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The “3.5% rule”: How a small minority can change the world
- raxxorraxor 2y agoI think "small minority" is a bit misleading. For the US that would be nearly 12 million people protesting. Also, if that many people really are protesting, you can pretty safely extrapolate, that the support for the cause if at a much higher percentage. Sometimes a minority can enforce their will, but there are probably more negative examples than positive ones where that did happen.
- paxys 2y agoAnd if you exclude children and people who generally don't participate in politics, elections and social causes (easily >50% of the population) then the 3.5% number is magnified significantly more.
- devwastaken 2y agoProtest is illegal in most cities in the U.S. This is because the 1st doesn't specify how it can be used. Therefore cities will require permits and move people to areas where the protest is ineffective. Even if its illegal, no one actually follows the law. It's based on what that administration chooses to follow.
- jeffrallen 2y agoTwelve million people not working, no matter where they assemble, are going to make the politicians change something in order to placate their corporate bosses. This is why we need more general strikes.
- cafard 2y agoI can't speak to "most cities". What is effectiveness in this context? Shutting down a road, or making it clear that many people are troubled with whatever they are protesting?
- xracy 2y agoI know this is a popular take right now, but it's actually just wrong. The 1st amendment absolutely protects your right to protest in the US. But practically you do have to be in the right courtroom for that to be meaningful.
- devwastaken 2y agoLaw is theory, court outcome is practice. In theory people should be able to protest effectively. In practice it will gain you a felony charge.
- xracy 2y agoDepends on the courtroom.
- wslh 2y agoSeems like stupid people are very selective on the protests. It is time to recognize that a lot, really a lot, of people could be stupid. Including me, obviously.
- neom 2y agoWhat do you mean by "are very selective on the protests"? I go to protests selectively and I don't believe I'm "stupid" so I'm confused by this comment.
- proee 2y agoDo stupid people know that they are stupid? I would say the majority of them think they are smart.
- nsguy 2y ago90% of people think they're above average drivers. And no, the flat earthers e.g. think we're stupid. I'm not sure stupid vs. smart is the right axis here though. Plenty of people with apparently high I.Q. believe in nonsense.
- neom 2y agoWell if you want to call me stupid that is fine, we can have that conversation, but I'm not so it won't be very interested. Bringing me back to my original question, a question that was actually interesting.
- nsguy 2y agoYou've just realized that a lot of people can be stupid? I saw some statistics that 7% of people in Brazil believe in flat earth. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1131128/flat-earth-brazil/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1131128/flat-earth-brazi... As Einstein said(?) only two things are infinite and he's only sure about one of them. Maybe stupid isn't the right word. Gullible, subject to being influenced, herd mentality- donno. Intelligent, rational, people with critical thinking skills seems like a very rare phenomena indeed.
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- adontz 2y agoThanks for sharing this. Any bit of such research is really inspiring for people peacefully protesting currently.
- Cenk 2y ago> those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change. What about Hong Kong?
- rwmj 2y agoI guess that didn't include 3.5% of the population of the whole of China (sadly).
- sp332 2y agoI think this leaves out cases where there is actual resistance by a larger group. For example, a March 2003 Gallup poll showed that 5% of the US population had made a public opposition to the Iraq war, but 21% had made a public display to support the war. Small minorities can't go directly against more popular movements.
- HWR_14 2y agoHong Kong never sustained more than 3.5% of the population for several days. It seems the police response was able to force the number of people participating back below that threshold whenever it surged.
- kyawzazaw 2y agoWe tried this in Myanmar
- ComputerGuru 2y agoApparently the latest numbers show the rebels have a good chance of seizing back power.
- oddx 2y agoAlso in Iran, also in Belarus
- px43 2y agoI have a question, a Burmese friend of mine in college some years back refused to accept the renaming to "Myanmar" since that was apparently done forcefully by the military junta who took control. I think he had just moved to the US right before the 2007-2008 Saffron Revolution (not sure if that's even how people refer to it locally). Because of my conversations with him, it always seemed awkward for me to use the name "Myanmar". I'm sure it's a sensitive topic, but I'm mostly curious how prevalent that is (still calling the country "Burma"), or if even most of the people who oppose the junta have started calling it Myanmar as well.
- kyawzazaw 2y agoWe don’t care for the most part
- sremani 2y agoThe power of Intolerant minority is covered by N.N.Taleb.. the easy examples are Kosher and Halal foods becoming mainstream even though the size of minority itself is small.
- busterarm 2y agoA threshold of 3.5% never fails to make societal change? What about the over 10% that protested in Hong Kong just a couple of years ago? What horseshit.
- nsguy 2y agoWell. BBC. Their title contradicts their article which says: "And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change." which is more believable. I think it's an interesting topic. You probably want to read the original research if you want to get better insight. Naturally with all things human it's not an exact science. Also should we look at the population of China or the population of Hong Kong? Presumably if 10% of the population of China was protesting there's some chance of a political change.
- busterarm 2y agoIf we have to caveat the 3.5% rule based on whether or not you have the right to self-governance or not then we're wasting our time here anyway.
