Jm
@jmstilb.bsky.social
193 followers 144 following 428 posts
I want to help the world create human-centered information ecosystems and rebuild communities at scale. I also want to post about whatever I'm feeling at the time.
I want to help the world create human-centered information ecosystems and rebuild communities at scale. I also want to post about whatever I'm feeling at the time.
![Preview of the KAPOW handbook, excerpt copy [up until character limit] that reads:
How did we get here?
America has cultivated a culture where thousands of people across the country take the noble first step to run for office, only to find themselves sprinting all the way to Election Day through an extremely traumatic, masochistic, and undemocratic process we like to call "campaigning".
Political races are analyzed in terms of who raised more money (which is far easier when you know rich people or are rich yourself, who has the most connections (who doesn't love a backroom deal?), and who is more "electable" (translation: white, centrist man). The extraordinary amounts of cash burned on advertisements and consulting every year are considered a natural byproduct of a system we pretend is still functional. It's almost impossible for working class people to represent their communities as those with power consolidate it further.
But guess what?
It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to suck.
When I started my congressional campaign, I wanted to try all of the things I've ranted about to my partner: "Why don't Democrats do [insert cool thing]?" Every time I was in a room with someone with power, I asked the same and was always told it won't work. "Well, have you tried it?" I'd ask. The answer was always no. So I decided to try it myself. At worst, I'd lose. But I'd still give the next person a case study to point to, to know that we tried to do something and make it better the next go around.
Well, I did lose. But we - myself, my team, our supporters - won a lot too. We beat 15 candidates, including multiple elected officials, coming in second, just 3 points shy of first place. When I launched, many politicos didn't think I'd break 5%. But we did. And we did it by actually breaking the mold.
That's where KAPOW comes in.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ats4shmeia7i7ildqm3denmd/bafkreiayy6betazf5ek27s3cy436e2umzcnk6wzsmzd3wd5q4qg45db4rq)
![Preview of the KAPOW handbook, excerpt copy [up until character limit] that reads:
So... What is KAPOW?
Great question! The KAPOW Method is the name for a new method of campaigning, defined by three main pillars:
• The integration of mutual aid and direct service into electoral campaign work, turning political resources into tangible impact
• The radical belief that helping your community before Election Day is a viable organizing strategy
• The creation of an explicitly political community through creative and non-traditional political action
But my personal favorite description comes from my friend and collaborator, Mia Orlando:
" ]When we say 'KAPOW!, it means halting the doom.
It means turning collective anger into meaningful change.
No one person can do this alone, and through many different channels, we can come together."
Everything described in this handbook comes from our own experience in the Kat for Illinois campaign and what we have learned since founding KAPOW. While we have given a lot of thought to how this would apply in a hyper-urban landscape like Manhattan or a more rural landscape like Idaho, at the time of writing this, we have not been able to do this kind of operation in those places. I say this to remind you, the reader, that nothing in politics and nothing in human-to-human interaction will be one-size-fits-all. And, if we have the capacity, we would love to help you tailor this method to your own campaign.
This is also a method that requires buy-in from both the candidate and their staff. It requires strong values and courage, a willingness to analyze and accept opportunity costs, investment in divergent methods, accessibility, creativity, and a commitment to the work, win or lose. But that's why you're running in the first place, right?
We included an index that divides our method into a variety of categories. At the end of each category, we also added a section for Frequently Asked Questions.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ats4shmeia7i7ildqm3denmd/bafkreicswembfaa27jhnn5xzdrrnfmlv3ckodqhsj2lwjprzzx2dcmgbla)
![Twenty years ago, when the idea of AI taking over the world in our lifetimes still struck most of us as the unconstrained fantasy of those who knew too much science fiction and too little science, many of us would say things like:
Look, the part of the story that’s wildly implausible is that a recursively self-improving superintelligence will just explode from some hacker’s basement and take over the world without warning. If it’s going to happen, we’ll see many warning signs first. We’ll see, I dunno, AI agents breaking out of containment, conspiring with each other to hack websites, in fanatical pursuit of whatever strange goals they have. And then, of course, we’d see major math problems getting solved by AIs—even the Clay Millennium Problems. That will be the time to panic! Wake me up when that happens!
Twenty years ago, the above was a take that even my most conservative, skeptical colleagues in academic CS would’ve gladly endorsed.
If you want to know my current take, you simply start with the one above, then update on the fact that the wild prophecies have come true. The first rumblings, I’d say, came a decade ago with AlphaGo, they got noticeably louder with LLMs and coding and reasoning agents, and they’ve accelerated this summer and fall into a crescendo of wonders and terrors that one needs to be a particular kind of idiot to deny.
I recoil from the neverending shell game where you say “oh sure, of course AI can now [escape from its sandbox / solve Millennium Problems / whichever dramatic thing it most recently did], no one ever denied that [I did deny it], wake me up when AI does [thing AI hasn’t yet done but is going to do next year], that’s when I’ll reevaluate my whole worldview [no I won’t].” Where no matter how fast the rollercoaster accelerates, even after your whole familiar world has vanished behind you, you’re still inventing reasons why it doesn’t count.
My position on AI is merely the conservative, skeptical position of 2006, updated with…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h25avmes6g7fgcddc3xj7qmg/bafkreieud3hfcwbw6yqa6h2ke33b2z7f6xo4zzfccddvy5ro45co4bmcuq)