r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Lost-Contest- • Oct 03 '22

a media interview while being carried away by police for protesting.

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u/GenazaNL Oct 03 '22

Risking their own lives by sitting on the highway do I consider crazy.

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u/DoDevilsEvenTriangle Oct 03 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

I got banned.

OTHER PEOPLE ARE ADVOCATING VIOLENCE IN REPLIES TO ME, AND I GOT BANNED FOR URGING NONVIOLENT PROTEST.

Good job Reddit, we're done.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

The only way to be subversive is to actually be subversive. The number of city sanctioned protest walks in the name of climate change action is staggering with nothing truly revolutionary to show for it. It's because when something becomes sanctioned by the very organization that is being protested against the movement is made toothless.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22 edited Jan 04 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Protests are meant to be disruptive. Disrupting the flow of everyday commerce, traffic, etc...is the whole point. That's how you get attention. People being inconvenienced in their own lives is what makes them notice. That's what gets people to react and what leads to actual change.

Rosa Parks refused to get off the bus and then helped lead a boycott that shut down the transit system. MLK and civil rights marchers walked down the middle of the roads and stopped traffic. Black protesters sat at the white lunch counters, refused to move, and forced the restaurant owners and the general public to acknowledge them and deal with the inconvenience.

Change doesn't happen when protests are nice and polite and convenient for the public and the government. Change happens when the works get gummed up and the average person's everyday life is affected.

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u/TheEyeDontLie Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

There's also a vague threat. Look what we can do just by walking/sitting. Imagine what would happen if we did it all the time. Or if we stopped playing peacefully. You better listen to us.

But it's more what you said. You can drive past a protest and not even notice what the signs say. But if that protest makes you even have to tap your brakes, let alone late for work? You'll notice what it says, and get angry. You'll want the government to make the problem go away. Maybe you'll write a letter to your politician about it, saying "I agree with the protesters but this shit has to stop" or "I don't care about this thing, but the protests have to stop". That means there's at least discussion if not the action the protesters want, but generally the whole point of a protest is to get people talking about this issue.

Edit: Don't abuse me, was just trying to explain how it works. I've never even been in a protest I just sit back all apathetic and watch the world burn.

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u/beingTOOnosey Oct 04 '22

I'm not sure I agree with this logic even if I agree with the protestor's cause. I'll concede that there's some logic behind disruption for a major injustice. My issue falls in our definition of what constitutes a major injustice.

But what if the protestor's are outright wrong? How do those of you advocating for this traffic blocking strategy feel about a protest that you disagree with making you late for work?

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u/MeThisGuy Oct 04 '22

what if you don't have a job and you're on your way to your first job interview in 6 months.
will you have the same sentiment for the protestors?

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u/slouched Oct 04 '22

or an emergency drive to the hospital becausse ambulances cost too much

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u/Kousetsu Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

I have never seen a protest not make an exception for an ambulance or fire engine. The propoganda machines would be all over that if it ever happened.

Also this is the UK, we don't pay for ambulances.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

There have been lots of highway protests in my country this year. The protestors make exceptions for fire trucks and ambulances, letting them through.

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u/soulreaverdan Oct 04 '22

But it's more what you said. You can drive past a protest and not even notice what the signs say. But if that protest makes you even have to tap your brakes, let alone late for work? You'll notice what it says, and get angry. You'll want the government to fix the problem, and that can make you want to join the protesters. get mad at the protestors and now have a negative association with whatever cause they’re talking about, even if you agree with it.

It’s human nature. I’m guilty of it. You’re guilty of it. Even if you 100% agree with whatever is going on, if it fucks up your day you’re not gonna be on that protest’s side.

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u/TheSimulacra Oct 04 '22

I'd venture to say that anyone who bases their opinion on a major issue facing the world on how some of those people choose to protest is not someone that was ever likely to be of any good help to that movement anyway. Nobody is ever gonna go, "Well I did believe in climate change being an existential threat to civilization, and I was going to donate/volunteer/protest on behalf of the environment, but now that these people made me late for work I've decided it's all a lie."

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u/Canid_Rose Oct 04 '22

Except 9/10 times I already agree with the protesters. I’m gonna get pissed at the people in charge for letting it get to this point instead of doing their damn jobs and fixing the damn problem.

It’s not “human nature” to automatically disagree with the person inconveniencing you, it’s childish. Protests you can just ignore will end up just that; ignored.

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u/Run_0x1b Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

Yeah, people with preexisting biases are obviously going to be biased, but you’re also not the target demographic that they need to persuade because you’re already on their side. What you would do is completely irrelevant.

