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The Political Capital Savings Plan

anon_litu said in #3088 2w ago:

https://www.maximumnewyork.com/p/political-capital-savings-plan

I met Gallagher a while back. He's doing this training course for people interested in getting in to New York politics. He seems like a smart guy. I especially liked this article on political capital. It makes the whole thing quite a lot less daunting and more practical. have political opinions? Better start accumulating political capital. How do I do that? Start studying the technical workings of your government, talking to people in government and in your constituency about your pet issues, taking on small projects. They don't even have to be related to your bigger vision. Just build that flywheel of political capital.

Don't forget that many major political upheavals are basically the result of a network of student-alumni from political training programs. The Kemalists are well known. Elizabeth Warren also did this with her students I think. Effective Altruism arguably has elements of this connected to Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen's expert philanthropy acolytes. One of the most powerful kinds of political capital is having and/or being acolytes. Even the Taliban (literally "the students") can be modeled this way.

Relatedly, we actually have a version of this getting going in San Francisco with Michael Adams'/CivLab's "How SF Government Works" course. I've been taking the course and it's very interesting and worth it. I actually urge all of you to get in on the next cohort.

I met Gallagher a wh

anon_qake said in #3090 2w ago:

High agency "if it's broke, fix it" mindset: great. Learning how gov works, also great.

However, this part feels simplistic:
> Better start accumulating political capital. How do I do that? Start studying the technical workings of your government

It's the ??? meme... "1. Enroll in civics class 2. Start studying 3. ????? 4. Power!"

Political capital is not a classroom skill. It's fundamentally something you get by being useful to others in the game.

The Thiel maxim "avoid competition" applies. To get real political capital, you have to find what you're uniquely positioned to contribute. Being just a regular donor, or a +1 shows-up-to-events local politics guy, converts your time and money to political capital at an unfavorable exchange rate.

For a success case, see Garry Tan. There are at least 20 tech guys in SF who donate more (in some cases >10x more!) than he does, but none of them match his political capital. What makes him unique?

- He writes well and with the genuine passion of someone who grew up in the city. (Some of those other guys live in Atherton... the fastest way to nerf your political capital is to not have any skin in the game. Everyone else can tell immediately.)
- He has a large audience that spans two big voting blocks, tech people and Chinese SF, so he's important for stitching together the mod coalition.
- He makes big bets early: first to fund GrowSF before anyone knew who they were. First to push the school board recall.

Other people with outsize political capital got it in completely different ways. Find your unique edge.

referenced by: >>3091 >>3093

High agency "if it's

anon_litu said in #3091 1w ago:

>>3090
doesn't have to be literally a class, but generally actually knowing anything about the technical workings and actually existing political landscape is a major prerequisite for political capital. You can't be early to push a recall if you don't know how that process works. Most people don't. There are a hundred things like this.

Obviously having edge, specific connections, skin in the game, public writing and all that is great and necessary, and guys like Gallagher will tell you so (at least half of that is discussed in the linked article). But it starts with knowing anything.

I dislike the ??? meme. I've never seen it applied to insightfully criticize why a plan isn't going to work. It's usually just a straw man.

doesn't have to be l

anon_fyra said in #3092 1w ago:

He gets three important things right

1. You should get involved in politics directly
2. You should start local
3. This requires specialized knowledge

He focuses on the specialized knowledge part, but really you can just learn as you go. I encourage everyone reading this to take an interest in a local institution. Learn about it, attend the meetings, and try to get to know the people involved. Be extremely friend, respectful, and especially deferential. People will take notice and doors will open. If you can't do this, you might as well stop thinking about politics.

He gets three import

locke said in #3093 1w ago:

>>3090

Not well-versed in this, but a funny aside: Garry Tan’s TikToks average less than 200 views, and he interacts with anyone who comments or even visits his page (which is effectively no one). Seems like an incredibly easy in for anyone trying to reach out.

Not well-versed in t

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