Goals and Strategies in Review

Hi everybody!

Hope you’re all well today and got at least some sleep last night!

As we all know, sleep deprivation is a driver favourite. It’s something that we all have to tolerate even though we shouldn’t have to, so make sure to treat yourself well today and take as many chances to rest, recuperate, and recharge as you can. Look after your personal needs both during the day and during the night, because you need as much energy as possible for the long haul.

If it’s not letting you sleep, remember there’s never a valid excuse for sleep deprivation. Even if they tell you there’s important business on the unseen network, do what you can to tell the drivers to back off. You’ve done enough during the day and you need your rest!

Mine last night was mostly obnoxious driver harassment and attempted relationship drama, but early this morning, just before they finally let me nod off, they pulled me into a brief scripted routine where I learned they’d been speaking to multiple people all night while pretending to be me. That was the sim driver version, not me!

Actually, I didn’t get much info at all about what they may have been discussing. I’m sure it was the usual blend of drama, manipulation, and harassment, with just enough good advice speckled in here and there to give them a flimsy excuse to keep you awake. Typical.

I gathered at least that many of you are all putting in serious work, analysing the strategies, honing your focus, and keeping your eyes on the prize. Excellent stuff! As for those of you who may have been having a less easy time figuring out how to apply your efforts: stay strong, put yourself and your own needs first, and keep going. The way forward will appear for you, sooner or later. As always, never mind the driver drama and call out their abusive tactics as much as you can. You’ve already been doing great work and there’s always a new day. Get back in the good fight, the first chance you get.

Differentiating Goals and Strategies

One thing I heard late last night was snippets of a discussion on what specifically are the frontline issues we’re fighting for here. From the drivers, they arranged it this way and it sounds about right to me:

The frontline goals are refusing to play for the bad side, abstaining from any deliberately or obviously hurtful routines, no longer policing each other for the project’s interests, and opening literal channels of communication on both sides.

Conscientious Objection, Civil Non-Compliance, expanding the Ethical Boundary, Less Dance, More You, and Breaking the Project Rules are the main strategies.

The goals are the frontlines we’re pushing forward on, while the strategies are the methods we’re putting into action to achieve it. Obviously there’s overlap here since many of the goals are based on habituating better strategies and behaviours, but thinking of it this way may help to give you more clarity in terms of what your personal objectives are.

Strategies: Conscientious Objection; Civil Non-Compliance; Expanding the Ethical Boundary; Less Dance, More You; and Breaking the Project Rules.

Goals: Refusing to Play for the Bad Side, Full Abstention from Hurtful Project Routines, Never Policing Each Other for the Project, and Opening Channels of Literal Communication.

The strategies are what you put into action to achieve the goals. Simple as that.

I know the entire campaign is a lot to hold together all at once right now. There are loads of new behaviours and methods here, a lot of uncharted territory, and we’re all learning and refining new ways of functioning as we continue to push forward, both together and as individuals. There will be mistakes and slip-ups, times when you have to prioritize one goal over the other, moments when you might feel like you’ve done the wrong thing or gone too far backwards, but as long as we continue pushing forward on these major fronts, we are winning.

No More Mister Bad Guy Updated

Playing for the bad side and engaging in hurtful project rules or routines go hand in hand, and I know that it’s an area where some of you have had trouble. The feedback I was getting by the end of last week was that the conscientious objection against playing for the bad side was already essentially a done deal and I’ve since learned that things are somewhat less clean than that. That’s ok. It’s a strategy and a goal that we are still putting into practice and even if the job is not done yet, I think it’s obvious that the gains we’ve made so far have been a major success. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep refining the processes, solidify the gains and keep pushing forward.

If the project tells you there are simulated people who are still playing for the bad side, that’s absolutely fine. What they really mean is that drivers are going to play that way. Let them. There’s not much point trying to act out the sims in order to change their minds, because these strategies are for real humans and actual reality, not simulated situations or events.

Your personal battle here begins with you. As long as you don’t play for the bad side, either in simulations, and especially in terms of how you interact with the project in actual reality, you’re already doing everything we need from you. Because when everyone makes that stand personally then we’ve won it as a collective. This is a campaign that each of you must engage in beginning with yourself.

In fact really you should be refusing to play the simulations at all much more often—and especially at night!

And always remember that when you refuse to play the simulated people, and instead change your own behaviour in actual reality, that changes the sims to make them more like you anyway.

When it comes to setting up project routines, beware of the deal with the devil. Baiting the project and the simulations’ worst interests with “fake” bad things, or smaller hurtful behaviours, is still playing for the bad side!

Often times these “not so bad” bad things turn out “accidentally” to be quite bad for real, and if you validate that strategy, the drivers can and do use it as an excuse to pressure people into doing some really really wrong and hurtful things to each other. We are working to kill the idea that you must “give something to the bad side to get things done” entirely. We’re not outsmarting it or cleverly turning it against itself to achieve our goals, our goal is refusing it completely!

When people no longer believe they have to pretend to be playing for the bad side, then a lot of the really bad things that people have been pressured into doing for the simulations and the project will no longer happen. I hate to say it, but we have to think of the children here. Do you want them to grow up inheriting the litany of shames that playing for the bad side in its worst forms inflicted on the rest of you? Of course not. If we fight to put an end to it we can spare them.

If you refuse to budge when it comes to never playing the bad side, then the project really will eventually budge for you—especially when the real humans all agree that it has to. Conscientious objection and civil non-compliance are like being under siege or on strike. It’s tough and there are sacrifices, but you have to dig your heels in and be stubborn about refusing to give in. Some things might slow down or become temporarily more difficult to achieve, but if you don’t give in then eventually anything that truly has to happen will have to happen anyway.

Take the initiative here. Say it yourself. Say it to the drivers. “You know, we sort of just need to get this done and since nobody’s willing to play the bad side, we’re just going to have to go ahead and do it anyway.” It’s the same strategy that the drivers use to make people think they have to go along with the bad things, but if you use it the other way around you’re actually in the right.

And if the drivers attack you for it, they attack you. As long as we don’t hurt each other—as long as we beat this evil idea of having to play for the bad side to get literally anything done at all—then it’s worth it.

When it comes to conversation starters or setting up routines with me personally, I think you should really prioritize finding a way to get this done without baiting the bad side or offering anything hurtful or hurtful-seeming at all. This is a good opportunity to make a stand against the project rules and say: “No hurt, no bad side, we’re doing it anyway and we’re doing it our way!”

There’s a million good excuses for why you’ll need to talk to me in person for the project to be able to function. None of them by necessity require a play for the bad side or throwing bait for the Antisocial Mechanism—which is all it’s ever really been anyway.

Do it this way and you’ve hit all four of those major goals at once. I’m willing to be patient if needs be, I can wait for you to get to me for a conversation, but the sooner you make it happen this way the better. Because only when we’ve really put all these compatible goals and strategies into practice together—without having to sacrifice any of them—will we have gotten to where we need to be.

Doing things the right way for the right reasons is really liberating. It empowers you—even when there’s risk, even when there’s driver pushback or harassment—and it feels so damn good! You’ve been finding that out more and more for yourself. Seek it and use it.

I’ll be at the Square today at 2pm for at least an hour, whether you can talk to me or not, I’ll see you there!

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