Update

I haven’t written a new post in a while. Largely this is because events have been moving too quickly for me to follow react to, and this site is meant as a list of general principles more than responses to specific day-to-day events. But the main reason is that I’ve been finding other advice and activism that reduces my own need to speak up.

It has come to my attention in recent weeks that there are people out in the world who have decisive and actionable ideas of how to behave and plan in times like these. This in itself isn’t very surprising, but that their advice can be found on the internet is. Primarily in alternative social media such as bluesky and certain parts of reddit, there are voices that can help us find solace and purpose to move forward. These need to be vetted, as all sources do, but there are still many more than I would have thought likely in such tumultuous times. There are of course those out in the physical world that can help as well, but I am not skilled in navigating that realm.

There are, however, some comments that I feel I should make in the context of the ongoing efforts.

1. Short term, we obviously need to focus on survival and protection of vulnerable individuals and institutions. This is step one of my site’s main schema, though there are a lot of details in what can be done that I haven’t covered (I think I should make a series of more in-depth pages on the six steps). The main broad advice that I can give on this matter is to look to experts who are working directly in the affected areas and can give specific instructions. For the most part, don’t expect leadership from politicians. They have mostly failed to provide it, but in a true democracy it is not the role of politicians to lead, but to listen. Let them fall into that role.
2. Long-term, we need to affect significant changes in our entire political system. This must result from changes in our social structure. The activities that we undertake to ensure short-term survival have to become habits and ways of life. We must foster community, communication, resilience, charity, frugality, and personal authority. We as a people must change, lest we as a people perish. What we are going through is the beginning of something new, and there is no going back. We can’t return to a past state of things and make the same mistakes again. There are many voices insisting that we must protect democracy. I think it is more useful to say that we must create democracy. It is a much larger undertaking, and one that can’t be approached in haste. But it is necessary.
3. In order to avoid being overwhelmed or burnt out, I personally have found it useful to pace my efforts. I’m approaching world-saving as a chore, like cooking dinner or taking out the trash. Every day, I try to do a few useful things: giving money or time to a charity, writing or reposting useful information on social media. Sometimes major things will happen that will take up more of the day, like a protest or, eventually, an election. Doing things a little at a time, with adequate rest in between them, ensures that one can keep doing them. It will hopefully be possible to ramp up both the pace and the effectiveness of these efforts over time, with practice, and by forming new relationships.