Timothy Snyder’s excellent little book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century is a must-read for anyone who would like to live in a free and fair society.

(By “little” I mean that it’s smaller than my hand and only 126 pages long, so anyone can read it in an hour or two.)

I have a theory that doing anything, no matter how small, is better than doing nothing. This is the first of a few tiny posts on how to use technology to do your part to oppose tyranny.

Before we get started, I want to emphasize that this is not a new problem. Timothy Snyder’s book is about the events of the 20th century, and the world has wrestled with the same problems for centuries. We are not alone. What is different now is that we have new technologies that we individuals can use to oppose tyranny.

For fans of The Twilight Zone, here is a very short (< 4 minutes) clip of a Twilight Zone episode, written by Rod Serling himself, against fascism. It first aired 62 years ago, on January 24th, 1963.

(You’ll see how that episode fits into the theme of this post in a minute.)

Timothy Snyder’s first lesson is:

Do Not Obey In Advance

What the Twilight Zone episode points out is that blaming minorities is one of the most common methods of fascist organizations.

I consider the rush to blame DEI for all of our problems is just an example of that.

So, if I want to do my part to support companies that are not complying in advance, I can choose to avoid those who have recently discarded their DEI programs (such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart, for example).

Five years ago, that would have been difficult, but today there are many options for assisted search that let me constrain my search however I want.

I generally get the best results from perplexity for assisted search, but you can also use ChatGPT’s Search, you.com, and others. (I do not currently recommend Google’s Gemini for this, since it will refuse to answer.)

Here’s an example of how to use one of those:

1. Go to perplexity.ai
2. Enter “Find grocery stores near Pittsburgh, PA that have NOT significantly weakened their DEI policy in the last 3 months.”

My results this time were:

Several grocery stores in the Pittsburgh area have maintained their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) commitments despite recent industry trends:

Major Chains Standing Firm

Costco has strongly maintained its DEI policies, with shareholders overwhelmingly voting to support these initiatives.

Trader Joe’s continues to operate its Pittsburgh location at 6343 Penn Avenue while maintaining its DEI policies.

Giant Eagle, a major Pittsburgh-based chain, remains committed to its inclusion initiatives, stating they will build a better and more informed business when it engages with the diverse perspectives of all our stakeholders.

You can do something similar for online purchases. Here’s an example prompt:

Find online sellers of electronics that have NOT significantly weakened their DEI policy in the last 3 months.

And my results from just now:

Major Electronics Retailers Maintaining DEI

Costco has strongly defended its DEI policies, with shareholders voting overwhelmingly (98%) to maintain their diversity initiatives despite pressure from 19 Republican attorneys general.

Apple continues to stand firm on its DEI commitments and has recommended its shareholders do the same, defying external pressure to scale back these programs

The results also mention companies to avoid.

If you have a question about a specific seller’s policies, any of those search tools can quickly tell you about it, so you don’t have to endlessly poke around looking for answers on their website.

There are obviously many other ways in which companies or other organizations comply in advance – you can use this same technique to find them and their alternatives.

A last thing to point out here is also obvious: the employees of those companies are not (generally) the problem. For example, the Washington Post has (or at least had) some great reporters and editorial cartoonists, and if you know who they are you can usually find some way to support them directly (e.g. via their substack, etc.).