially via Google Docs5. Stian Westlake and Sam Bowman had a piece on the (strange) death of UK conservative economic thinking6.
Other substacks that cross over into long form (that I read) are Matt Clancy on innovation and Anton Howes on progress history, Ted Gioia on music but there are plenty of others. One last example here is the work of Sophie Purdom. Sophie had climate as a major thread in her life, but starting her climate tech VC newsletter crystalised many aspects of her einterest for her.
You can also make art and stories around your concerns and put them out in the world. For instance, climate stripes as an awareness tool.
These tools are politically neutral and can be used by leftist or rightist idea makers. For instance, Frank Schaeffer - son of a Christian Theologian - made an art documentary with an anti-abortion theme and the success of these stories galvanised the US evangelicals to campaign on this. While other factors are involved, the upstream cultural impact seems to have been an important factor.
I’m biased as I started one of the first theatre blogs in the first age of blogging, and now keep a newsletter and podcast. Direct written work may not be for you - though I think everyone should - in which case maybe Co-ordination and networking might be your avenue (you can do both).
Community building, building social capital, travel, weak social ties. Who or what are your strong and weak social and relationship ties ?
Individuals spark ideas, catalyse movements and create change. But those changes are often carried by a wider movement to work on the system. Building those movements is also a valuable use of agency.
Here is an example from my family life. My autistic eldest son loves trains and buses. We created and formed a community around this. Transport Sparks.
This community has gone on to hold events, have some influence in the making and convening of events; and has been a way for like-minded people to gather.
It’s making community, and while it takes an amount of effort, the other Sparks carry this on. It’s been very valuable for all involved, and the sum of parts make more than its whole.
You can create community from any of your interests and possibly even found larger movements from this. Examples here are the Effective Altruism community, the Fridays for Future, and XR communities. There are many smaller groups too and it’s easy to build meet-ups around your interests.
I have for a few years organised Mingles/Meet-ups around arts, sustainability, investing which are a few of my interests. These have formed valuable connections for me and others.
This is a of building direct “social” and “relationship” capital, and perhaps importantly building more “weak social ties”. There is evidence suggesting weak ties are important. It can also be helpful in finding mentors.
Learning. How are you learning about your domain interests?
I believe continuous learning is one way to continually use your agency to be better and more knowledgeable and more influential. You will want to figure out how best to do that for you. What will you practice how will you learn?
Here I’d highlight the use of checking things out in person and primary sources. Travel to places and people will teach you a lot. Going to the primary sources of your interests as well.
You will also want to be testing your world view especially in the domain areas you are interested in. Is this really how X works ? Why is it not XYZ ? In order to do this, you need to be learning about your area and perhaps also be learning in other domains to cross pollinate areas.
This may also be where time management, prioritization and delegation come into your life. You can delegate many items to people who might be better or more efficient than you, or simply allow you to focus on other areas. You can hire people to research, or do things from Fiverr, or independent researchers. Still the principle here is organising yourself so you dedicate time to the items you find important friends, domain knowledge, blogging, creating!
Other examples I’ve done of just doing things
I wanted to do more direct giving, so I started a microgrant programme.
I wanted to put on a play, so I raised money, found collaborators, and put on the play.
I wanted to find out more about Sulawesi in Indonesia, so I went and travelled there.7
I put on a different type of conference (Open Space Unconference), as I thought standard conferences were ineffective.
Final Words. On doing over moaning.
This is a mini-guide with examples of doing, building, and creating towards the things you want and are interested in. If you do not see the stories, ideas, change that you want in the world then it’s potentially in your power to work towards these things. Using your agency rather than being depressed about a thing, or only moaning about a thing - you can identify a mechanism for change, or the hole where you want something to be, and then influence that mechanism, be the change, or build the object to fill that hole. If you think you can do better than what is out there, THEN DO BETTER. 8
with a nod to https://effectiveideas.org/ who made a call out for blogs on agency.
Tail option = a small or difficult chance of a high impact outcome. Unlikely to be suitable for all people but more suitable than most think on average, in these cases.
Fin: https://www.finmoorhouse.com/writing/podcast-advice
https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2019/8/1/wana-tribe-visit
The name of my website: https://www.thendobetter.com/start-here