The 3.5% Rule
https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/publications/35-rule-how-small-minority-can-change-worldhttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-worldIn each case, civil resistance by ordinary members of the public trumped the political elite to achieve radical change.
Quite extraordinarily..nonviolent movements prove the most successful.
Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.
That would be
5,111,332 people in Russia and
277,556,216 people globally.
Can we do this as a species? Can enough people stand up and say enough is enough! Another filter...a keyhole to pass through.
Its not just in Russia..its in the United States, the EU, India..China...its global and needs to be brought to heel. The nation states and autocrats who use fear, death and destruction to foster compliance from the general population. These cartels of weapons industry that perpetuate the seeds of war.
The last thing Ukraine needs right now is more guns, planes and bombs. It needs the people of Russia to realise they have been duped again by the political elite.
It needs Peace.
apologise if this is disjointed or filled with half formed thoughts...got a pretty good buzz going too.I'm with you, and it's not that hard...a few options to consider, feel free to adapt your own custom version...
Zombie option:
Stop promoting and supporting war, passively doing nothing is fine.
Lazy option:
Stop promoting and supporting war, reply to warmongers in public (social media) and give peaceful suggestions/options, stay positive.
Supportive option:
Stop promoting and supporting war, reply to warmongers in public (social media) and give peaceful suggestions/options, support peaceful protesters against war (heroes) either financially or morally.
Active option:
Join a peaceful protest against the war, not for the fainthearted.
I did the "lazy option" twice today (so far), didn't take much effort.
We figured it out back in the 60s with MAD. Cooler heads prevailed, world realized that big powers need some space around them to feel safe (Cuba and US). Now we decided to test that theory again and see if Russia really needs that cushion. Regional conflict is being escalated into a global one. Now no one can back down without loosing face, we got to come to an edge before powers can sit down, do their dick measuring contest, then deescalate and pencil in some new lines on this globe. The closer we get to the edge the longer everyone shuts up about the new lines, cause you know, we almost just went over the edge.
So far, odds seems to be good that it'll happen before someone slips on that red button. Should then repeat again with China and Taiwan, India and Pakistan etc ... someone always wants to push that line so this is the best our species could come up with.
Yes, nuclear war is a game of chicken with the whole world in the balance. The problem I see here is that when the public start moving in favor of war on a global scale and the hate feedback loop is growing exponential, there is no way for the leaders to stop the process even if they wanted to. For example, when there is a ceasefire in Ukraine to discuss peace, some rogue force on the ground will break that moment and attack anyway, because they just got a shipment of stinger missiles shipped by some NATO friendly country.
I think Torque had a point about the whole war being deliberate to save the US economy for another year (interest rates, etc.), doesn't seem far-fetched at all considering the MIC and wall street.
This will be unpopular no doubt; Putin and Lavrov have been asking USA (and other NATO countries) to come to an agreement about the Donbas region (where a lot of the Russian speaking people live in Ukraine) since 2014, at every occasion they have been stonewalled with the argument that Ukraine has a right to join NATO, while this was going on (for 8 years total) Ukraine forces shelled the Donbas region and over the years thousands of people have been killed on both sides. This is no excuse for Russia to go to war in 2022, but was still surprised it took Russia this long to interfere, was expecting some threats in the form of higher natural gas prices or similar early on, but no, they went for full invasion instead.
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