- HWR_14 2y agoOver 10%? On the peak day mid-June, that may have been the case (although it may not have been. Crowd estimates differ). But the police managed to discourage enough protesters that those levels were not sustained for days.
- samastur 2y agoThe article is from 2019.
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- skilled 2y agoWould this work in a different way? 3.5% changing themselves? Protesting to me has always felt like you are forcing things to happen, but the same bureaucracy that controls the decisions at the very top is still there. Could 12 million Americans (3.5%) who are selfless and self-aware change the entire country around them? I would love a study on something like this, even if it is for a relatively small city/country.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoNot directly relating to protest, but sometimes people vote with their wallet, sometimes with their feet, other times at the actual ballot box. Seems like 3.5% could also be a pretty good estimate of how many voters or less make all the decisions when it comes to less-publicized local elections. How about 12 million who are selfish and unempathetic when it comes to very many of their fellow Americans?
- cristoperb 2y agoThat reminds me Tolstoy's conclusion in his essay on Anarchism: "There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself." https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-on-anarchy https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-on-anarc...
- keybored 2y agoNote that this includes things like strikes and boycotts. Obviously non-violent but many people complain immediately when a protest inconveniences their commute by 10 minutes or something. We’ve got this warped idea that a proper protest is when some people gather in some designated area that the authorities allow them to, and they don’t inconvenience anyone. That’s absurd when you consider what a protest is about.
- robertlagrant 2y agoIt's absurd when it doesn't inconvenience anyone who can do what the protest is about. It's like when UK schoolkids "went on strike for the planet". No one who could've done anything was bothered, and no one who could do something about it in the future was educated.
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- bongodongobob 2y agoThink of it this way. Say a group of people are protesting a Walmart being built in their downtown district. People are out in the streets, traffic is jammed up, and "people who can't do anything about it" get pissed off. Commuters are mad, the local businesses are mad. So these people "who can't do anything about it" call their alderman, mayor, whatever "You need to do something about these protests, it's affecting my business/commute". It adds pressure for those in charge to capitulate and stop the protests. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Edit: I can't reply to the comment below this for some reason, but ok they send the police to break up protests against Walmart. Which looks absolutely terrible. "Our mayor sides with Walmart over the people." That adds to the narrative and is paradoxically possible a net positive for the protestors.
- cmmeur01 2y agoIn reality they just send more cops / more funding for cops.
- makeitdouble 2y agoThe bit about peaceful protest being more successful than violent ones is misleading. People go for violence after the peaceful discussions have failed or aren't possible (I see terrorist orgs in that same boat, there's no middle ground to discuss in the first place). And if these people didn't have the power to move the needle through standard negociation, they'll rarely have more power in a violent fight so they're usually bound to fail from the beginning. It's all the more true in regimes where the target of the protest has the mean to physically crush the whole population.
- jimkleiber 2y ago> The bit about peaceful protest being more successful than violent ones is misleading. I haven't read the full article but my impression halfway thru was that it wasn't just a bit about _nonviolent_ protest (which I wouldn't say is the same as _peaceful_ protest), but rather that is the whole premise of the article. Some people, e.g., Gandhi and MLK Jr, did not go for violence after peaceful negotiations failed, while others at the same time _believed_ such negotiations had failed. But just because someone feels hopeless and believes such negotiations have failed doesn't mean they actually have.
- makeitdouble 2y agoFor MLK I see it as a more complex situation, where his movement's peaceful promise shines that bright _because_ the other active movements don't shy away from embracing violence and are a credible threat in case MLK's supporters moved away in mass from his ideology. People kept supporting him because hope was still there, and his death gave way to riots that just couldn't be ignored, giving the smallest glimpse of what would keep going if rapid change wasn't enacted. I'm not versed enough in India's history to comment.
- jimkleiber 2y agoFair, at least from what I learned in the movie Gandhi, which may or may not be accurate, it seemed that both MLK and Gandhi led the force for nonviolence and once they were no longer alive, the nonviolent coalitions seemed to dissipate somewhat or significantly. I hypothesize because they were talking about nonviolence and people assumed by that they wanted peace and I think these leaders wanted love. I recently have been thinking a lot that there's almost a war between love and peace, where people who want love want to work together to resolve conflict and people who want peace want to get rid of conflict, often by working against each other.
- sanitycheck 2y agoAlthough I haven't gone through all the source material in detail, and am certainly not qualified to give an opinion, hey, it's the internet: My instinct is that surely nearly every violent campaign is preceded by an unsuccessful non-violent one, i.e. the low hanging fruit of change is always picked by the non-violent movement before people turn to violence. Thus the problems which violent campaigns attempt to solve are by definition more difficult, and success less likely.
- ComputerGuru 2y agoWell over 3.5% of Syria’s population fought back against their oppressive regime (peacefully, before the government reacted with violence), but I guess this rule doesn’t account for dictators willing to use biological weapons and call in foreign mercenaries and air strikes from Iran and Russia in a desperate bid to cling to power. So I suppose there needs to be some rule of law or a red line the people you are fighting back against won’t cross.