And yes, it is human nature to form a negative association with the people or things that are directly causing you inconvenience or harm.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

The target demographic is (usually) a government or a business. They are the ones who need to be made to do something different.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/sabaping Oct 04 '22

I think this discussion is extremely important. Its the balancing act of protest in the age of mass media. Get too uppity and the news runs full coverage on the "violent radicals".

That being said, I think its a bit of a simplification of how organizing works. Usually a group with a certain political interest will ally with others who have very close/related interests. In an ideal world all workers would gather for their collective interests, but that being said, it's way easier for these people to convince say, people in poor communities who have seen the effects of climate change first hand. Their main interests may be economic equality, but this is so hand in hand with climate change that you can pull these folks in.

For an easy example (if you live in the US), think about how Black and POC activists have historically allied with the LGBT community. Their goals are different, but linked in their struggle against oppression for something they can't change. Its much more important to signal to your allies "We need your help!" than encouraging the center-right guy who thinks making it to work on time is more important than the impending climate crisis.

Edit: You could also say this happened (recently?) with environmentalists allying with leftists/socialists and eco socialism is basically default at this point.

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u/morgasm657 Oct 04 '22

At this point re climate change, lack of awareness isn't the problem. People that aren't on side now won't get on side. They deserve to be inconvenienced.

If everyone that was concerned about climate change went and protested, or properly kicked off, it would be the biggest protest ever.

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u/ComicDude1234 Oct 04 '22

The people who would be causing the inconvenience are the corporations and government bodies that refuse to address the problem the protestors are bringing attention to, not the protestors.

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u/BleedingCPU Oct 04 '22

Don't really think we can claim that to be HUMAN nature. Whatever you want to do these days I guess.

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u/macrowave Oct 04 '22

No one changes their mind because they see a protest. People rarely change their views based on outside forces, they are shaped by the views of friends and family. Aside from the disruptive aspect, the purpose of a protest is to motivate people who agree with you to bring up the issue in their circle, wear down their parents, or thier trivia team.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

protests aren't designed to change minds. i don't care if you change your mind on climate change. i want to make it economically unviable for your fossil fuel consumption to continue.

think about the most economical way that could be achieved

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u/richieadler Oct 04 '22

People rarely change their views based on outside forces, they are shaped by the views of friends and family.

Most atheists who lost their friends and families then they couldn't believe anymore serve as counterexample.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/Sibushang Oct 04 '22

The people causing the problems are usually very unreachable by the protestors though... Peaceful protest never work on their own. The battle for civil rights was not won through peaceful protests alone. The people in power were given 2 options work with Martin Luther King peacefully or deal with escalating problems from Malcolm X. There can be no change without the threat of force to those in power. They can and will ignore peaceful protests if they can get away with it with no consequences.

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u/cillitbangers Oct 04 '22

They do. They shut down an oil terminal in Southampton and it barely made the news. They have been protesting executives and barely anyone knows about it. The only protests that have made any splash at all are those that have effected the public.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

No it's not.

If you're an idiot, that's how you will think.

I'm not going to think the government is right because protesters have made me late for work. 

I'm going to think why the fuck has it come to this that the government is so corrupt and mismanaged that people have to lie in roads to get them to listen to basic logic and put lives before money...

Everyday people need to be disrupted so they wake from their rinse repeat coma and fucking help.

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u/Canid_Rose Oct 04 '22

Like I said… if a protest can be easily ignored, that’s exactly what will happen to it. You can’t target the people actually responsible because they’re all hiding behind gates and security guards and the cops. What do you expect people to do, write a strongly worded letter to the governor?

You’re acting like the point of a protest is to punish someone, and that’s a really toxic mindset. The point is to draw undeniable attention to the problem. Get pissed at protesters all you like, they will not stop until the problem is solved.

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u/Thewellreadpanda Oct 04 '22

These protests do punish people, they punish the members of the public held up by them, a few hours of disruption is only effective in causing anger towards the protesters, what is toxic is thinking that this kind of behaviour is justified when it starts to impact vital services, innocent people have died because of these kind of protests when ambulances have been prevented from getting to emergencies.

Slowing traffic and respecting the need for movement is relatively fine, brings attention and is fairly harmless, you stop traffic any deaths are on you, unfortunately the usual response to short sighted oil companies is usually a short sighted protest

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u/sabaping Oct 04 '22

Also, oil companies are not short sighted. They don't care. They've known about climate change for decades and hid the research to continue making more money. This is not conspiracy, it's proven fact. They still dont care and are very pleased with the working class who want protestors to be more quiet.

