 Hello there, it's me, Lucky Black Cat. I know it's been a while since we've seen each other, but don't worry, I am working very hard on more videos for you, and I'm actually making several videos which will be released in short intervals, and I'll give you details about that at the end of this video. So in the meantime, I have something very special for you. I've bravely conquered my anxiety about live streaming somehow. I don't know how I did this, and now I've been a guest on the action show, which is a live stream show on the channel Non-Compet. And I've taken that video of my guest appearance and put it right here in this video for you to watch. So I hope you do watch because we discuss some really important stuff. We're discussing some research-based advice that is useful if you want to organize some class struggle in any sort of situation, whether it's in your workplace or tenant union in your neighborhood, or build a mutual aid network, or grow and expand a movement, whatever sort of organizing or activism goal you might have, we have advice for you. And it's advice that draws on two sources. One, research from social psychology, and two, real life examples of activism and class struggle. And also, as a bonus, you get to see what I'm like live, which, okay, that part is actually kind of terrifying to me, and I hate that part, but anyways. So if you want to see me in action on the action show, stick around. It is coming right up in this video. And if you want to know more about the videos that I'm working on right now for this channel, and stick around until the end of the video, and I will tell you, or you could always just skip right to the end. I've put little chapters, timestamps down. And if you look at the little red bar, you can fucking just go click on the thing for the outro, and you can just skip to that and find out what I have going on for this channel in the future. But I hope you don't skip and actually watch the stream. I think that we talk about some really useful stuff. All right. Well, here it is. It's action show time. I'm going to go ahead and welcome our guest, Lucky Black Cat. Hello. Hello. Lucky Black Cat. Hello. Hello. It's been a long time coming, Lucky Black Cat. Been a fan of yours for, I think, a couple of years now since you started your YouTube channel, right? Wow. Yes. Oh, I was, I wasn't expressing shock at the two years thing. I was expressing shock that you're a fan of mine. I don't even know if I'm a fan of mine. Well, I definitely appreciate what you're doing. And I'm glad we finally, I mean, I think we've talked about streaming together for like a long, long time, but this is the first time we've actually had the opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Well, better late than never. I'm really glad you're here. Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and your channel and what you're all about before we get into the presentation? Yeah. I'm Lucky Black Cat and that's all one word. I have a YouTube channel and I like to do videos on all kinds of things, capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, social justice issues, everything. All the stuff we love. I haven't necessarily gotten to everything yet. Well, you know, it's like, it's like the dialectic never ends and we are anarchists not because it's the end goal, but because there is no end goal. So you should be able to keep talking for a long, long time. And yeah, so what are we talking about today specifically? I know that you're going to be talking about the social psychology of activism. Well, it's not just social psychology for its own sake. The point of it is to give advice, general advice for really any activist organizer that drawing insights from that and also real life activist struggles. So like whether your goal is to organize your workplace, your neighborhood or build a mass movement, whatever it is, this advice can be helpful for any of that. And it will draw insights from two sources, as you said, social psychology, but also not just like the academic wankery of social psychology, which okay, I'm being a little a facing of it right now, which maybe I shouldn't, but also real life activist struggles like real shit, these things are going to coalesce and we'll see how they can actually create synergy or overlap or whatever you want to call it. So and through the insights from these two things, we can provide insights to how to build a movement more effectively and organize more awesome. So yeah, so social psychology, what is it? It's basically just the study of people's psychological reactions to social situations. So like it's trying to figure out how do people behave, their behavior, their attitudes, their beliefs, their goals, their actions and so on. How are these influenced by other people to some degree to like a bridge between sociology and psychology, but not really. You might already be familiar with some of these with some stuff from social psychology, the Milgram experiments is a very famous social psychology experiment, the Stanford prison experiments also as well. What was the Milgram, was that when they had the people in like lab coats that were inflicting pain on people or is that a different one? Absolutely, they weren't really in pain on people, but they were pretending to and they were seeing if people would obey the person in the lab coat, because the experiment must continue said the guy in the lab coat, even though you're inflicting for someone for the experiment to continue, but we won't get into that. It's not really important for what we're talking about today. Anyway, so there have been experiments in social psychology which give insights that activists and organizers can use to increase people's active participation in a movement. And this has been validated by successful activist struggles and movements that have used these strategies. And quite likely they have been using these strategies without even realizing that these strategies are supported by social psychology research. So I'd like to discuss this research and also some of the struggles that validate its findings. Specifically, we'll be looking at the Quebec student strike, a struggle by unionized hotel workers in San Francisco, and a struggle against a landlord by the Seattle Solidarity Network. Wow, those are those are going to be some exciting examples. We did just have Nora Papa on. So Nora's here with us now. Oh, hello, Nora. Hi. Very glad to have you. Yeah, I had no idea what time we agreed on. So we only just started like a few minutes ago. So yeah, you're like the you're like the exciting new character in our action packed adventure. You'll be with us as we journey through the social psychology of activism. But yeah, Nora's our co-host. If you didn't know, everyone subscribed to Nora. Hey, lucky black cat. I put the links in the description of YouTube. I'll drop them in the chat as well. But yeah, Nora, we're just getting started with the presentation. So you just came in time to learn with us. So let's I guess let's sit back and relax and learn about the social psychology of activism. How are you, Nora? Are you are you are you good today, Nora? Oh, yeah, I'm I'm I'm good. I was just thinking about Amazon unions. Because a lot of a lot of social psychology happened in there, I'm sure. Yeah, well, Amazon world. Well, hopefully if hopefully there'll be some Amazon workers listening to this. And if not, maybe someone knows an Amazon worker, or it doesn't have to be Amazon anywhere. All workers, you don't organize everywhere. So workers of the world. Yes, workers of the world, or, you know, in your neighborhood is tenants or wherever you're trying to struggle. So like the point of this, I'll just very quickly reiterate. So since you're here now, Nora, is to take insights from social psychology and real life activist struggles and draw from those to provide lessons that we can use as activists as organizers to build our movements and our struggles. So in in organizing and moving building, one common problem that people often face is that there's not enough participation. Either they're small membership, or maybe you have a decent size membership, but those members are not participating. They're just paper members, but they're not really active. So what do we do about that? And thankfully, social psychology has some insights we can use. So oh, sorry, just go really quickly. By the way, Nora, and also again, EJ, just jump in any time you want to interrupt if you have a comment to add, or a question, or anything like that. Just feel free to interrupt, it's fine. That goes to you to chat. If you have any questions, sound off, and I'll relay them to Lucky Black Ants. I just want to see Amazon Union and their chat all day long. Please, please. If anyone knows any Amazon workers, call them and tell them to tune in right fucking now. It is time. Okay. So school is in. Yes, it's school time. Well, anyways. So we'll start with a research experiment from the 1960s by psychologist Jonathan L. Friedman and Scott C. Freezer. This took place in a California suburb called Palo Alto. And the researchers went door-to-door in a neighborhood asking people at the door, hey, can we put a sign in your yard that says drive carefully? Now, this sign was huge. It was an eyesore. Like it was just like, drive carefully. So most people unsurprisingly said no. Only 17% said yes. Okay. So then the researchers went to another neighborhood and this time they went door-to-door, but they asked, can we put this small sign in your window that says be a safe driver? So people were like, yeah, it was just a little sign in the window. Sure. Most people said yes. Now, a couple of weeks later, they went back to that same neighborhood where they were asking you about the small sign. And they asked, can we put this huge, big ass drive carefully sign in your front lawn? This time, 76% said yes. And again, in the other neighborhood, it was only 17%. So that's about 4.5 times more people saying yes. So why the difference? The theory is that people like to stay consistent with their past statements, with their beliefs, with their commitments. So when you agree to put a small sign in your window, you've basically made a small commitment to promoting safe driving. And you start to think of yourself as an advocate for safe driving. And now the large sign just becomes this logical next step to stay consistent in your values and your identity. And people like that, because when you're consistent, it feels like you're being true to yourself. And if you're not being consistent or if you're being inconsistent, now that feels like you're just going against yourself. You're contradicting yourself. You're betraying your own values. And people don't like to do that. So the lesson from that is, if you can convince someone to make even just a small commitment, they're more likely to continue in that direction. Now this is often called the foot in the door technique, because you can get a small yes that gets your foot in the door. And now you can move on to hopefully get a bigger yes. So you can use, yep. So I'm just going to come in with the only reference I know. Basically, it's like all those like weird anime games where they're like, oh, join the club. It'll be like, it'll be fine in the main characters hates like all the clubs, but then he joins anyway. And then it's like a small foot in the door thing. And then he stays in the club, kind of like, okay, okay, whatever. I wish I watched more anime. So I couldn't get that reference. But I think I think I got what you're saying. So they sort of, they get them, they get them to just join the club. And from then they can like draw them in further to more of their maybe weird active activities they're doing there. Yes. Okay, cool. Okay. Um, so this is useful both in anime and also in organizing or hopefully or hopefully there would be maybe an anime about organizing, which there should be more animates about organizing. That's that this this is a message for you all you anime animators. Yeah, because I'm sure there's a word for that. I don't yes. So again, there's this common problem in organizing activism and so on that there's just not enough participation. The membership base is small, we need to draw in more people where the members are not actively participating. So a way to deal with that is try to get a small yes from people just ask something small like sign a petition. And from there you can then more easily maybe get a bigger guess like will you attend a meeting? Will you hand out leaflets? And then from there you can maybe get them to agree to do something even more participate even further. So the strategy is basically drawing people in in small increments you get a small commitment small level of participation and you nudge them forward gradually. This is so much like the marketing funnel. I was a marketer for like a decade. It's always just like first like click the link and then subscribe to the email newsletter and then eventually it's like spend the money. Yeah, yeah, actually like I know like as anarchists, communists, socialists were probably like cringing at the idea of marketing but there are insights from there that can be used for anti-market purposes for like purposes of fighting the market. And I think we should not cringe at them. We should you know learn lessons from our enemies not some of the lessons from them we don't want to learn but some of them might be useful and we can apply them in good ways. