Littleman, you said you were avoiding bad news. These were the two stories from the week that gave me the most hope and they go together quite well....
It turns out that non-violent movements are more often successful than violent movements and that 3.5% active participation is the level at which a movement always succeeds.
This according to a researcher who looked at a few dozen protest movements after finding out that nobody had asked those two questions, i.e.
- how does effectiveness compare between violent and non-violent?
- what is the threshold participation for success?
The theory is that nonviolent movements succeed for several reasons
- violent movements typically draw a small pool of fit, young males, whereas non-violent movements draw on much larger pools
- easier to talk about both socially and because of less repression in repressive regimes
The 3.5% seems to be a point at which soldiers start to worry that friends and family might be in the crowd (that's just conjecture as far as I can tell).
Then there's Greta. Nine months ago, Greta Thunberg was holding silent vigil alone outside the Swedish Parliament. On March 15, 1.6 million people, mostly students inspired by Thunberg, walked out of school in protest. The next strike is planned for May 24.
Clearly, that's well short of the 3.5% needed... but the growth rate would make most startups salivate.
http://time.com/collection-post/5584902/greta-thunberg-next-generation-leaders/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