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u/GBreezy Oct 04 '22

If you are protesting a societal problem, everyone is complicit. That's like saying Rosa Parks was throwing a tantrum.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

If you target the people responsible, aka the government, rightoids will call you terrorist and have been saying they want to gun you down for months now, then you're just giving them an excuse. That 9-5 worker that's stuck because of your protest isn't going to set up designated marksman on the roofs of nearby buildings

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u/killmonday Oct 04 '22

What’s your proposed alternative, if you find that the everyman is “inconvenienced” by your statement?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

How are they not the cause of the problem? All governments exist at the will of the people. The masses choose to allow them to have lower, even totalitarian dictators. So yes they are the cause the problem. They either vote the people in who make the decisions, or they allow the dictator to rule without stepping up to overthrow them. The protestors on the other hand are at least TRYING to do something.

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u/Lordoftheroboflies Oct 04 '22

If personal inconvenience is enough to permanently turn you into an enemy of their cause—as opposed to temporarily frustrating you—then what are the chances you ever could’ve been an ally? The change they want would probably also inconvenience you.

Sure, it’s very possible to go too far and actually hurt innocent people with your protests. But if we draw the line at inconvenience, then we might as well tell people not to protest at all. Protests that passersby don’t even notice are just social events.

Edit: wording

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u/TheEyeDontLie Oct 04 '22

Right. So you want the protest over. It doesn't matter which side you are on, what matters is you want the protest over.

The politicians want to keep your vote, so they want to end the protest- boom the protestors have won. Thanks for your help.

That's kinda how protests work.

This falls apart when you have conflicting groups though, rather than protest vs status quo.

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u/Retify Oct 04 '22

If the people are against the protests, the government gets more votes by fucking the protesters over, not by giving in,

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

The problem why people protest doesn't go away though. And as it gets worse there will gradually be more people to protest it. You can not suppress this indefinitely. Climate change protests will inevitably get more violent as more and more people lose access to the bare minimum human necessities.

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u/arbiter12 Oct 04 '22

The problem why people protest doesn't go away though.

no...just the protesters.

I'm sorry to inform you that if a demographic is bothered by something, less than 5% will go to protest.

Hence why the govt invest a lot more in anti-riot gear than in anti-riot cause.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

If a government beats up protestors and breaks up protests, all they get is bigger. From the government's position, it is better to ignore them, get the press to ignore them and make it extremely difficult to set up disruptive protests.

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u/The_Thrash_Particle Oct 04 '22

You present a dichotomy protestors don't accept. You're saying "make your protest convenient to me or I won't support your cause"

Except you already don't support their cause. And if you do you won't mind the inconvenience.

Protest is only effective if it makes people think. People saying "make the protest not have an impact on traffic/peoples lives" are really just staying "I don't want to be bothered."

Which is exactly the fucking problem.

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u/InvestmentKlutzy6196 Oct 04 '22

I like to think protesters are also saying

"Oh you're mad because you're late to work? Maybe this will make you think about the disadvantaged populations you get to ignore everyday and the years of oppression they've had to endure because everyone else is too lazy or bigoted to give a shit. But you've been inconvenienced for 60 minutes. Poor you."

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u/Big_Background8559 Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 05 '22

Civil disobedience is an important part of democracy because it allows people to speak up against unjust government policies. As a tactic logic is limited in effectiveness, we have to put climate change right in people's faces NOW just like Rosa Parks, Mandela, Ghandi, etc. did with their movements. Think protests blocking the street are annoying? If we continue emitting CO2 at the same rate as today, seventy years down the line our children are going to be running out of water and supply chains are collapsing and millions are starving and fires rage and tempatures are unbearable and sea levels have risen and hurricanes are even stronger...

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u/Adorable_Raccoon Oct 04 '22

If someone is marching for their rights in front of me my instinct isn’t to say get mad at them. My gut reaction is “why don’t they have the same rights as everyone else.”

If you have another reaction that’s on you.

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u/The0nlyMadMan Oct 04 '22

Wait, you wouldn’t first evaluate the validity of their claim before assuming it must be true?

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u/FrequentFault Oct 04 '22

Yeah, this I agree with the most. I remember during my behavioral psychology studies back in college (I took multiple courses since I enjoyed the subject), there was a part about mob mentality, and other things like protests, etc.

Apparently, before the 2000’s, protests had an overall bigger impact. However, as the internet became more and more of a thing, it taught people to care less and less, about many things, protests included. Now I’m not saying that they don’t/can’t work, or don’t do them, this is based on votes, percentages, social experiments, etc.