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, they spend millions and millions of dollars on like research on psychological research and stuff like that. So it's like we don't have those resources. So we have to kind of crib and adapt. Well, we can. Yeah, exactly. Well, we can learn from their research that they've done for us. We can figure it out. It won't always apply. Sometimes it will feel like who wants to drink Coca-Cola? We don't give a shit about that. This kind of stuff is cool. Okay, so this foot in the door method can be used for both outreach and in-reach. So outreach would be reaching out to people who are not in your organization just like anyone you want to like like if you have a workplace committee and you're trying to draw in co-workers who are not yet in the committee, you can use it for that or if you're organizing a tenants union, you can use it for people who are not yet in the tenants union and so on, but it can also be used for in-reach, which is people within your own organization, people who might be signed up officially as members, but they're actually just paper members. They're not really participating and you can still use this foot in the door technique to sort of try to draw them back in and make them more active. So the foot in the door technique, it helps increase people's participation, but it can also help with increasing people's comfort level with bold tactics going from more more tame tactics to more bold, risky, militant, radical tactics. So you might start people with signing a petition. Maybe if they're willing to sign a petition, now they might next be willing to do a march on the boss and if they're willing to do that, now they might feel comfortable with doing an hour-long sit-down strike and if they're willing to do an hour-long sit-down strike, maybe next they'll be willing to do an unlimited sit-down strike. Next thing you know, they feel okay with occupying the whole factory and then we have a revolution. So obviously, yes, obviously easier said than done. So, you know, each of those steps can take a lot of work to get people from A to B to C to D, but having things laid out like that and moving people along gradually like that can make people more comfortable with the next step. So I don't want to make this sound easy, but this will, it's always going to be a struggle, it's always going to be hard, but this will make it easier. This is great because I'm just thinking about an organization I'm in and it's a group of all sorts of different people, but we feel like we've been like losing touch with a certain group of people, like the labor people, like over the course of COVID, they have become less and less active because they typically like to meet in person and we're not doing a whole lot of meetings in person anymore. So they're not like even participating in the org at all almost and we've been trying to like figure out ways to like draw them back in and that's, this is great because it's going to give me all sorts of ideas. Oh, that's great. I'm so glad to hear that. Another thing, this wasn't in the presentation, so I'm going a bit off script here, but it can help to have like, depending on how many, how much capacity you have, like to either have like someone whose job, like within, not job, sorry, their role within the organization is in reach. You can have one person whose, whose role is in reach or you can have a whole committee, an in-reach committee and their whole focus is to reach out to other members in the organization and like, you know, call them, text them, you know, try to, try to keep that connection going and so on like this. I hate to bring up the marketing thing again, but one thing that I know from advertising is you always try to go after the people who've already made a purchase, you know, they're doing marketing because the resistance to buy again is way lower and it's like, I don't remember the exact number, but you spend like $1 to get a repeat customer back versus like $10 for a new customer. And it also links in with the question CJ1295 just asked, which is, is the foot in the door similar to the far right pipeline? I think it is and I think that, I mean, you know, based on my video on the PD pipeline with the pyramid of violence and the stochastic violence, stochastic terrorism pipeline, I do think it's kind of the same principles at work where it's like you're starting out at a very small level and you're getting people brought in more and more. I think this is just kind of the way, I mean, this is just kind of a universe, is that true? Is that, is that, is that ring true to you, Lucky Black? Yeah, I mean, there are some people who will make huge leaps in either their actions or their beliefs or what they're comfortable with, but most people will be drawn incrementally into something, whether that's for better or for worse. So our goal is to try to use that for good. Now, we of course, we don't want to be manipulative. We don't want to be, to me, manipulative means that you're being dishonest and that you're doing something that's for, you're using someone for your own purposes. Now that's not what this is about. You want to be honest, you want to be transparent, and obviously the people that we're working with, it's not about something for ourselves, it's about our collective liberation, it's about them too. So I wouldn't consider this, so yeah, you don't want to be manipulative, you want to be honest. It's just the same as propaganda. This is the last thing I'll say and then I'll shut up and you can continue the presentation, but propaganda can also be used for good and it can be honest or it can be, because propaganda is just persuasive communication and you can be honest or you can be dishonest and manipulative. It's the same principle. I think it sounds very similar. Yeah, no, the word propaganda has been turned into something dirty and we probably shouldn't use it because people will misunderstand, but propaganda, yeah, it just means any sort of material that's attempting to persuade someone. So it's not necessarily dishonest and we should never be dishonest. We don't have to be dishonest in order to win, like our enemies do because they're trying to... The truth's on our side. Yeah, exactly. So we should always be honest. Yeah, honest propaganda. Okay, so now that we've looked at this social psychology experiment, we want to see that is it validated by actual real life, you know, shit, you know, is it just some wankery academic bullshit or is it actually real shit? Well, I guess it's not, you know what I'm saying? Does it actually work for activism and organizing? And the answer is that it very much seems that it does. So the example we'll focus on for the foot in the door technique is the Quebec student strike of 2012. Now, I know there's a lot of people listening to this. So not everyone, you guys probably, everyone here knows. So Quebec, but I don't know. I hope, I just don't want to seem like, I was like, should I put this in my notes or not? Quebec is a province in Canada. I was like, will this seem condescending? A lot of Americans know absolutely nothing about Canada. And I only have really learned stuff about Canada since becoming a leftist. So there's people from all over the world. And yeah, so anyways, I'm doing too much of my internal monologue here. So Quebec is a province in Canada. It is a population of over 8 million. And Quebec has the lowest tuition fees of any province in Canada. And that's thanks in part to history of student strikes. In early 2010, the Quebec government announced a plan to raise tuition fees by 75% over five years starting 2012. So that's a huge increase, 75%. Obviously, students were very unhappy about this. So they decided we need to do something. So there's three major student associations in Quebec. There's the FEUQ, the FECQ, and CLA-SSE, which is class A. So class A was the most and is the most radical of all of them. They're the most radical in their goals. Their goal is for free post-secondary education. And they're also radical in their structures. They're into direct democracy decision making in weekly student assemblies rather than just having elected delegated executive power. So they want that sort of grassroots power from below anarchist style of organizing and decision making. And also, class A represented half of the striking students. So not only were they most radical, but they were the biggest, which is great. And how did they do that? Well, student organizers in class A used the foot in the door method to gradually escalate people's participation and the tactics that were used in the struggle. So from the start, the organizers said, if we want to stop this tuition increase, we need to have an unlimited general student strike, period. So by unlimited, that means for as long as it took to make the government cave in. And general meaning at every single university and college across the province. So they said this repeatedly to students from the start, but they knew that the strike wouldn't have enough support or mobilization behind it, at least not yet. So they didn't try to leap into it. That would have been a failed mission. They started by asking students to sign petitions. Now, normally, obviously, like, you know, change.org, all that shit is probably not going to do very much at all, if anything, right? But as part of a movement building strategy, petitions can actually be really effective. So they got 30,000 signatures on this petition. From there, they escalated to having protests, a whole bunch of protests. They also escalated from there to occupying university buildings and more protests. And they even had a one-day strike. And the goal from all this action, they didn't think it was going to win their demands. Their goal was basically to build a movement to draw in as many students as possible to be active in participating. And it worked. Gradually, through all of this, they drew more and more students into the movement. And as all of this was going on, there was also ongoing student assemblies at each school. And in these assemblies, there was discussion and decision making, you know, direct democracy that very like anarchist bottom-up style of including everyone, having everyone participate, having everyone shape the direction of the movement. Now, that doesn't mean that there's no, like, leaders in the sense of people who are taking a more active role in trying to push things in the more, you know, radical direction, because they're very much was. But, you know, they weren't controlling things from the top down. They weren't these executives that were trying to shape things in the sense of, you know, pushing it without consent. They were trying to persuade, make everyone understand that this is what needs to happen. And they would, you know, bring that up in these meetings and also, you know, on the picket line or sorry, in the protest and whatever. So, I'd like, you know, through speeches of the protest, etc. So, as each of these actions failed along the way and didn't get the results they wanted, eventually the students started to realize that those who had been calling for the unlimited general student strike had been right this whole time. You know, nothing else is working. We need to go all in. We need to go all the way. So, they held a strike vote and the majority voted yes. So, the strike began in February 2012. That was two years after the movement began. So, they've been working at this a long time. And at the peak of the strike, there was 175,000 students involved who were in the strike. That is over half of Quebec's 340,000 post-secondary students. And in their demonstrations were also huge. They had up to 200,000 students as well as supporters involved. Through all this, there was a lot of, you know, confrontations with the cops and with the state. There were 3,000 arrests over the course of this movement. And the Quebec government, in an effort to stop this, passed something called Law 12 that criminalized protests within 50 meters of a school. It also criminalized... Are you laughing at meters? Oh, sorry. I thought it was like... I was just laughing because I was just thinking about how like, you know, the state's lastest efforts always to make it not a law but at that point, it's already too late. Right. Free speech zones. Sorry to make it... I didn't actually hear what you said. I was just saying that I was just thinking about how that was their last just effort when it was already way too late. And we've had some more things like that in the United States, and it never pans out. Yeah. It's a clear sign of desperation, right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, they passed this very desperate law. And yeah, it didn't work out for them. So they criminalized protests within 50 meters of schools. They also criminalized protests anywhere that didn't tell police the planned route in advance. And now the fines for violating this law were actually very intense. So you could be fined, just as an individual, you'd be fined up to $5,000 for violating this law. If you were student leader, though, you could be fined up to $35,000. And if for your organization violating this law, $125,000 fine. So these are like... Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Scary, scary, big penalties. But people did not give a fuck. So May 22nd, very shortly after the law was passed, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Montreal to protest the law. And this is considered the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, only because this protest itself was illegal. They didn't follow the rules of this new law. So the best way to get rid of a law is to fucking break it in big, big numbers. And that's what happened. So the civil disobedience continued after that big march. There continued to be spontaneous demonstrations in various neighborhoods. There'd be several simultaneous marches, each one having hundreds or sometimes even thousands of peoples. And the cops, they can't deal very well with a bunch of shit going on at the same time. If there's like one centralized march with a whole shit ton of people, it's a lot easier for the cops to deal with that than even if there's smaller numbers, but they're broken up all over the place. It's just a big, big, big problem. So the cops just kind of, we're having a connection issue from me. You turned into a robot for a moment there. On my end, yeah, I think you've sound okay now, though. Can you just start that song? You sound good now. Just walk me back a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, basically these protests happening all over the place, it's fairly hard for the cops to keep control of them if they're happening in a bunch of different places at once. It's just a big logistic problem. It's easier to just deal with one centralized protest. So yeah. So this continued for two weeks, all these decentralized protests in different neighborhoods all going on at the same time. At its peak, there were tens of thousands of people involved in separate marches all over the city, basically dozens of protests happening at the same time. So once a movement is this big, it basically has a gravity of its own, and it draws people in without needing to use the foot in the door technique. The foot in the door technique is very good for building that momentum, but when you get to the size like this, people just start getting sucked in. Rindy, a lot of Black Lives Matter last year. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect example. And sometimes when something like that happens, people can often just assume it's just like a spontaneous uprising, and in many ways it is, but behind the scenes, there was often a lot of organizing to mobilize the initial people that got involved. That's what a lot of Black activists have talked to have said is that like Black Lives Matter seems like it came out of nowhere, but people have been working back, back into the 90s and before. There's this long legacy, and it's abolished the police movement. That's got long roots going back a long time, and they did a lot of work to get to the point where when Black Lives Matter exploded, there were this apparatus in place to push the agenda and that sort of thing. Yeah. Even now, there's all sorts of planning going on for the Black Lives Matter protest because we know it's going to be inevitable that like some sort of thing starts up again. So people are planning now and preparing for that. Good. It's like Gramsci talked about, I'll just try to put this out quickly, but like Gramsci talked about how crisis is inevitable under capitalism, and so we should use crises as like our artillery and just like always expect there to be a crisis around the corner, and the thing we need to do is be ready through organizing to take advantage of that crisis when it happens. Absolutely. Yeah. Organizing can be like considered like gathering the tinder, right? Like stacking up all your fucking twigs and I don't know other pieces of wood and so on, and you might be like, oh, we're not getting results. Why isn't nothing happening from this? Oh, shit. But then the spark comes and boom. But if you hadn't gathered that tinder that whole time, the spark would come fucking nothing. So like, I think a lot of time we can get discouraged as like organizers and activists because we're laying all this shit down and doesn't seem like very much momentum is coming from it. But like trust me, it will matter. It's all about like getting things ready for as you said, the right moment for that spark to come and like set shit off. So yeah, absolutely. So anyways, so this Quebec student strike went on for over six months. And in the end, they won. So the tuition increase was fucking canceled. The worst aspects of law 12 were repealed. And eventually the law expired. And also there was like just the fact that they had mass resistance and mass civil disobedience to and made law 12 just basically unenforceable, I think should also count as a victory. Now they didn't win for abolishing tuition fees, which as I mentioned, was like a goal of class A. So I guess it wasn't it wasn't a total victory in that sense, but at least they got the tuition increase canceled. So that's good. So if you'd like to learn anyone watching this wants to learn more about the Quebec student strike, I would recommend reading organized to strike fight to win Quebec's 2012 student strike by class A. So this is written by the organizers who were involved in doing all the shit I just described. It's obviously best to hear it from the people themselves who did this shit. They they will you'll get the inside scoop. So again, that is organized to strike fight to win Quebec's 2012 student strike by C. L. A. S. S. E. And it's online for free. You can find it. Oh, nice. Very cool. I'll try to find that link while you continue your proposal. Yeah, maybe you can drop it in the I hope it's still online. Like I download this shit like way back in the day. So maybe it's not up there. I'll do some Googling right now. Yeah. Oh, my audio cut out. I can't hear anything anymore. Can someone say something? Oh, I think my mic was muted maybe. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the foot in the door technique has a mirror opposite technique called door in the face. And I think this can sort of be summed up by quoting a clever child who once said, if you want a puppy, ask for a pony. So basically, if you want something big, you ask for it, you'll probably get a no, the door will be slammed in your face. And then you ask for something small, and you'll be more likely to get a yes than if you just started by asking for the small thing. So again, this sounds very opposite from the foot in the door techniques. So you might be wondering, well, you know, which one is more effective. And actually, there is a meta analysis of 22 studies comparing the door in the face technique with the foot in the door technique, it was published in the journal Psychological Reports. And it found that both methods work equally well. So take your pick. Now, how do we apply this? Yeah. So how do we apply this to movement building? Now, so when asking someone to participate, should we actually just start by asking them to take on some unreasonably huge amount of responsibility? I would, I think we should not do that. I would recommend it against that, because if you ask someone to do too much, it could alienate them. And you know, and even if they say yes, they might end up failing because they take on more than they can handle. I just I just don't think you should ever ask something to do some someone to do something that you think is unreasonable. So then, so then the question is like, how do we actually apply this door in the face technique? Like, how do we use that insight for organizing for activism? So I think that the way to do it is if you ask someone to take on a task, whatever it may be, and they say no, instead of just giving up on that person and be like, oh, well, I guess they don't want to participate, just ask them to do something smaller than the thing that they said no to. And the chances of them saying yes, will now be higher. So, yeah. Yeah, this this kind of reminds me of another thing with the organization I'm in. We have someone who's very young. He's kind of like a puppy. And we he wants to do like too many things at once. And we're just like, just to slow down a little like, yeah. So we were thinking about giving him like really small tasks and like letting him build up from there. And yeah, you don't want them to burn out or like to take on too much and then and then like fail and then like lose their confidence or or anything like that. So yeah, it's also really bad when you have somebody who's doing too many things at once. I've seen this happen many, many times. I think I've been this person a couple of times too. Like one person is doing too many things and then like the whole organization's relying on this one person. And then that one person like has an emergency or gets burnt out or whatever. And there's this huge like vacuum now because that person was was just handling too much stuff. So yeah, I think distributing things as much as possible is just generally healthy, more healthy for the organization. Yeah, 100% your organization will be more effective. And also, it can also become like a too much power like to the people who are taking the most active role and not not that they necessarily are like power hungry people or anything, but it's just, you know, it's just not a it for so many reasons, it's not healthy for it for that to happen. Yeah, organization. That's a good way. That's a good point. I never thought about exactly like that. But it's like the hierarchy is not good for the org and it's not good for the person really if you think about it. If we are trying to make like an egalitarian sort of flat hierarchy movement. Yeah, which which is ideal. And also, you know, burn out and everything. We don't we don't want to torture our comrades with burnout. We want to respect their boundaries. Yeah, we just had a quick question from spiders or wholesome. Is there any way to combine door in face and foot in door the way you talked about the Quebec strike, how they had people calling for a strike from the beginning while simultaneously starting with petitions? I just figured yeah, I can answer this. So basically, like if you were to talk to some random person on a street and say, general, do you want to start general strike right now? And they say no. And then you say, how about you join this org that, you know, supports the general strike? It's, and it's like yes. So you get them to do the small thing while slamming the door in the face. I think that that's a very good answer. And I have nothing to add. Hopefully, the person spider, spider person, or whoever. Spider person is a spider's side. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Foot in door in face is what spiders are. There you go. Sounds good. All right. So the next technique we'll talk about it doesn't have a name. It's basically a variation on the foot in the door technique. It's basically just asking for a vague commitment before asking for a real commitment. So the research experiment that we'll look at for this, it was led by psychology professor Stephen J. Sherman. It was published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Okay, so in this experiment, there were two groups. Group one got a phone call asking, will you volunteer three hours for charity? Only 2% said yes. And then group two got a phone call asking, if a charity asks you to volunteer for three hours, would you do it? Okay, it's hypothetical. 40% said yes. So it's hypothetical. It's very easy to say yes. You don't actually have to do it. But three days later, those who said yes to this hypothetical thing got another phone call. But this time, they were asked to volunteer three hours for real. And now they're probably thinking, damn it, what did I get myself into? But they didn't want to contradict what they had said. So they were more likely to say yes. In fact, 38% said yes. Okay, so I don't want to exaggerate or mislead here. So we're talking about 38% of the 40%, right? Because there was 40% who said yes hypothetically. So 38% of that 40%. So which if hopefully I got my math right was 15% of group two volunteered, which isn't a whole lot. But again, that's compared to only 2% from group one. So we're increasing the participation seven and a half times more likely to participate. That's huge, right? Because it's really easy to say yes when there's your effort involved, it's just this hypothetical big abstract thing. But if you can get people to do this, then they'll be more likely to say yes when it actually requires effort, when it's actually the real world. It's kind of like people asking hyper-conservative like chuds, like health care questions in a really big way. And then saying like that's Obama care. And they're like, what notes is it? And then it changes their mind. Oh, because you're just labeling it? Oh, right. Yeah, because they're like, they get like a sort of like, oh, shit, Obamacare. I hate Obamacare, but maybe they don't actually really know what that means. And then if you can just describe it to them without the label, they'll be like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. And then he's like, oh, that's Obamacare, they'll be like, oh, shit, maybe that is okay. Yeah, exactly. Okay, has there been an experiment on that? Because if there has been, I'm not aware of it. I'm pretty sure. I just said it was kind of like it. I don't think there was any experiment. Okay, but I think there probably has actually not specifically with that, where you were just saying Nora, but I have heard of other things, other experiments like that with like, I can't remember the specifics right now, but like other policies, right? Where it was like, you know, I think there was like older studies, so it wouldn't have been Obama, it would have been some other fucking Democrat shit bag, or whatever it was. And then people will be like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. And then, you know, versus like, so you have one group where they hear who it is from and one group where they don't. And then like, and oh, wait, I remember now it was okay, it was like, oh, no, I don't actually remember. Okay, I was getting excited for a reason. I don't actually remember. I think I was going to do a global warming shit, but I'll probably just fuck it up if I try to. We're live streaming, I don't want to try to. If it helped, honey, I kind of am slowly radicalizing my dad like that. Oh, nice. Like, like describing like, socialism or anarchist things without telling him that's what it actually is. Oh, right on Nora. How's it going? Oh, it's going really good surprisingly, because I don't know if you've heard about the tragic like, mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado. Absolutely. I did. Yeah, that's fuck. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people were extremely mad at the police, because they showed up in all this militarized gear, and basically like, begged the guy to surrender, instead of like, storming in like their jobs are supposed to be. Yeah, it's just the you're talking like the dual standard kind of thing, like if it had been a black guy or something of that more, much more likely to have. Yeah, yeah. Burn, burn right away, yeah. What they stood in, they sit around doing nothing for 15 minutes. And like the news called them heroes and stuff, when they didn't do anything, when the situation was already resolved. There's so much propaganda about that, like it's, it's. Yeah, and then they keep being like, like they don't mention any of the other victims. I just keep noticing it's like, they just keep talking about that one cop who died. Yeah. Nine other people died, and they don't say anything about any of the other victims. It's just like, oh, this one cop died. That's like the man. Yeah. And, and my dad, like a huge used to be like a huge cops supporter would think they were these like heroes, right? And then he watched like the live streaming, and he was like, and he called me later. He was like, you know what, I actually agree with you, the cops didn't do anything. And it's something he would have never said before. Wow. So for him, that's a big step to say that. Yeah, that's like massive. It's like, it was a shock that he admitted that to me. Honestly, like I was not expecting that. Well, I'm glad you can, you can be there to like a combined, you know, the horrible reality of current events with your own, you know, influence, you know, and the things you're saying to him to try to help him interpret them in, in better ways. So that's really cool. Congrats on that. And congrats to your dad for not being totally close minded. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I, I, I've mostly had failures in my life with trying to persuade people to to shift into better directions. Yeah, I think I've learned a lot from a person who, who's in my organization again, like I don't stop talking about it, but they live on basically a commune, but none of them will say it's a commune, but it is a commune. Yeah, well, it's like people who maybe used to be like right wing chuds were like three presenters and whatnot, but it's converted into a commune basically by this one person, like, um, saying, applying like actual principles, like, hey, like you help me, I'll help you vice versa. And now they run like a state. Now they all like own their means of production and wait, but these are former like right wing people. Yeah. Okay. So they've discovered communism, but they won't call it that independent, independent discovery. Everyone agrees that she's basically just a communist at this point, but she won't actually admit it. And well, I mean, she did grow up in a cult. Like a socialist or communist cult of some sort. Oh, so probably they now hate, hate socialism or communism because of those experiences. Oh, that's really sad. Yeah, I'm sure that was horrible. Yeah, but she she's amazing. That's great. She's just radicalizing like everyone. And like I kind of learned from her a little bit. And I think that's when I really started changing my dad's mind was because she was radicalizing like actual right wing, wing chuds to become socialists. So if she can do it, you know, then yeah, well, that's, that's a very, I, she should have her on stream sometime. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I find that story very inspiring, you know, especially since she's been hurt so much by this, I'm sure very fake and twisted, perverted, distorted version of something very beautiful, but taken in this really, you know, messed up fucking way that then she learned to have a bad association with this idea of communism or socialism. And now she's discovered it, maybe not a name, but as something that is actually, you know, liberating and healing and helpful to increase her own well-being and that of her community. And that's just really beautiful. And that makes me really happy to hear that. Yeah, it's, it's amazing is what it is. Yeah, I might feel a very aglowiness in my solar plexus. That's, that's awesome. I love it. So please give, give her props for me, like, you know, or a hug, whatever, whatever. Yeah. Anyways, okay. Okay. So where were we? Oh, right. We were talking about using a vague hypothetical commitment before escalating to ask for a real commitment. So applying this to movement building and social movements. Yeah. So basically you just do that. So for example, you could ask someone, hey, you know, let's, let's say you're talking to a friend who you're trying to bring into your organization, you might just say, hey, you know, would you be willing to come to a meeting sometime, you know, come to a meeting one of these days, you don't give a specific date or anything. And you know, they'll probably say, well, maybe they won't say yes, but they're more likely to say yes than if you ask them for a specific date or whatever. Because they'll be like, yeah, yeah, sure, I'll come to a meeting sometime. You know, how it is like, when you ask someone, hey, we should get together sometime. We should have coffee sometime. They'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably they don't actually meet it at the time. But, but then if you actually follow up on that and be like, hey, you know, you said you would come to a meeting sometime. Well, it's, it's, it's this or, you know, you said you were interested in that. It's, well, it's this Saturday at 3pm. Are you able to make it? And, you know, the research shows that they will be more likely now to say yes. And, you know, we can do this for any activity. It doesn't just have to be meetings. It could be any sort of action that you're trying to get people involved in. So the one caveat for this is don't be bossy. You know, just because someone said yes earlier when you were asking them hypothetically, we don't want to demand that they now say yes and be, you know, just because they said it before. Both because, you know, we don't want to be an asshole. We don't want to be pushy, but also on a more practical level, research studies show that people are more likely to say yes when they're asked the second time, you know, asked for real if they are being asked instead of told, because, you know, just people don't like being told what to do. It's that innate anarchist spirit that we all have. We all hate to be bossed around quite, you know, which is very justified. Okay. So the real life example that goes with this of organizers and activists using this method, it's very, well, I don't know if it's very common, but it's fairly common in labor organizing for organizers to sometimes do surveys with workers about what actions they would be willing to do before actually doing those actions. So the example we'll look at is hotel workers at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco, California, USA. They were fighting for their first contract. They were already unionized with the Union Unite here. And Unite here has many members in the hotel and service industry. So these workers, they won a contract in 2002, but winning that contract took years of struggle because management, surprise, surprise, were being very, very stubborn in the bargaining process. They were just not making any progress. They were, you know, and the union organizers decided, well, fuck it, you know, we're not getting anywhere this way. So we need to mobilize our coworkers to take direct action to pressure the company because, you know, direct action gets the goods. So during this campaign, workers who were taking, you know, a very active role in organizing decided to survey their coworkers. They started by surveying them, asking them, are you willing to wear a pro union button to work? So very low level, low risk basic thing. And a, you know, majority said yes. So then from there, they handed out the buttons and many people actually wore them. Now, if they hadn't surveyed workers first before, you know, they could have just handed out buttons from the start without doing the survey first, you might think, well, that's a waste of time. The thing is, though, if they surveyed them first, people are more likely to say yes, because it's just a very vague commitment. And then from there, people will be more likely to actually wear them. And if they hadn't done that, maybe you'd have less people wearing them. And the point of the button is to make the show of strength, both to follow coworkers, to sort of build this morale and so on and build a sense of solidarity. And if you had only had like a minority of workers wearing the buttons, it could actually just end up being a show of weakness rather than a show of strength. So you want to get as many of you will wearing them as possible. So doing that survey first helped increase the number of people who were wearing them. And then also having more like starting people wearing the buttons, got more people to say yes after that. There was a lot of people were wearing the button. It reminds me of when you were talking at the beginning about people would put the small sign in the door and then that would like make them feel like, OK, I'm associated with this movement now. So yeah, that's interesting. That's why I've always said, I mean, I've had a lot of anarchists push back against this, but I get this from my marketing days, but branding does matter. And having like a cool aesthetic. The problem is like you have to thread the needle because you don't want it to become all about the aesthetic and the church keys and all that kind of stuff. You want it to have depth and meat to it. But I do think that you still have to take into consideration things like symbols are very powerful for human beings. Absolutely. There's a reason that we have cave paintings where people drawing on the walls like back when they were also like really struggling to survive. Aesthetics matter to human beings, I think. And so I think we can have both at the same time where we can have buttons and pins and logos and slogans. But we just have to make sure that they represent something that goes deeper and that the movement doesn't. Yeah, that's something I think about all the time because it's like it is a problem if it becomes all about the aesthetics, but I still think the aesthetics are still important. I think that's where the pushback comes from because there are those who will make it all about the aesthetics and the symbolism and that's where they'll stop. So obviously we don't want that. And I think a lot of us maybe encounter that kind of thing throughout our political participation. And then we get to the real action. Well, that's like the DNC, right? I mean, the DNC is just slogans, empty slogans. And they come up with little or the GOP, like the fucking red hat, the Make America Great hat. You know, it's like, although they actually did, I would argue that there's more depth to the fascist Republican movement than there is to the liberal movement. But I guess that's another discussion. But regardless, I guess that we have to look at the Venn diagram, like the good things and the bad things, because like what's great about symbols and aesthetics is that they can unify us. They can inspire us. They can signal to each other. There are good things about it. And then there are bad things, which is where it's like, if people just sort of focus in on the aesthetics and don't take it any further, then that's obviously terrible. So it's a big topic, I guess, another topic. But it just kind of just sort of rung that bell in my mind. Yeah, I agree. We shouldn't reject it. It is in itself, it's shitty. But if it's part of like a broader movement that includes direct action and isn't just symbolism, then it is helpful for facilitating or encouraging that direct action and so on. Yeah, it has to be intentional, I guess, is the way to think about it. Yeah. Right. Okay, so again, talking about this example of the hotel workers and the organizers sort of doing these surveys, the next survey they did with their co-workers was, are you willing to come to a demo outside of the hotel? And a bunch of people said, yes, so they had this demo. And it was very well attended, so well attended, so well attended, in fact, that they decided to start having these demos every week and that continued throughout the campaign. Then later, they did a survey with their co-workers saying, would you be willing to have a brief strike? And the majority said yes. And because they had so many people saying yes in the survey, they then moved on to having an actual strike vote, like an official strike vote in the union. And again, a majority voted yes. So they had a two day strike from there. So these kinds of things continued. And finally, they won a contract in 2002, and they won the demands that they've been fighting for. So there you go. So I'd like to talk a little bit more about escalating tactics. We've already discussed escalating tactics and how this helps to draw people in, in terms of getting people to participate more, getting people to become increasingly comfortable with bolder and bolder, more militant, more radical tactics. But it also has another benefit of increasing your chances of winning a class struggle, whether it's against your boss or a landlord or the city council. Whoever you're up against escalating tactics can help you. So with escalating tactics, that means basically you don't just start with your strongest tactic, and you also don't do just various actions in any kind of random order. You start with your weakest tactic. If that fails, then you escalate to a stronger tactic and then a stronger tactic and you keep on escalating until eventually you win. So a benefit of escalating tactics is that it makes the boss or whoever you're up against afraid of what's coming next, because you keep coming at them with new things and each time it's even more intense. So the pressure to cave in that the boss or whoever it is feels is going to be really strong because they know that if this is what they're doing now, it's only going to get worse. So they're not just thinking about what's happening now. They're thinking about what you're going to do next. It's sort of a form of psychological warfare. Now, conversely, if you started with your strongest tactic right from the get-go, let's say that failed, that is going to be so demoralizing. The people in your movement, they might just give up because they know we've already given it our best shot and that didn't work out. So that's very demoralizing. So this is another benefit of using escalating tactics. Another benefit is you might actually end up winning a lot sooner and with a lot less effort than you might have anticipated, you might have thought, oh, it's going to take us up here to win, but maybe you actually end up winning just down here and it's like, oh, that was easier than we thought. It's always better to win with less effort than with more effort. And another benefit is that early on in your movement or your struggle, you might not, you just might not have the numbers that you might not have enough people involved to do your strong tactics because strong tactics, the stronger the tactic, generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking, you usually need more people in order to make it work. So if you're doing this ongoing use of escalating tactics, you can gradually draw more people in so that by the time you're ready to use these stronger tactics, you have more people involved in the movement giving you the numbers to use these strong tactics effectively. So there's a lot of different places you can read about escalating tactics, but one resource I'll just recommend is, so there's a video by Libertarian Communist Platform who used to be called Libertarian Socialist Rants. We have heard of them been around for a long time. They have a video called Workplace Resistance, a handy guide, and this is one place you can hear a little bit more about this. Yeah, Radical Reviewer also has a few videos, like a few great videos on workplace resistance and that sort of thing. We had a collaboration, I think it's on both our channels actually, that was specifically about this, but I think Radical Reviewer has several videos, so that's a great resource as well. Nice. Yeah, there's tons of great resources on this if you'd like to learn more. What I think is great about this is the amount of places you can use this in organizing. All these tactics can be used nearly everywhere. Absolutely. People will keep throwing a speech, simply ask, are you ready to do this, that, and people are going to say yes, because they're not doing it at that moment, but it will bring that suggestion up so that people are more like, we could do it in the future, or something like, even at a smaller scale, like in a local order, like just getting an active member back on board, doing more things. Yeah. Yeah, these things are adaptable for hopefully any sort of organizing or or activities and project that people are working on. Yeah. So for the example, to go with this escalating tactics thing, it comes from, well, we already talked with the Quebec Student Strike, they used escalating tactics, we've already discussed that. But another example is the Seattle Solidarity Network, and they're, well, they use escalating tactics all the time, but we're going to specifically look at a fight that they had against Nelson Properties, which is a property management company, landlords. So what is Seattle Solidarity Network, also known as CSOL? It's a mutual aid organization of workers and tenants. They solve grievances for their members, well, the members solve them for themselves, but like it's a collective thing. So grievances that workers have against their ex-employers, or that tenants have against landlords, and they address these grievances using collective direct action. So some of the things that they typically work on would be wage theft, neglect by slumlords, or deposit theft by landlords, or outrageous fees by landlords, predatory lawsuits by landlords, or, and things like that. So Seattle Solidarity Network is a directly democratic, all volunteer organization, and they have no central authority. So organized along anarchist lines, although you don't, you know, anyone can join. It doesn't matter what your ideology is. So there are many solidarity networks, but CSOL, I believe, is the first one, or if it's not the first one, it's at least one of the first ones. I'm not entirely sure. It was founded in 2007 by members of the IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World, which is the Radical Labor Union. That's, oh yeah, has been kicking ass for over a hundred years. Where are my wobblies at? Wobblies sound off. Absolutely. I also just shared a real quick, just because we're talking about workplace organizing tools, the libcom.org slash organize is a great resource for workplace organizing. I'm so glad you shared that, and they have organizing guides for the workplace organizing, and also for community organizing, and just organizing in general all. If you shared the link for the workplace organizing guide, then I think that you can access the other links from the same page that they should be easy to find. It's a great resource. They used to have them all over the site, but now it's one page. If you go libcom.org slash organize, it's got a table of all the different guides. Oh, libcom is so, thank goodness for libcom, one of the greatest websites for, they have an archive of so many articles and on theory, praxis, all kinds of things you can find there, so please check them out. And also a chat forum, which I used to frequent way back in the day, and learned a lot there. It's not as active as it used to be, but yeah, it's a good place. Absolutely. So, solidarity networks very often or just typically use these escalating tactics when they are waging class struggle. But we're gonna talk about Seattle Solidarity Network versus Nelson Properties, the landlord specifically, in a case to help one of their members, Maria. Now, Maria lived in an apartment owned by Nelson and it was full of black molds. It was causing respiratory illnesses, eye problems, all kinds of things. And Nelson refused to clean the mold. And she was trying to get them to do it, but they just kept refusing. So she gave notice and she moved out. But Nelson just stole her $500 deposit and was pressuring her to pay $1,500 in fees that were completely illegitimate. So, these are the escalating actions that Seesol took against Nelson from start to finish. I'm gonna just quote from their pamphlet, Building a Solidarity Network Guide. So I'm gonna say we, even though I wasn't involved, but this is just quoting from them. Okay, so we did the mass demand delivery. After that, we started the ongoing posting and reposting of do not rent here posters around many different Nelson buildings. Then we started door to door tenants rates discussions with current Nelson tenants. After that, we started a series of small pickets in front of Nelson's office. Then we delivered letters to Nelson's neighbors, warning them of yet to be unnamed slumlord in their midst and promising to return on mass to discuss the problem with each neighbor in full detail. And we made sure that Nelson himself got a copy. And then we won. So this is a very good demonstration of caving in, of the landlord caving in due to fear of what's gonna come next. Because they promised we're gonna be back and we're gonna spill the tea, tell you what's up. And obviously Nelson did not want his neighbors all knowing this shit. So he's like, ah, fuck it. I'll just cave in. So yeah, that's a good example of escalating tactics winning in a class struggle. So if you want to use escalating tactics in your organization, and this is some basic tips for planning them in your strategy meeting. It's pretty simple. Basically you just brainstorm all the tactics that you can think of and just write them all down on. And then from once you have as many as you can think of, you rank them on two levels. First, how much effort and risk is gonna be involved for the members, for the people who are doing this action. And second, how much impact is it gonna have on the boss or the landlord or the government, whoever your opponent is in this struggle? And the other piece of advice is, do not ever let your opponent know when you've reached your strongest tactic. Do not let them know that. Because if they know that you've reached the end of the rope, they'll be better able to endure it. They'll just think, well, okay, if I can get through this, I'll be cool. It's like how strikes, you shouldn't have an end date for your strike. Even if you know we're gonna run out of resources on whatever day you'll announce that, let them know that. And even then, it could always change. Like if your strike gets a lot of publicity. Yeah, yeah, you get donations. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's a really practical, I love that very practical, pragmatic advice. Like it's a specific exercise you can use. I think that's great. Yeah. So there is a caveat though, that goes with the escalating tactics thing, which is that escalating tactics is not always the best strategy. For example, if everyone is fired up to do something huge, probably just go for it, right? Just think of some of the big uprisings in history that made something really huge happen. If someone had gone up and be like, actually we need to start with like our weakest tactic and then move to strongest one, no, no, no. If people are just ready to fucking go, don't hold them back, let them go for it. I mean... That's called a de-escalating tactic and... People are looking at the car. In fact, yeah, I was gonna say, in fact, cops and agent provocateurs will specifically go in and use those tactics. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah. I've seen it. I've watched it happen. I don't know if they were cops or if they were like four chanterels or whatever, but I've actually seen that take place. And it can be very disruptive if the people in the org aren't savvy and haven't learned this kind of stuff, then it can be very tempting because there's always something kind of scary about going hard and going big. You know what I mean? I think it's natural to be a little bit afraid. And so when somebody comes in and they say, oh, here's something safer we can do, it's like there is an inclination to sort of consider that, but I think that's why it's really important people to learn these kinds of mechanics and dynamics so they can not be bewildered. Yeah, and every situation is different. I mean, sometimes you can't have this cookie cutter solution all the time because sometimes people are fired up to do something huge and it actually isn't a good idea at that time because the situation is such that if you go for it at that moment, you'll fail. Oh, there's an example that is on the tip of my mind that I can't think of from the Russian Revolution or before the Russian Revolution, I think the July days or something like that. But anyways, basically sometimes, if you're fired up to do something, it's not always a good idea to go for it, but often it probably usually is, I don't know, you have to judge it from whatever the situation is. But yeah, so don't ever think that like escalating tactics is this like cookie cutter thing to always use in every situation and also don't think that just because everyone's fired up to go for something huge is necessarily the best thing either. It really, you have to think about your specific situation. And another thing- Gotta read the room. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there is one situation actually where it's probably, it would always be good to just come out swinging with your hardest tactic no matter what. There's a situation where we need to win today because if we don't win today, tomorrow we lose. All is lost. It's like this sort of last minute at the buzzer, like free throw from the fucking half court, like all or nothing thing. Like, you know, in those situations where like there's a very short time limit on winning, you just need to jump into your strongest tactic, fight as hard as you can from the start. I would argue we're kind of there globally right now. We need to be taking risks, I think. I really do feel like everyone's so timid and like there's so many people, especially since Biden won the election, people are starting to go dormant because they feel like, oh, you know, Trump's out. So there's nothing to worry about. But it's like, no, the global climate change is coming. Fascism is stronger than ever. There's still cops killing people every day. Like, like nothing's really changed just because Biden took office. And the clock's ticking. So I do think we need to kind of go big more often with all the things you're talking about in mind. But yeah, just broadly speaking, I think that the clock is running out on us, you know. You are right about that. I wish you weren't, but you are. Me too. As quickly as we can. As quickly as we can with the foot in the door, in the face, yeah, we've got to keep all this in mind. Keep it in mind, be strategic and tactical, but still, yeah, more risks would probably be better right about. True. Okay, so just a little advice for doing these techniques in general. So with both the foot in the door technique and the door in the face technique, timing matters a lot. So with the door in the face technique, which again is going from, hey, how about this big thing? Oh, no, slamming the door in my face. Okay, well, how about a smaller thing? So with that, you want to ask them to do the small thing right after they said no to the big thing in the same conversation. Basically, you got to strike while the iron is hot. Well, the iron is hot. Well, that memory of them being like, no, I'm not into that. Then, you know, ask right away. Okay, how about the smaller thing? Like you just jump right into it. With the foot in the door technique, however, it's basically the opposite. You don't want to, you know, once people, someone has agreed to do something small, you don't want to then immediately be like, okay, how about this other thing? And then they say, yes. Okay, how about this other thing? You know, you're going to really annoy them and push them away. So you want to chill for a bit, hang back, and wait before you make the next request. This is also good dating advice. Yeah. It's like, you want to go on a date? What are you doing right now? You want to get some coffee right now? Yeah. Do you want to get married? Do you want to get married? Exactly. Yeah. So at the same time, though, you don't want to wait so long that they've forgotten who the fuck you are. So you want to wait long enough that they don't feel harassed, but don't wait so long that the momentum is lost either. So you sort of have to feel it out to see what feels right for that person, for the movement itself, for what you're trying to organize, and that situation. And the other piece of advice is, just don't be bossy, don't be pushy, don't be emotionally coercive. There are both practical reasons and ethical reasons for this. If people take on too much, they're going to burn out, and if they burn out, they're going to drop out. Or even if they don't drop out, if someone's burned out, they're not going to be as effective, either they won't be as effective in the movement, or even if they are, they're going to be less effective in some other area in their life. Maybe they're going to take it out and their family or their relationships, or maybe they're just going to start developing depression. We don't want to overburden anyone. We don't want to burn people out. We want to respect people. We want to be caring about each other, about everyone. We want to care about them and be kind and respectful of them. But especially with our comrades who are in struggle with us, we always want to show that respect. So that's the ethical reason. And also on a practical level, there's research showing that the foot in the door technique and the door in the face technique are both less likely to work when people feel pressured. And actually reminding someone that they're free to say no increases their likelihood of saying yes. Again, that anarchist, inherent instinct we all have, fuck the police, fuck the bosses, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. We all kind of have that inside of us, which is a good thing. So we don't want to be pressured, you know. Something else I've found out in what I've been working and organizing is if you have good relationships with other orgs that are like kind of allies, maybe they're doing different things, but they're like allied or aligned with you. This is just a total aside. But if you find like somebody is kind of like just you basically get the sense that you've lost them from your particular action or group or whatever. You could always just say like, oh, you know, you could kind of like direct them to another group that might be more in line with what they want to do or their interests or something like that. So that's why it's good to kind of have contacts with other groups. And because I've noticed that you can kind of feed people back and forth. Like there might be somebody who's like really into like web development and it's like you just don't have any web development stuff for them to do right now. So you can just like, well, you know, this group over here needs that. So like, that's kind of like a last ditch thing you can do if you feel like you're really just about to lose somebody from your specific group. And that way you don't lose them completely from the movement. That's a very good point. I like that you bring up also like, what is that person actually interested? What are their talents? What are their interests? What do they feel comfortable doing? Because sometimes what seems like a big ask or small ask might actually be smaller or bigger depending on what that person is into. So maybe something that seems like a big, a small ask might be a big ask for someone if they're not comfortable with that kind of thing. But what seems like, you know, and vice versa, right? Like something that seems like a big ask for them is not a big deal because they actually love doing that. So actually like connecting with that person as an individual, finding out what they like, what they feel comfortable with, and so on. Yeah. So that's a very good point. Just don't like, we should never, I think this goes without saying, but it's worth it. I guess it bears saying like, these are not like cogs in our machine. Yeah. Even if we are a collective and we're working like with a flat hierarchy, like we're still all people. We're all humans and like not losing sight of that, which can actually be difficult when you're in the middle of a really frantic, you know, operation or action or something like that. Like it could just, you can sort of get into this mode where you just see people as like assets or resources. Yeah. Even if you're, like again, I'm telling you, this is even in groups that have like no hierarchy at all, I've seen where that sort of happens. So we just have to remember like, every so often take a breath and remember, okay, these are all human beings. They all have other things that are happening in their lives, you know, just keeping track of that is good. Yeah. Remember the human, don't dehumanize each other, I think is what you're saying. Yeah. Don't treat us as, as you said, as cogs in the machine. Like we all have our own shit going on. We, you know, pressuring people in these, in these intense ways, it is disrespectful. You know, we want to respect people's autonomy, respect their limits, respect their boundaries and respect, and just remember that, yeah, have that human connection. Now, I think it is okay to, and in fact, not just okay, but good and a positive thing to nudge people without being pushy. So like a gentle push. Now, an example of that would be like things like, I believe you can do this, you know, you're valuable to this organization, things like that that are encouraging and are sort of like, you know, a friendly little push without like a being of sort of bossy kind of push. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people when they come into an organization for the first time have very little confidence in themselves and like, they really don't know what to do. And they're like, I hear it a lot again and again. It gets like, I really want to help, but I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm afraid I'm going to mess things up. And it's like, one thing I don't know, this is like, I guess we're talking about advice. And this is something I learned from when we were doing like homeless outreach back. It was, this was like a liberal charity org, but still I saw this was effective was, you know, find inexperienced people and experienced people and kind of like pair them together. So then you have like kind of a mentor relationship. And that gets people running pretty quick because they could just kind of directly observe somebody who kind of already has the ropes. That's, that's, that's been effective. That sounds like a great idea. Where did you learn this? I don't even want, from the, from the United Way. I used to do some stuff with the United Way, which is like a super, super liberal. Yeah, but they're pretty good at volunteer management though. So it's very much the opposite of what I, what I advocate for now. It's very like hierarchical and liberal and like funded by philanthropists and shit like that. But, but as far as like, they had a ton of volunteers and they were really good at mobilizing them very quickly and getting people up to speed very quickly. Like that was something that they were really good at and I learned that from them. So they would take like a group, if they had like, if they had like, because they would have these huge events and they had like a hundred volunteers and like 90 of them would have no experience to be their first time. Cause like the turnover is really high. You have a lot of people who show up one time and never come back. And so they'll break them into teams where it's like one experienced people and nine inexperienced people. And that's usually pretty, pretty good. Now the danger is, if you're, the other thing about the United Way is that those ops tended to be kind of like short-term, not sustained. The danger is in a sustained long-term environment. You don't want that to develop into a hierarchy where like that mentor becomes like the boss. You don't want that to happen. So you need to sort of transition out of that somehow. And that was a problem with the United Way is that it got very, you know, hierarchical and stuff like that. So anyway, yeah. Well, I'm sure there were other reasons that was happening and not just that. But I do like that idea of like having someone, I guess maybe just putting a time, not, maybe not a strict time limit on it. Like, like, you know, maybe a peer where it's like, okay, usually it's about this long. And then after that you sort of check in, okay, do you feel comfortable sort of, you know, ending that close association? And then, you know, try to encourage them to then become a mentor to someone else, you know, the new person and... Rotation is probably a good... Absolutely, yeah. A good solution to that. And then just, you know, trusting people. People get up and running with that kind of stuff pretty quickly. Usually this stuff is not really that complicated, especially the on-the-ground stuff. I mean, Nora, do you agree with that? It's like most of the time after like a couple of weeks, people can really start to become autonomous if they're given the right tools and education and everything. I don't know if Nora stepped away. Oh, oh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was just... I'm just thinking, you got me thinking like so hard about like just like how I can do this in like every single situation. Yeah, that was a good thing, I guess. I just feel like I'm like, you know, young organizer, me again. Rejuvenated? That's good. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Yeah, I just feel like a lot of these skills are lacking on the left because a lot of the protesters are younger and they don't necessarily have like the same organizing experience or anything. So people tend to get very frustrated in like these very young spaces where the movement is still kind of new and fresh. And they kind of like get caught up on things like we don't have the numbers, like people aren't showing up anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. I've been reading lately, Nora, about labor colleges that they used to be these like really awesome, well coordinated schools where they would teach people like organizing principles and, you know, activities and tactics and strategies. And also just like how to fix cars and stuff, like just totally non-organized, but they had these like labor colleges that were just totally dedicated to training unionists and activists. And I think that's something we kind of like, like, because imagine like this, just this video right now could be a training module. I think, you know, Lucky Black Cat's great presentation here. Like if you had just like a labor college that had resources like this, like the organizing materials from Libcom, if you put all of these together into a package and then maybe had some people who's just like, Lucky Black Cat was saying, you know, you have an in-reach committee, you could also have like a education committee that teaches people these kinds of principles and stuff like that and makes these resources available. I think that would be really valuable for any organization. Absolutely, yeah. I would love to see someone like that. Yeah, I guess the one thing holding me back from like making videos like that is like, I feel like such a poser like, because I don't really have organizing experience. Like I'll take a long to like, shit that other people have organized, but like I've only just studied in like abstract. So it's like, who the fuck am I to like, you know, put on some. Well, that's invaluable though. I felt like, should I even come on your stream? I think we need all of these different, like we need people who are studying it academically. We need people who like Nora's been in the trenches and like, you know, fighting it. But now look what's happening. Like you're giving Nora like, we're watching this happen in real time. Like Nora is like an experienced activist in the trenches and then you're bringing in this academic information and it's like rejuvenating Nora. You know what I mean? Like we're watching this happen. So then Nora can give you feedback, you know, so that you could bring that into your academic work. I mean, you know what I mean? It's like, I think this is really valuable. I wouldn't call it, not that I'm trying to diss academics, but I wouldn't call it academic. Although like the social psychology stuff is academic, but like, I think even more important is learning from the real life struggles that other organizers, activists, mass movements, like that is like real, you know, shit that we need to deal with. I guess analytic, analytic, not academic, but analytic. Just basically like leaching off the lessons of other people. No, I mean, that's vital. That's a great big part of... Yeah, my whole thing was like, I'm always like trying to do jump to like, you know, our most risky strategy first. Like we're our biggest strategy and trying to figure out ways to get people on board. But like this makes it kind of like easy for me to see like a pipeline to get people on board to, you know, the riskiest or best strategy that you have. Yeah. Yeah. And like, because I already know for a fact that like, all the strategies before them don't work. Like as we've seen, like, you know, like, just simply raising awareness, citing petitions and stuff like that doesn't really do anything. But it does in the sense that you get people on board with the movement. And I think that's very powerful because that's something that we're always struggling with is getting people on board with, you know, the more risky strategy. So it can be like an inside thing. Like, we, hey, we know the end goal is to do this thing, but we know we can't do it unless we get people on board to do it. So, yeah. Yeah, as long as... You could also be doing things simultaneously. So like, because... Oh, I'm sorry, there's a delay, so I don't even know. But like, yeah, that's another thing that I learned with the more liberal activism, but what they're really good at is having like... They're really good at the management of like personnel, basically, so that they'll have multiple campaigns going on at the same time. And then when a volunteer comes in, they can drop them into the channel that like makes sense for them. So like, if somebody comes in and they're like, hey, I just moved from another state and I did a bunch of activism there and I know a lot of stuff. And then they'll be like, okay, well, we can put you into this campaign, which is like really aggressive, you know what I mean? Or if somebody comes in and they're like, hey, I'm 18 and I want to get involved for the first time and I don't know anything, they'd be like, oh, well, you can hand out flyer. You know, like they have all these different things happening. That can get like... And in those organizations I worked with back in the liberal days, it can get hugely bureaucratic. So like, that's again, another thing to be worried about. But I think the basic idea of having like, you know, trying to manage it so that you have something for everybody to do as much as is practical considering your circumstances. I mean, the other thing about these organizations is that they had and wasted a lot of money. So like, you have to be careful, you know? Like they got a lot of money from like donors and then they wasted a lot. Right, yeah. So we have to obviously adjust these tactics for our circumstances, but it's just something I noticed that they did. I also really like this comment from Anathematic. Never let inexperience prevent you from gaining experience. I love that. I'm going to use that. Thank you, Anacomatic. Or how do you say it? Anathematic. Anathematic. Thank you. Anathematic. Yes. Yeah, that's good. By the way, sorry, I just wanted a very quick side note. I had like my notes on the screen before, which I had in the center. So it didn't look too much like it was staring from the camera. And I had like the view screen of you, EJ, and Nora off to the side. So when you were talking, I was often looking to the side. I don't want you to think that I was like looking to the side and just know what you were saying. That's why I wear sunglasses. I don't want anyone to know where I'm looking. Look at you while you were talking, but it probably just looked like I was like bored and like staring off to the side. Like I was actually just like, I don't want anyone to like. I'm used to that. That's just my mode of operation. Now that I'm done like the notes, I've put you in the center again. So now I'm like to get to like. All right. I like being in the center of attention. That's good for me. Okay. If you haven't noticed. No, I'm used to people staring off to the side because we got all the online like. Like zoom and oh my gosh, I've got four screens right now that I'm having to. Yeah, it's it's normal. What a weird world we live in. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, you want to keep moving with your presentation? Everybody in the chat. We have about, oh, go ahead. Where are we on the presentation? I was just saying that that that's pretty well, I had like one note left was for just reiterating the bottom line of that thing I said, which is that you want people to feel free to say no. You don't want to make them feel bossed around or that it's unacceptable to say no. But I basically already said that I was just saying the same shit again. So I've pretty much done my presentation. The only thing left in my notes is talking about my YouTube channel and fuck that. I'll say that before I leave, but you know, we don't need to say that right now. No, no, I think that that point is there. Well, we got about. Yeah, I was just saying that I think that point is very important because a lot of socialists or it's can be extremely manipulative. Yeah. To the point where, you know, people totally get like washed out from the movement. And I think it's very important to recognize that and not be like extremely pushy where use these tactics to basically manipulate people. Yeah. And doing things. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, where did suddenly. I have to restart my sound card because it's screwing up. So I'll be right back. Okay. But yeah, exactly. And I think like I actually like one of the I had so many anxieties about coming on this live stream. Most of them were like egotistical like I'm going to screw up and I'm going to suck. But like one of the anxieties I had about coming on here was like this information, you know, can be used for good can be used in a way that's not not manipulative that that is honest, that is respectful. That is about not using it for your own purposes but for our collective good and for including the good of the people that you're, you know, trying to draw and to participate. But unfortunately, it could also, you know, be used in bad ways. And I was like, do I really like, I don't know, you know, one of the anxieties I had was like, what if, you know, some person's listening to this and they use this information for bad purposes and like I kind of. I've struggled with that in the past. Because of I talk a lot about like my marketing experience and propaganda and stuff like that. And that could absolutely be used for evil. You know, which is one of the reasons why, well, I think that just like every time we talk about it, we have to bring that up. I think it's important. And like it's why it's why I think it's one of the reasons why I call what I do very openly propaganda. And I have a video on propaganda where I talk about like the original definition of propaganda was just persuasive communication. And then like the way that the meaning of propaganda today, the way people use it like in like, I guess, like whatever you want to call it, like common language. It's kind of got a propagandistic element to it. It's an interesting history because like after World War I, World War I was like the first war where they really had like a scientific application of propaganda. And then in the wake of World War I, in the 20s, a lot of people started to use propaganda in this like, in this like euphemistic way to say like, oh, I don't practice propaganda. You know, I'm just a communicator. I do public relations. I do blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, I think we should just call it propaganda because like, and we should try to normalize that definition of propaganda because it is dangerous. You know, it is something where the only way I, the only way to counterbalance the danger of it is to try to educate people, you know, on how the dynamics work. And I think, you know, letting everyone know in your organization right off the bat like, hey, we're using this concept of foot in the door, we're using this concept of door in the face. We used it on you. You know, that's how we got you involved here. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Is important. Yeah. I want a street transparency. Yeah. Like, I think it's like, you could also like, maybe give people the tools to deal with like, maybe like bad that there's like using it in a bad way. Like, for example, teaching people how to recognize like, bad propaganda and why it's bad and why it's doing harm. Or like, maybe in people to recognize when an organization is maybe middle of the like, maybe they're asking you to do something that's too much. Like, you have to start putting things on the sideline. Like, you start having to be doing other things that you just, you can't keep up, right? And yeah, things like that. So basically, like a sort of education for defending yourself against these kinds of forces. Yeah, I think that's, yeah. Yeah, I would love that, yeah. There could also be like, an argument for just like, how in people with words that are known to use like very manipulative tactics. But I just don't want to start beef with people right now. So I'm not going to do that. Yeah. But education is like vital for our movement, I think. And I'm actually doing a lot of research about this right now for a book that I'm writing. But like, you know, if we want to have a flatly hierarchical organization, that means that everybody, to whatever extent we can make it possible, needs to be like, sort of an autonomous unit that's making decisions based on the best information we can make available to everybody, you know. So like, if you don't want to have a top-down hierarchy, it means you have to have a degree of transparency and information freedom that you don't have in like the right wing or even with like liberal organizations. So everyone needs to kind of, as much as possible, know what they're doing and why they're doing it and have agency over what they're doing as much as we can swing that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's so hard. Even like, if you look at like the history of of when anarchist organizations got really big in revolutions like the CNT and anarchist revolutions, even people with anarchist ideology who were committed to freedom, to lack of hierarchy, to like, you know, mass participation, even in these situations can drift towards a sort of authoritarian way of operating. So I think it's very important to have all those things in place because like, it's a constant risk of that happening. And, you know, so having the sort of, like, I guess you would call it what you were describing, maybe like the infrastructure or structures to facilitate that lack of hierarchy. We really need those in place as a sort of safeguard. Wendy Pease said, I think that turning the human experience into a flowchart isn't the best practice. If I was told I was introduced to a movement via tactic, I would feel dehumanized. I mean, here's the thing. I see what you're saying. I do think though that, like, whether we like, ignore the science or not, the science is there and other people will use it. And it's like, for better or worse, people like, you know, people have these modes that we operate in, you know, and understanding it is not such a bad thing and we want to be as effective as possible. I mean, there's a reason that, you know, like, marketing companies spend billions of dollars on these kinds of, you know, learning how to manipulate people so that they can be dishonest and force people to do things that are against their own interests. But what they don't do is they never tell you what they're doing. You know, like Coca-Cola will never say, hey, here's exactly how we manipulate you into buying Coke. But I think that, you know, that's why the transparency is so important. So it's like, you know, we need to make the information available and know what we're doing and be conscious about it and make other people conscious about it as quickly as possible. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't use tactics that are effective just because we know that they're effective. Does that make sense? Like, it feels very counterproductive to say, like, we're not going to use these tactics specifically because we know they're effective. Like, that just doesn't make sense to me. It's kind of like a gun. You know, like a gun isn't, a gun can be a good thing or a bad thing. You know, any weapon can be used for good or for evil. Does, am I making any sense? I don't know. Well, I do agree with, oh, sorry. Go ahead, Dor. Sorry. Oh, yeah. I was just saying, I agree. Except for the part that Coca-Cola did advertise what they did. It's right in the name. Okay. Well, they haven't advertised it since like 1890 or something or whatever they, that's a cocaine joke. That's why Santa is the mascot of Coca-Cola because Santa brings the snow. All right. Coca-Cola was a bad example. McDonald's. Just to speak to what, yeah, go ahead. Just to speak to what WinAP has said. Okay. So, EJ and, and, and I agree with you. I mean, obviously I would agree because I wouldn't have come and done this presentation if, if, if I didn't. At the same time, I really fucking sympathize with what WinAP has said because. Yeah. Me too. Because as I read this comment to myself on a gut level, like, I feel it, like it feels kind of dirty, right? Like it feels kind of gross. Like, uh, all these like tactics of like persuasion and stuff. Like it, I don't, I don't fucking like it. Like I really don't fucking like it. But you know what I like even less? Capitalism. And the way it's fucking everything over. You know, it's, and, and all the forms of oppression that we're facing. And, and all the minute, on all the propaganda, like dishonest propaganda that is used and leveraged in service of capitalism and in service of racism and sexism and transphobia and every form of oppression, ableism, everything. That is the fucking worst. And, and like anything, I know, like, I don't want to be like some ends justify the means kind of thing. Because you can definitely take that too far. But like, I think that just understanding human psychology and using it in a way that is effective. But also, well, as both of you had brought up, keeping that human connection, keeping the human respect that we have for each other, being honest, transparent, respecting people's boundaries, not being pushy, doing all that and caring about each other and loving each other. You know, that we, you know, that it's okay to do, to use these insights. As long as we, I think we don't want to get into a mindset, Ej, as you mentioned, of seeing people as these sort of cogs, these sort of pawns on a chessboard. Which maybe my presentation- We don't want to get cynical about it. Yeah, maybe my presentation made it sound like some fucking pawn on a chessboard thing. I really hate that. I don't want this to be about that at all. We are all equal and humans just trying to interact together. But I think if we have insights about how to effectively interact with each other, to inspire each other, maybe we shouldn't think of it as persuasion, but inspiration and encouragement to do what we all need to do to liberate ourselves. That's, yeah, we don't have to be cynical to be aware of how these things work and use them. Like the way I look at it is this, is that whether we use these strategies or not, our enemies will. And they're going to be a lot more cagey about it. They're going to be a lot more dishonest about it. They're never going to tell you how they're operating. I mean, they're never going to admit it, you know what I mean? And we're fighting a liberation struggle to try, like specifically, we want to end this shit altogether, like all of this kind of mass scale manipulation. And the more we educate people, by the way, about how this stuff works, the less effective it's going to be. I mean, it's like when you learn how the sales funnel works. Yeah. Like, I think I was kind of more susceptible to the sales funnel before I got into marketing. But now, as soon as I see an advertising pop up, I can see exactly what they're trying to do. And it makes me much less susceptible to it. You know, like when you've worked in advertising for years and years and years, you become less susceptible to it. But like, as long as our enemies are using this to try to oppress people, I think it's fair game for us to use them to try to liberate people, as long as we're being honest about it. And like I was saying, educating them about how these processes work, and saying immediately, like, this is our strategy. This is what we're doing. And this is why we're doing it. And our end goal is liberation so that people won't be prone and vulnerable to this kind of manipulation. So I don't know if that makes sense or not, but to me, it's like... I think so. We're trying to dismantle this whole system. It's kind of like how Amazon, like, lied about the piss bottle thing. And it motivated more people to actually get involved. And like, I don't know what was going with this, but like, it's just like Amazon is using all these dirty tactics to, like, suppress, like, how bad, like, the working conditions are, right? And people already knew about the freaking piss bottles. Like, people already knew about that. It was like, news over and over and over again. But what people didn't know was, like, how bad it actually was. And as soon as they realized that, they're like, oh, yeah, no, no. And because they realized, like, these tactics that Amazon has been using to kind of, like, suppress, you know, the movement and suppress the workers and keep this information quiet. Yeah. Right. They, again, the perfect example of the enemies of the working class and really all humanity when you think about it, using manipulation to fuck us over and dishonesty and, you know, piss bottles and also diapers is another thing that some Amazon workers have to do to get through their shift. Can you fucking imagine that? Having to fucking do your, it's bad enough to get through a day of work without being stewing in your own piss and shit. Like. The, I mean, the thing about it is, is it's like, the, I mean, the warehouse workers are like, it's like, everything that capitalism says socialism does is a projection of something that capitalism actually does. Like, we say that, like, oh, communist countries force people to work and they're monitored at all times and they're constantly under observation and they're being emotionally manipulated. But it's like, look at getting a job at an average corporation. To the extent that it happens, it's because capitalism exists in those countries at least to some degree. Well, I would argue that like capitalism, they're working for a corporation today, living in the USA today. I mean, it's exponentially worse than like the worst accusations that have ever been lobbed at communism because like, I don't think that, you know, I didn't live in the USSR or whatever and I'm not trying to be an apologist for that mode or whatever, but like everything that the capitalists have ever accused the USSR of, they're doing today like way worse. I mean, like I think that like an Amazon warehouse worker has far worse working conditions is under more observation, is more psychologically manipulated and abused than a typical Soviet worker. When I hear about like Amazon warehouse workers' conditions, I'm like, how is this not like some story out of Charles Dickens or some shit? Yeah, exactly. What the fuck is this? And that's history we shouldn't forget either because obviously capitalism has a long history of just like completely tormenting people. And I love how the so-called fucking ancaps want to go back to like pre-government interventions. She's like, oh, have you read, have you seen what the industrial revolution was like in the early days before? Like, I mean, not that the government is some great fucking liberator or some shit, but. Well, no, those were unions. I mean, like there was a liberating force and that was unions. Yes, absolutely. Let's just extend the government has adopted these like positive things for the working class. It's because we have fought for them and forced them to do it. And blood, yeah. And maybe in some other, and sometimes other countries would adopt them without that, but it's just because that happened in other countries and they wanted to get ahead of the movement. So because they were, you know, they're afraid of the movement happening there or they just like feel like the pressure from the international stage of like looking bad or whatever. Yeah. But yeah. Absolutely, yeah. And we have, we have because we fought for it. And the thing is too, there's a long history, by the way, just to circle back to the last topic about, you know, whether or not we should use these tactics. I mean, the unions used to be experts at recruiting and educating and propagandizing, you know, in the, in the neutral, you know, the neutral sense of that word that they, we had all this tradecraft. And the problem is, I think, you know, and this is totally off topic. And I guess the topic for another discussion another day, but that's been gutted into what we now call the modern trade unions, which I mean, I know that they do work that's, they do a good work, but it's not like the IWW. Today is what all of those unions were like, you know, background, the early 20th century. Unions, unions have, you know, in many ways have become, well, I don't, I don't want to say they're like, you know, the thing that's stopping the working class from rising up because the momentum's not really there. But if the working class did rise up, the mainstream unions would not be on our fucking side. And there are examples historically that show that, like the France 1968, which started as a student strike, kind of like in Quebec, but then like, you know, escalated into maybe one of the, well, now that India, I think India has now displaced France as being the biggest worker strike in history. But I think at the time it was the biggest worker strike in history of like, you know, at 10 million, or I forget, I can't remember the numbers, but like the fucking CGT and other unions, like they actually like suppressed the movement. They suppressed the strikes. They tried to manipulate people into, in like, instead of like, I won't, I can't remember all the deals where I'm not going to try to explain, but like, they were not on the side of escalating that movement to anything revolutionary or even to like, radical, you know, large reforms. They were trying to damp shit down because at the end of the day, they're, they're a compromising force. They're trying to create better conditions for workers within capitalism. And it's better for workers to be unionized than not to be unionized no matter what kind of shitty union you're in. But, you know, unions are weird, mainstream unions, not the IWW, not like true syndicalist unions, but like mainstream business unions are sort of like, you know, they're sort of frenemies. Are they on their side? Are they not on their side? It's a little, nah. There was, I mean, the big split that caused the IWW split with the trade unions was over the fact that the trade unions like got all the communists out of their unions, you know, like they, they banished them. And I think that, well, I know that like in 2020, there were a few, like, I know that the Teamsters actually did a huge strike on the West Coast. And it's, I think it was the biggest strike in 2020. It was, they shut down the whole West Coast and it cost like a billion dollars in trade on one day. So I don't want to discount that. The Teamsters did a great job there. But like the majority of the action. Sorry, I was just saying Teamsters are usually cooler than most businesses. Oh yeah, I used to work with them a lot. And the longshore, the longshore. That's who I was actually. Actually, that was the longshoremen. Now that I think about it, the longshore people, they need to update that. Sorry, I was just wondering about the Teamsters. Maybe I think I'm at the longshore from, from, I don't know. I was actually, when I said the Teamsters earlier, it was the longshore union that shut down the West Coast. That's what I meant. That's why I said Teamsters. But I was like, wasn't it the longshore? Yeah. I think I said Teamster first. So I'm sorry. Teamsters are sort of like not infiltrated. I'm less familiar with the Teamsters. I don't want to say anything about them. