Am I right in guessing that you mean it’s better to change the ideas of people in general, which then improves their ability to vote for better representatives?
I don’t think there’s a limit on how much those approaches can make. Without some good people inside the government to vote for, it would just be the same bad politicians saying whatever they need to to get votes.
Yes I think this is very important. It reminds me of what I said in my project thread.
Being willing to publicly speak out against a chosen career is another situation where it’s important that a person’s life is compatible with radical changes. It would be important to either allow for the possibility of a total loss of the career, or to focus on a career that has a lot of widely valuable skills that make it not very difficult to switch to another career.
I had some intuitive conflict with this but I think I resolved it and now agree.
Part of me was thinking that if a system operates on status and influence, those are the tools you need to use to change it.
My answer is that using irrational methods to pursue rational goals is fundamentally flawed, and can’t be expected to do anything but replace one irrational system with another one which will be roughly as problematic.
Still I consider it possible that there are government jobs where change can be made without using influence and status, and if a good person can find such a position that could have good results.