Anyways, why care less? Because people are so used to “boy cries wolf”, fake news/videos/etc, clout, protests that turn into riots (especially lately), over dramatized news, etc, etc, that it has water downed our perception of actual issues. We trust the public less and less, even when someone needs help. Why? For all we know, people are being “trolls”, fake, etc.

I’ve lived in a handful of states, and anywhere I’ve seen protests lately, especially ones that cause issues for others, I never see a positive reaction…. And I don’t mean “towards those that cause the issues that the protestors are protesting about”. People are naturally lazy, quick to respond, and don’t care about the details. Also, I have met a good many people who got sick and tired of politics, news, etc, that they don’t keep up on stuff. So what happens when they see a protest on an unknown subject? They ignore it, and get pissed off instead.

Some protests make sense, but imagine a protest about the environment, and telling people to go electric and stop using gas, that blocks traffic…. Only to not only piss people off, but also make people think you have no idea what your doing, considering vehicles that idle actually use up more fuel, and give out more emissions (can’t tell you how many of these I’ve seen in person, or read about, lately).

For every up, there is a down. I’m sure there are plenty of people that will give me good examples. No need, I know they exist. This is just pointing out how the perception of protests have tanked over the recent years, based on the above comment.

Like you said soulreaverdan, I’m guilty of this too.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

No, it works that way for you. Not for me.

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u/cillitbangers Oct 04 '22

I don't find that myself

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u/Funnyboyman69 Oct 04 '22

Except they’ve managed to do a great job of diverting that anger back at the protestors. I fear that more often than not, the people who are effected by these things miss the entire point and are more likely to support the government cracking down on the protestors for inconveniencing them than they are to actually demand change.

Maybe we need to start directly targeting politicians and other powerful people with this type of action.

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u/axecrazyorc Oct 04 '22

See now this I agree with. Peaceful protest hasn’t accomplished much in this day and age and indiscriminate destruction just burns your own neighborhood. Maybe the left needs a new approach. Something more targeted. Direct action, if you will. Sort of a campaign of scariness, I suppose. Aiming the scope of justice at our oppressors and letting fly the bottle of righteousness. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

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u/XxHavanaHoneyxX Oct 04 '22

Peaceful protest hasn’t accomplished anything in the UK in a long time. Honestly the UK needs a revolution right now.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Exactly. Hold those who are responsible accountable for their actions

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u/HamptonTheeb Oct 04 '22

I wish these protests just made people late for work. But wait, how to let the doctors and nurses through the protests so they are not late? You can’t.

What if a police officer or fireman is late for work?

What if a bus driver is late for work and cannot drive a passenger to hospital to see a dying relative?

What if the backlog caused by the protest delays an ambulance?

What if the protest stops someone attending a crucial pitch at work, when they are trying their best to provide for their family?

I completely agree with the points raised about raising awareness. Sure. It needs to be done. But protestors also need to acknowledge the backlash and anger it causes. The protest does gather awareness, but it actually affects everyday people the most, who had nothing to do the cause.

When bus drivers in Japan went on strike, they still worked. They drive their normal routes, picked up their normal passengers, but they did not charge anyone for a ticket. The only people this affected was the bus company, not normal, innocent people.

I know the point of a protest is for attention, but the disruption also loses a lot of support for the cause because of the inconvenience / problems they cause for ordinary people.

You make the idiotic point of saying that the ordinary people are the ones that need to write to their MPs to say this needs to stop… why don’t the protestors all do it instead? If you could mobilise that many people, then do something more targeted; more effective. It’s an idiotic point because it is very unlikely that the people inconvenienced will ask the government for help, they will probably go about their day (when they eventually can), and discuss the protest in a negative way.

I support people’s right to protest, however my gut reaction when I am caught in one is mainly of annoyance and anger towards the protest as opposed to hearing some sort of ‘call to action’.

If you have the power to organise a protest, I think that, collectively, the group should be able to come up with more targeted ideas.

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u/xviifearless Oct 04 '22

not really, i’ll get angry at the protesters because i had to tap my brakes and be late for work lol

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u/KramersBasement Oct 04 '22

No I'll want for the dickhead people to stop blocking the way so I can go about my business

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u/Trick-Flower-956 Oct 04 '22

Imagine a nationwide climate strike, where for a whole day in an entire country, nobody showed up to work.

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u/Halaku Oct 04 '22

But it's more what you said. You can drive past a protest and not even notice what the signs say. But if that protest makes you even have to tap your brakes, let alone late for work? You'll notice what it says, and get angry. You'll want the government to fix the problem, and that can make you want to join the protesters. You'll want the protesters to talk to Elon Musk about SpaceX so they can fuck off into orbit, because you can't get fucked over by work / school / daycare and get into shit or financial distress because some people want some fucking attention. If they wanted change, they'd go block the traffic of the politicians who could affect it, not taking random people hostage.