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- cptaj 2y agoI really want to believe in this but I bet you the study has some major methodological flaws regarding all protests that end up in nothing. I live in venezuela, we've had millions of people on the streets multiple times and we still get screwed over every single time. The dictatorship endures
- mc_maurer 2y agoPretty skeptical of a floating "3.5%" figure without any additional context. NYT estimates that 15-26 million people participated in the protests following George Floyd's murder. That breaks the 3.5% threshold, and I don't think we have seen a whole lot of serious police reform in the US since then.
- geoduck14 2y ago>I don't think we have seen a whole lot of serious police reform in the US since then. I was friends with some cops back them and I heard that plenty of police forces were reducing their staffing in response to the protests
- kseistrup 2y ago> Chenoweth has identified two cases where maximalist campaigns failed despite mobilizing more than 3.5% of the population: Brunei in 1962 (4% mobilized) and Bahrain in 2011-2014 (6% mobilized): https://www.directactioneverywhere.com/dxe-in-the-news/chenoweth-blog https://www.directactioneverywhere.com/dxe-in-the-news/cheno... (2021)
- maybezzzz 2y agoThere should be a holiday called "Protest Month" where everyone throughout the year saves up some resources and then all takes off for one month all at the same time.
- ck2 2y agoNot any more, not with police and other government super-powers designed to squash opinions other than the official one. If the US government and police had the overly abusing powers and trickery they have today back during the protests against Jim Crow and Civil Rights, Voting Rights for minorities (and women) NONE of that would have happened no matter how many people threw themselves on the fire in sacrifice. Just look at how some states shutdown campus protests this year as easily as forbidding any sitting or eating and police happily arrested people using chairs. What do you think is going to happen in those states when people have to sit down or eat in line while waiting to vote in November? Look how hard it is for unions to exist anymore in the USA China rewrites its history and reality right down to its own maps, no protest will ever overcome that, not this century, not next given even better technology to control its people. Same for North Korea and Iran.
- tqi 2y agoFor one, correlation is not causation. For another, these numbers ("3.5% of the whole population", "53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests") all seems incredibly precise for something as messy as real world protests. Estimating participation, estimating population, estimating "peak engagement - so many components of this are judgement calls at best. And that is before even attempting to engage with cultural and temporal factors. To make such a bold and outlandish claim based on such shaky data feels fraught.
- chefkd 2y agowould these comments by the esteemed Chiefs kicker considered a majority or the vocal 3.5 percent? https://apnews.com/article/kansas-city-chiefs-harrison-butker-e00f6ee45955c99ef1e809ec447239e0 https://apnews.com/article/kansas-city-chiefs-harrison-butke...
- autorizo 2y agoStop it. You’re either a paid propagandist, you are an unwitting soldier, or you are knowingly fighting a culture war. Just stop it’s gross and unbecoming. if you are being sincere, I apologize but you still need to stop. Stop watching videos like that that are meant to make you mad, ignore people who are just trying to steal brain cycles from you, and for the love of all that is good don’t go reposting them; you are benefiting the person in that video and giving them exactly what they want and in essence agreeing with their entire perspective. Stop it.
- invalidname 2y agoThis is utter nonsense. Let's take the Vietnam war protests of 1969 that are so remembered to this day. They were massive and culturally influential. Yet they gave Nixon one of the biggest victories in US history. The problem is that protesters are often delusional and don't understand complex problems. The civil rights protests were very carefully and accurately led by MLK and this very careful narrative to educate white people was indeed successful. But the obvious hint is at the student protests about Palestine. That's one of the bad protests. First, it targets only Israel without laying any blame or responsibility on the Hamas (which started this specific conflict and is still holding civilian hostages). This also targets the entire country instead of the current leadership, which again is a bad target. The result of these protests is obvious from miles away: * The Israeli right gains power and becomes more aggressive - they use the protests to show how everyone hates Israel and there's no point in trying to satisfy the "antisemites" and the idiots. * Trump gains power - Biden can't control these people... He will make matters worse for the Palestinians. * Hamas is emboldened - they are the reason Palestinians don't have a state (which Israel offered twice to two separate Palestinian leaders). * Putin and Iran are emboldened by the weakness of the West. I understand why people are protesting. They want to help and have good intentions, they are also deeply misinformed (e.g. the UN just updated its casualty statistics which were VERY wrong and are probably still pretty far off). Also the Israeli government is indeed terrible, but Hamas is even worse. Uninformed protesters like this are making things worse for the moderate Palestinians and Israelis.
- cristoperb 2y ago> it targets only Israel without laying any blame or responsibility on the Hamas The reason students are asking their schools to divest from Israel but not from Hamas is because no western schools are funding Hamas or corporations that sell weapons to Hamas. You want protest camps set up to demand schools keep not doing that? > the UN just updated its casualty statistics I just looked them up (https://www.ochaopt.org/ https://www.ochaopt.org/). 34,904+ killed, 70,000 homes destroyed, and 1.7 million people displaced in Gaza. I agree Hamas is probably worse than the Israeli government in some sort of doctrinal or deontological sense, but in terms of actual atrocities committed, it is not even close at this point.
- smegsicle 2y agopareto principal, 20% of the 20%