Can small groups of people create change?

## What IdeaVerse is about

We meet usually once a month to discuss some of the current challenges as well and perhaps come up with new ideas on how to overcome them. The format of the meeting includes an initial sharing of viewpoints by each participant without judgment, and in the second half we will discuss our ideas and try to find things to learn from each other.

In this next meeting we'll be discussing...

whether small groups of people can bring about change in a world where power structures are increasingly ignoring the needs of the many.

Let's face it, people are losing their trust in both politicians and business leaders to bring about a better future. This distrust leads people to vote less, vote for populists with bold, but empty promises and jump from job to job to milk as much cash from their greedy overlords as they can before retirement.

Few brave souls dare to fight but usually do so by blocking roads and spreading doomsday messages that lead most people to disconnect and distract themselves with social media, travelling and other fun but ultimately meaningless activities.

We want a world where we feel we belong to a community, where we have job security, where we do work we find meaningful, have clean air and leaders we trust to do what's best for the majority of people. But there's so much work that needs to be done to fight wage stagnation, inflation, rising housing costs, sometimes working 2 jobs, that you think you just can't afford to spend any time doing something about it.

Meanwhile, the richest people buy up houses and keep them empty to drive up their prices, or rent them to us - we pay them to keep us homeless basically. Rich people create and destroy jobs in short cycles to maximize profit, making going to college for a job that doesn't exist a futile effort. Rich people who employ you avoid taxes, meaning your pay raise (if you are lucky to get one) just goes back to their pockets.

These are all problems, but in this next meeting we'll be asking and trying to answer a few questions:
1. Is it a good strategy to trust that as middle and lower class people we can still make a decent living with so much accumulated wealth privilege?
2. Can small groups of people make a change fast enough to save the common people from bankruptcy in this current system?
3. What would be the most effective ways to do that?

Some suggested reading/watching:

• The BBC hosted Reith Lectures by Rutger Bregman (4x25 minutes) - a review of some causes for current inequality and political pessimism but also of people who managed to make positive changes. While all are interesting, I hope you at least go through the one with "True Radical Programme" in the title (3rd in the playlist).
• A crash course in making political change (15 minutes) - TED talk on how easy it can be to organize an activist political campaign using social media.

The meeting is free to attend, but please buy a drink or two at our patron's place, to make them happy. They also have food in case you find the meeting too early (see menu).