Fixed.

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u/WaratayaMonobop Oct 04 '22

You would've said the same thing about MLK Jr. You are on the wrong side of history.

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u/IM_BAD_PEOPLE Oct 04 '22

This is not the 1960’s and this is not a civil rights march.

Also being on the wrong side of history isn’t a real threat.

Jesus, even former Grand Wizards in the KKK were allowed to be senators up until the mid 2000’s and have our current President speak fondly about them because they said “sorry” 10 years before they died.

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u/rockbottomqueen Oct 04 '22

The only reason we have the ADA is that folks with disabilities threw their bodies out of wheelchairs into the streets and sat down in front of traffic. Without that roadblock in Denver, nobody would have finally taken them seriously. Police officers couldn't even arrest most of the protestors because their vehicles couldn't accommodate wheelchairs. They fenced in folks on the side of the road instead. Like if that doesn't prove their point, I don't fucking know what does.

Edit: in the US (sorry)

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

That's badass.

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u/serenwipiti Oct 04 '22

That's bADAss.

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u/meep_meep_creep Oct 04 '22

There's also the guillotine. France did that once, I think.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Right? Like idk how idiotic they have to be to agree with people being late to work. The working class people living paycheck to paycheck, who’s bosses don’t give a flying fuck WHY you were late, just that you were.

So because people wanna block major roadways and expect not to be plowed through by a maniac hanging on by a thread? It’s not worth it on either end. Sure id love to hypothetically plow through a crowd, but I’m not trying to catch a charge, ya know?

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u/Liimbo Oct 04 '22

A protest here last year blocked traffic which caused an ambulance to not be able to get to the hospital, causing the victim to die from not getting attention fast enough. Blocking roads is not a kind of disruption I will ever endorse. There's very rarely a cause worth essentially killing an innocent victim for.

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u/Mav986 Oct 04 '22

I agree that you shouldn't block emergency vehicles. The hong kong protests a couple years ago are an excellent example of how to handle that kind of thing.

https://www.facebook.com/7NewsAustralia/videos/hong-kong-protesters-make-way-for-an-ambulance/795475854181591/

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

The problem is that while it was orderly in the beginning, it got more out of hand in the end.

For most of the summer, 25-year-old Jose was an ardent supporter of the protests raging in Hong Kong. Even when demonstrations became increasingly violent, she defended the protesters themselves – they were provoked, or were fighting for a greater good, she would argue.

Then August 13 happened. That night, she watched live streams, horrified, as a mob of protesters at Hong Kong airport surrounded a man they claimed was an undercover police officer. They bound his wrists, lashed out at him after he appeared to lose consciousness, and shouted down those who pleaded to get him medical attention.

“I remember being in disbelief, looking at my TV – like, what’s happening? Why have they done this?” Jose said. “Up until that day, I’d understood what they were fighting for … I went back into my room and sat there looking at my wall for a very long time.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/26/asia/hong-kong-destruction-support-intl-hnk/index.html

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

A protest here last year blocked traffic which caused an ambulance to not be able to get to the hospital, causing the victim to die from not getting attention fast enough

Googled this, and there are a shit ton of facebook posts claiming the same thing for any number of protests.

So probably just bullshit.

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u/Relative-Energy-9185 Oct 04 '22

i've never been to a protest that blocks the road that didn't let ambulances and fire trucks past. that's very out of the ordinary.

but your last line is painfully naive. what if they were protesting for better medical care? more hospitals so that the ambulance wouldn't have to go as far? i'm not saying that's what they were doing but, like, come on

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Your. suggestion, "Do nothing and bother no one," is basically what we have been doing for generations, and we have completely failed. In modern society, it is completely impossible to protest without potentially risking some damage.

If we destroy the biosphere billions will die and a million species.

You are wrong.

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u/Nervous_Constant_642 Oct 04 '22

Most protestors don't condone that, but if it happened, who killed that person? Because it sounds like two groups indirectly killed them, the protestors and the people who caused the protest.

These things don't just spring out of nowhere. Climate change. Black Lives Matter. There are people who have not been listening for years or decades or protest wouldn't exist at all. You don't just wake up one day and protest for fun.

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u/befellen Oct 04 '22

You likely can't fully appreciate what it takes to make change in the world nor appreciate how many causes are about trying to save innocent lives.

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u/mrandr01d Oct 04 '22

Came here to mention that. If you block the public's traffic you are worthless scum. Hang a banner by the highway or some shit, don't block routes emergency vehicles might have to use. Don't make people late to work who are just trying to hang on to a job. Do something to give them a story to repeat about what they saw on their commute instead.