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they are. Yeah. But the, I mean, I actually knew a lot of Teamsters when I worked on film sets, but they were pretty cool. But I didn't talk to them about politics at all the time. But anyway, the point is that most of the strikes you saw in 2020, those were like either IWW, IWW did a ton of strikes in 2020, or like independent workers councils, or like with a lot of the sanitation strikes, they were strikes that happened in spite of the union apparatus, or like outside of the union apparatus. Like they weren't unionized, but the union actually didn't recognize the strikes they were having. So isn't the IWW very Anglo-centric? I don't know if it is or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. I mean, you know, there's another, there isn't, no, wait, I know a little bit about this. There's another organization, and I don't remember the name, I think it's the CEF. Do you know what I'm talking about, Nora? They're like, or Lucky Black Hat, they're like, there's a European, and I think they mostly do Spanish, it's like the Spanish language sphere, but they're affiliated with the IWW. Unfortunately, I don't know. Somebody in the chat, I don't know. But yeah, but anyway, they have a connection with the more Spanish language oriented. And I think they're in Europe and South America more. So I think there's an alliance. I do see more. CIT, thank you, Salami. The CIT, that's correct. Yeah. So if you want to learn about that, you can check out the CIT. But do you see more and more orgs popping up that are supporting strikes for, you know, like BIPOC people as well, that are more centered towards those people? I mean, the Amazon union efforts are mostly, it's like a black lead thing, right? Isn't that mostly black work usually in that? Yeah, most people would be black or margin-wise in some way. My specific warehouse, just because of where it is, but yeah. Do you work in Amazon, Nora? Yeah. Oh, okay. Wow, oh my God. So you do work in the warehouse? No, I work as a driver. Wow. Holy shit. So do you, how much connect do you have with warehouse workers as a driver? Not very much at all. Okay. They purposely make it so that our contact is limited. Even with other warehouse workers, like their contact is very limited for each other as well. Yeah, God. It's like, it's like, it's just the, yeah. Fucking hell. Well, do you have, are you just like basically completely isolated from all your coworkers? Not completely. I'm not isolated from my DSP. However, my DSP is made up of a lot of three. Sorry, your what? Your DSP? What is that? DSP delivery service provider is basically a contracted company. All Amazon delivery drivers, except for if you work on your DSP. So most of the branded trucks, you see the vans and truck, like the Amazon vans are working for a DSP. The reason they do this is too faster. The first one is if a DSP ever unites independently, they immediately cancel their contract. That happens to that's what you want. And that company was terminated the same day they unionized. And the other reason is for low accountability. So because of like how fast we're forced to work and whatnot, if drivers are speeding like ridiculously over the speed limit, Amazon doesn't get in trouble for that. The DSP does. Okay. So it's sort of like the way Nike and so on will they contract these factories that they're not actually like Nike factories or whatever. They're like sort of subcontracted kind of thing. And then when there's labor violations, they're like, I wasn't awesome. It was them. It's like, oh, fuck you. It's like a shell company basically. I mean, like you think of it that way. Yeah, we were basically Amazon. I always say I work at Amazon because the DSP does nothing. But keep us in line with Amazon's policies. There are basically the cops for Amazon for you or the management. They're like a form of cops. They're labor cops. Yeah, labor cops. I don't want to watch that show. Labor cops. Labor cops is filmed on location. Oh, God, no. Well, that makes me somebody's going to do that eventually. It's disgusting. Well, we're basically, I guess, out of time, folks. This did fly by really quickly. You could absolutely learn more awesome info from Lucky Black Cat on the channel that's in the YouTube description. I'll also paste that into the chat again before we go. You could subscribe to Nora at twitch.tv slash Nora Black Cat. We've got a lot of Black Cats around the non-compete extended universe. We've got Lucky Black Cat. Lucky Black Cat. Nora Black Cat. Nora Black Cat. And then we were just helping out Black Cat tutoring with the fundraiser a couple weeks back. So we do welcome our Black Cat family. But yeah, thank you so much for coming and sharing that amazing, really useful information, Lucky Black Cat. I'm definitely going to be sharing the link to this VOD far and wide. If you want to, by the way, see the archive of this afternoon, I'm going to be uploading a bunch of backlog of streams we've had to the non-compete archive at youtube.com slash non-compete live. And there's also the non-compete highlights channel, which we'll be updating soon as well. But of course, you could, yeah, again, go straight to the cat's mouth. Lucky Black Cat's YouTube channel. Do you have any? Oh, go ahead, Nora. Yeah, someone had a question. It said, Agon said, is unizizing considered a legitimate cause for contract determination? So fun story about that. I'm so sorry. I have been holding. I need to take a piss so badly. I've been holding for a long time. I'll be right back. Okay, okay. That's fine. Yeah. I'm just thinking of the Amazon piss in the bottle. Oh, no. I don't want to get accused. Yeah, please go. He's the bad lucky black cat. I don't want to get accused of the same of the same problem. So the funny story about the DSP contract with Amazon, it's actually like a really highly guarded secret. And very few people know what's in the contract between the DSPs and Amazon. It's very, we assume it includes unization in there. So, you know, it's very strict and like less and less, like capitalists are agreeing to, agreeing to go with the contract because they keep terminating all these countries. These, I mean, DSPs for getting the wall suits and they're getting less DSPs willing to take up the contract because it's not worth it. Right. But you see how sophisticated the enemy is. I mean, you see how sophisticated capitalism is and how careful they are and build all these different layers and defense works to allow them to exploit workers like Nora efficiently and scientifically. It's very disgusting. That's what we're up against. And that's why I think we need to be able to utilize as many tactics as we can, as long as we, you know, don't utilize them in the same dishonest way. Well, welcome back, lucky black cat. Do you have any final words of wisdom for folks? Any last thoughts about the subject or anything else? I'll just, in case people, I know I introduced my channel at the beginning, I'll just say quickly that if you want to check out my YouTube channel, I do video essays on a variety of topics, socialism, capitalist realism, systemic racism, debunking right wing myths. I have a video on labor organizing and some importance for revolution and so on. My future plans for my channel are to do a video series with the goal of thoroughly exposing how horrible and irredeemable capitalism is. After that, I'd like to do an in-depth series on alternatives to capitalism because we can't just focus on what we're against. We need to articulate what we are for, followed by a series on revolution, and then a series on building revolution. My general approach to videos is I try to be rigorous in my research. I'd like to try to make my videos fun to watch, you know, add a little bit of comedy. At the same time, I like to give the issues to respect and sincerity they deserve. I don't want to make light of things. I don't want to make jokes at anyone's expense. You know, I fucking give a shit about this shit. It's not funny. It's all fucked up. But I also want people to have fun while they're watching because I know I have a hard time sometimes. As much as I love learning from people's YouTube videos, sometimes I come home and I'm just fucking exhausted and I don't have the energy to watch things. Sometimes I just want to like have, you know, and I rather watch something just fun sometimes. So I try to make my videos fun too, so that even if you're exhausted, you can enjoy watching it. Once, so my channel's name is Lucky Black Cat. That's Lucky Black Cat, all one word. And the last thing I want to say is not about my channel. I just actually, I want to say, well, first of all, I want to say thank you to both of you for having me on here. It's been really great to be here with both of you. And I really like the show that you are doing because Praxis and, you know, actually thinking about how, you know, just theory, but how we're going to put that theory into action is so important because we're never going to move forward without it. So I'm really glad you're doing the show. I'm very honored that you both considered me, you know, an okay person to have on here. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, to EJ, I want to say, I want to thank you for something that you've said before, not, which is that like, okay, so like, I feel a lot of anxiety and even sometimes, like I sometimes even verge on despair because I feel like the YouTube channel that I have is, I really want to, you know, I hate how fucked up the world is. I really want to help change it. And I, and I made my YouTube channel to try to do that. And I feel so fucking impotent. I feel so powerless. The impact that I would like to have, I like, is the golf between the impact I would like to have and the impact I actually have is so huge. And I feel so powerless. But something you've said before, EJ is like, that we're in this together. This is a group effort, you know, obviously, you know, with direct action, class struggle and so on, that's very obvious. That's a group effort, you know, because you can only create change through a mass movement. But with YouTube, like, it's like, you know, it's such an individual thing. You're working as an individual. You get so focused on your own channels, performance and everything. And it can really fuck with your head and you can feel so powerless and pathetic and unable to do what you've set out to do. And you've said many times before, like, this is a group effort. Like, all the people, there's obviously a group effort for the whole wider class struggle movement all over the world. But just specifically for YouTube, this is a group effort. Every single person who has a channel that's trying to, like, push things in a good direction, don't just think of your own channel. Like, any time I see another video doing well, that's like, having a good message that I know is going to push things forward, that's a victory for me too. And I can feel more empowered. Like, I don't want to feel so powerless. Like, I can feel empowered through the power that others have. And it's so good to be reminded of that. And you've said that many times. And thank you for saying that. Because that is, I still, it hasn't cured my anxiety. I still have a clean anxiety. Every fucking day I feel like, you know, I am failing to make a difference in the world. But remembering that at least makes me feel a little bit better. So thank you for that. I really, really, really appreciate that so much. Well, I have plenty of anxiety every single moment of every day. So it's definitely not just you. But yeah, I mean, we are all on this together and I do think we need to keep building. That's something that Nora's really great at. And that's one of the reasons why I was glad to start the show with Nora was because Nora's a community builder, you know. And I'm not great at that, but I do like to surround myself with people who are and try to, you know, work with those people to help, you know, help them do what they do best. So I'm so glad. Yeah, like your information you presented, it was, it's more helpful than you would ever know. Like, like, you seriously like solved probably like 12 problems that were on my mind. And now I have like a clear path forward. So it's definitely practical, practical, like really practical advice. That's exactly why we started this show to try to give people tools to to build their movements wherever they are. So to build our movement, our mass movement. So no, I extend to you, Lucky Black Cat, an open invitation. If you ever have another like presentation or any other topic you want to come bring on, just let me know and you'll, you're definitely welcome back anytime. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you. Nor any, any final words of wisdom before we skedown? Um, give someone a small task to do. Yes, a call to action. This is our call to action to you. And if you don't have anyone else to give a small task to, give yourself a small task. I remember recommending like stickering around immunity. We're taking on stickers. Wear gloves if you're going to do that. We're bringing a paint scraper. Yeah. Be aware of razor blades if you're taking them down. It's like a nice little relaxing walk and you're putting on stickers at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, every day in every way fight the power, but no, thank you so much. Both of you, you know, it's just inspiring to have comrades like Nora and lucky black cat. I'm going to, we're going to say goodbye to everyone now. I'm going to run the intro. Thank you so much for being here. Lucky black cat. Thank you for being here. Nora, I'm going to run the outro now and then I'm going to raid into somebody on Twitch. So if you're on Twitch, stay tuned. Otherwise, if you're on YouTube, come on over to Twitch. Have some fun. Try something new for a change. There's your small task. Well, well, well, you have now seen and heard me on live stream. So you can put that stamp down on your cringe bingo card. But I think I did okay. I mean, I think it was a good discussion. There was useful information that was shared. And yeah, so we did it. Hooray. Yeah. So anyways, I promised you that at the end of this video, I would tell you about what is going on with this channel. So here's the lowdown. As you've probably noticed, I haven't released a new video since December, but I've actually made a few videos since then, and I have the scripts for a few more lined up. So why haven't I uploaded them? Why am I so cruelly depriving you? Nay, depriving humanity of this great and glorious gift. Well, my plan is to create eight videos and then release each of them in short succession, one after the other, about one week apart each. But why would I do this? Why would I torture you so viciously by making you wait? Well, frequent releases are good for the algorithm. So I am doing this as an experiment to see if it boosts my channel, which has had basically it's stagnant in its growth. Now, you may be thinking, but lucky black cat, you shouldn't care about your channel's growth. This is a very superficial concern. Now, I hear you, but here's the thing. I really just hate all the horrible things happening. In this world, as I'm sure you also do. And I believe in our potential to create a really beautiful world where people's lives can be obviously not perfect, but so much better than they are under capitalism. And yeah, I'm convinced that our biggest obstacle to creating this type of world is capitalism. And that, you know, we need a mass movement to overthrow it. And that an important part of this is to shift people's consciousness. And I would really love more than anything if I could help make this happen. And that's why I started this YouTube channel. Maybe this is delusional of me. Maybe maybe it's really egotistical to think that I could even have any sort of impact on this. But hey, you only have one life to live. You might as well try for something really ambitious. You know, and even if you can't have as big an impact as you hope for, you can at least do something. So I'm trying to do something. And I know the size of your impact. It isn't just measured by the number of views or the number of subscribers. You can't just quantify it like that so simply. But unfortunately, that is an important part of it. So this is why I care about my channel's growth. This is why I'm trying this experiment where I release a bunch of videos in short intervals. Hopefully the algorithm will then just boost me or up. Who knows, we'll see. So because of this, it may be a couple more months before you see another video from me. But I promise you that I am working very hard to make this happen as fast as I can while still creating, you know, well-researched, entertaining videos that will hopefully be fun and informative for you to watch. I mean, at least, you know, that's the goal. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for your support. And I really can't emphasize this enough. How much I love and appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you also if you've actually gone to the trouble of clicking the bell and turning on all the notifications. Thank you for that too. Thank you for every single comment, every single like, every single time that you've shared one of my videos or told people about my channel. Just thank you for all of these things. And even if you haven't done any of these things, just thank you for watching. Thank you for being here with me on this journey. And, you know, most of all, thank you for everything you do in your life to try to make a better world, you know, even if it's in small ways. And I know it's hard. And I know that we can feel so powerless. But it really does all add up, you know, your actions matter. It all matters. You matter to this world. And you matter to me. So thank you. And I wish you all the best.