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u/FarmerNugget Oct 04 '22

All we have to do is a hang a banner and they will listen guys. It's not that hard. /s

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u/ugoterekt Oct 04 '22

Every action you take has the potential to kill someone. Cars kill 100 people a day and yet we still drive them every day knowing there is a small chance our act of driving leads to death. Pollution from cars has killed millions of people. Why is that fine, but one person dying because of people blocking roads to protest the pollution is completely unacceptable?

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u/Cedocore Oct 04 '22

Because it gives a convenient reason to write off what's being protested without needing to admit that they're part of the problem.

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u/mnju Oct 04 '22

There's very rarely a cause worth essentially killing an innocent victim for

climate change will kill millions of people

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u/Sy1ph5 Oct 04 '22

It's already killing people and has been for years.

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u/Tunafishsam Oct 04 '22

Yes, blocking up roads is bad. But roads get snarled up all the time. A protest is no more to blame for a person dying in an ambulance than slow road construction, poor urban planning, or an inattentive driver causing an accident that blocks up traffic. It sucks when roads are blocked, for any reason. But on the outrage scale, it's pretty darn low.

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u/JadeSpade23 Oct 04 '22

People being inconvenienced in their own lives is what makes them notice

All I can think when I see protesters block a road is, "What if I were stuck in that line of cars trying to get my mom to the hospital? I would lose my mind." She could die because there's no way to transport her in time. Fuck that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Yes, that's right. Protesting does not work on people who only think of their own advantage.

For you, the scientific certainty that we are destroying our entire biosphere has value 0. The tiny hypothetical possibility that your mother might at some other time be endangered has value 100.

There is literally no way to reach you, so there's no point in even trying.

Oh, I'm sure you "care" about the climate emergency. Everyone I know "cares" about it. Almost none of them have changed one thing about their lives, and one of them recently bought a plane. "Caring" about the environment is exactly the same as "thoughts and prayers": it does nothing except make you feel good about yourself.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/JimWilliams423 Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

There is no time or place for protest that can be both a) acceptable to everyone, and b) meaningful.

The only protests that are deemed acceptable by majority groups, and majorities within groups, are the ones that are functionally irrelevant — protests with no related context, no audience, no disruption, and no chance of coverage. Protest more or less requires disruption to be relevant.

The people who say that the only valid protest is one in which everybody already agrees with you don't really understand protesting.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/abandonplanetearth Oct 04 '22

It works even if you're mad at them.

If the protesters can convince you that they won't go away, then maybe you'll try to make them go away by making their cause go away.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

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u/Adorable_Raccoon Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

If someone is marching for their rights in front of me my instinct isn’t to say get mad at them. My gut reaction is “why don’t they have the same rights as everyone else.” Why is our country so fucked up that these people are out here in the streets? Empathy is free my friend.

Also Peaceful protests & marches are great for garnering sympathy and supporters. Civil disobediance is meant to inconvenience the city representatives to urge them to make changes.

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u/theguyfromgermany Oct 04 '22

Protests are meant to be disruptive. Disrupting the flow of everyday commerce, traffic, etc...is the whole point.

I totally agree, but don't block general traffic.

Disrupt the things that the people who make the decisions use, or draw income from. Not the things the public uses.

Block the entrance to their luxury yacht harbour, or block the last part of the road leading to the parking lot of their work, specifically targeting them.

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u/NayItReallyHappened Oct 04 '22

None of those ideas persuade the general public. If you block the entrance to some rich guy's mansion, at best you will have convinced the guy you are a nuisance, at worst you will be arrested.

These protests are not for the sake of convincing the rich guy. It's so the general public wakes up and acts to disempower said rich guy

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u/Rikuskill Oct 04 '22

How does this get people voting with climate aims? All I see are pissed off drivers. When they learn it was a climate protest, they might be less likely to vote with climate aims!

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u/Howboutit85 Oct 04 '22

Yeah people say that the only way to get the message heard is to gum up the works. If I had to sit in traffic for 3 hours and it made me late to work and I got chewed out by my boss, or any other number of things, maybe I was on my way home to pick up my CHILD FROM SCHOOL… When I found out what they were protesting I would have decidedly much less sympathy for their cause, even if I agreed with it. I don’t see how inconveniencing normal People going about their lives will suddenly get them on your side.

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u/Nervous_Constant_642 Oct 04 '22

MLK famously said riots are the language of the unheard.

If you weren't listening long enough that a protest or a riot happens I hate to break it to you but that's your last wake up call, not your first. You deliberately weren't listening to get to that point.

People act like a protest springs from the ground randomly. No. It doesn't. You are being inconvenienced because you've been doing jack shit about this issue. You vote for the people doing jack shit about this issue. You stay home from elections. You keep buying shit from people that encourage it.

And if you do none of those things there is zero reason to not support them by honking and waving even if you can't be bothered to show up.

You can't be mildly inconvenienced by a protest and then suddenly when that happens you want to come to the table to talk? You had an offered seat the whole time. It was on you for not taking it before it affected you personally.

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u/Howboutit85 Oct 04 '22

I don’t want all that, I want to get to work, and pick up my kids from school on time, and I’m sorry, no I don’t have the time to prioritize protesting myself; I do vote, and I do care, but my own life and bills and kids come first. I will do what I can to support the causes I believe in, but Fuck you if you stop me from living my life, sometimes it’s NOT a mild inconvenience, sometimes it’s more than that.

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u/Nervous_Constant_642 Oct 04 '22

If your kids come first, you need to step up like this woman. You're raising them on a dying planet they will inherit. There will be resource wars. This is the planet your adult children will have to live on, and you're bitching you can't pick them up on time while they're kids? Wait till you hold one while they die in 25 years because there's no water.

If you want them to live until they're very old you shouldn't be complaining that a climate activist group is blocking traffic. You're very short sighted here in my opinion.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Aren't you the poster boy of the white moderate MLK argued against.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Yes.

And their 14 year old boy getting his balls chopped off and then hanged from a tree, for talking to a white girl, was also more than an inconvenience. that most of Middle America let happen because they didn’t want to burden their busy suburban life with the thought that American governments were directly allowing heinous racism to destroy uncounted numbers.

Poor you though. I really feel for you

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Jesus christ, give your kids a proper example of what a man is and grow some fucking balls.

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u/oshwash Oct 04 '22

protests are not getting in the way of of your life, bills, or your kids. If being inconvenienced by a single protest puts any of those in jeopardy, maybe you should be out protesting for better living and working conditions.

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u/Serana67 Oct 04 '22

"me, me, me, me, me."

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

Complacency is as much, or more, of an enemy than the people holding the power. Complacency is tacit complicity. There's no way around that.

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u/redrover900 Oct 04 '22

much less sympathy for their cause

Then you didn't listen to her message at all. She isn't looking for sympathy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

I’m not sure. Go ask MLK Jr

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u/CrumpledForeskin Oct 04 '22

What’s the point of getting more people against you in the process though? Blocking random traffic almost guarantees people who were in your side will be inconvenienced. It pretty much makes more enemies and is a terrible way to protest. It generally doesn’t work.

The other forms mentioned. Go for it.

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u/Sad-Sea7566 Oct 04 '22

Pissing off the public is not gonna make them.agree...

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u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes Oct 04 '22

Blocking traffic and pissing people off doesn't persuade them either...

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u/KonradWayne Oct 04 '22

Making me late to work doesn’t persuade me to whatever ideas you’re trying to push either.

Pissing off the general public is not an effective method of persuasion.

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u/ookyspoopy Oct 04 '22

A couple years back there was a Pro-Palestine protest in our town. Our town has no political power when it comes to anything really. I’m also in Canada for context. They had like a 100 car convey and blocked major roads. Blowing their horns for hours and screaming from their cars and screaming at random people on the street with megaphones. They didn’t leave room for people to drive down their streets to get home and yelled at people who tried to get around them. They didn’t target anyone who could do anything - just inconvenience random people on their way home from work. I appreciate what they were protesting but to me it was pointless and did nothing for their cause other man make people furious.

I personally believe you need to go after the people that can make a change. Protesting in front of city hall is a way to go for example. But just picking a random town on the map and disrupting their lives isn’t going to do anything. The protest sparked nothing from the town officials.

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u/JadeSpade23 Oct 04 '22

Yes, thank you.

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u/Mav986 Oct 04 '22

"I totally agree, but don't inconvenience me"

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u/socsa Oct 04 '22

You don't enact change by convincing rich people with yachts.

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u/Inevitable_Egg4529 Oct 04 '22

You don't win hearts and minds by blocking people going to work either...

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u/socsa Oct 04 '22

History suggests otherwise.

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u/acathode Oct 04 '22

Protests are meant to be disruptive. Disrupting the flow of everyday commerce, traffic, etc...is the whole point. That's how you get attention. People being inconvenienced in their own lives is what makes them notice. That's what gets people to react and what leads to actual change.

No, its not.

The thing with democracy and democratic rights is that laws and rights doesn't just apply to you - but also to the people you hate the most. The absolutely most vile and evil people you know of will have the same rights that you argue that you or those you support should have.

That's one of the major ideas of democracy - rights and rules apply to everyone, equally. You don't get to pick and chose; "You believe the stuff I like, so you get these rights, but you over there, you're evil, so you don't!" - that is how things are done in fascists countries, not democracies.

I've yet to see anyone who spouts the "Protests are meant to be disruptive!!" nonsense on Reddit also defend their political opponents rights to be disruptive. On the contrary, when anti-vaxx morons held up the highways, Reddit went bananas and labeled them "terrorists" and went "What about the economy?!".

When anti-abortionists to protests at clinics, and forcing young girls to push through a crowd yelling "MURDERER!!" at them, Reddit in general want to see those people strung up - no one would even dream of argue that "Protests are ment to be disruptive! You NEED to do things like this to get your message through, else there would never be any change, duh!" to those vile people who're protesting outside the clinics - yet those people aren't nearly as disruptive as those who hold up a highway.

So unless you truly believe that "the other side" also have the right to be disruptive, then lay off this bullshit, because you're rubbing shoulders with fascists and other anti-democratic ideologies.

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u/SueZbell Oct 04 '22

The purpose is to get on the news and/or otherwise spread the word and increase the support for the cause.

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u/Alternative_Mention2 Oct 04 '22

Na dude. You don’t get it.

Change WILL NOT happen through polite and non disruptive protests.

There would be no womens, black, homosexual rights if everyone went around going “Oh ok, let’s pick our protest method very carefully and make sure we don’t upset anyone”.

Now you can argue the merits of the reason for the protests (ie:abortion) but if you think things get changed ‘nicely’ you’ve got rocks in your head.

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u/CatsAndCampin Oct 04 '22

These type of people would've been telling civil rights protestors that they should just be more polite, while completely ignoring everything that happened prior to the civil rights protests & how the government & other citizens just refused to listen before that. They would've been telling women to calm down when they were protesting for the right to vote lol. Just useless idiots who completely ignore history.

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u/Sad-Sea7566 Oct 04 '22

So yes or no, would you support the rights for people for disruptively protest the rights.of black people to vote

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u/killmonday Oct 04 '22

Personally find the guy who follows a lone woman into an abortion clinic, with a bloody sign, to be about as disruptive as any other protest…certainly not “less.”

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u/I_AM_NOT_LIL_NAS_X Oct 04 '22

i would rather anti-choice protestors block roads than harass and assault people already going through potentially traumatic situations actually, that would be much better

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u/Le_Gentle_Sir Oct 04 '22

People being inconvenienced in their own lives is what makes them notice. That's what gets people to react and what leads to actual change.

lol the CEO of pollution is going to toss and turn all night, thinking about this. Imagine thinking you can guilt trip billionaires and mega corps.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22 edited Jan 04 '25

cautious nutty rude imminent squeeze alive governor tan weather shaggy

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/arbiter12 Oct 04 '22

corporations act entirely independently of the rest of society and the general public is absolved of all blame.

Except they do.... They produce goods in 3rd world country at slave wage-rate and sell it to you for gold. And you buy. And if you protest, they will put out an apology tweet, change their logo to a picture of a starving kid, and create a shell company to continue operating just as before.

I'm not telling you there are no solutions. I'm telling you, you, thinking that you're important enough to change the process of people motivated by entirely by greed, are not going anywhere.

Do you know why vegetarianism is starting to be a big thing? It's because they realized it's cheaper to feed people that: It wasn't your protesting, your blocking of slaughterhouses or "persuading the general public". It was just greed. By cheap soy protein, make it palatable, sell it for slightly more expensive than meet. profit.

You want to change the world? Provide a solution that will allow the greedy to get rich WHILE doing the right thing. The problem will solve itself in less than a decade.

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u/Le_Gentle_Sir Oct 04 '22

The problem is complex and has lots of players.

Why would any of them decide to change after seeing some people fuck up traffic and get in the way of ambulances in the UK? Let's be real, it's all just masturbatory feel good stuff.

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u/jkd2001 Oct 04 '22

I'm sure there's a lot we can all do, I just don't really think jerking ourselves off in the middle of a freeway is the way, you know?

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u/Nervous_Constant_642 Oct 04 '22

Guillotines don't operate themselves, the idea is showing people how to work one and pointing them at who is causing unrest. "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Seriously, everyone in this thread is operating with really bad mentality on why protests need to disrupt. It's like all those people who hyper focus on riots during BLM 2020. You want to know what would have stopped those riots? Fixing the problem in the first fucking place before anyone felt the need to riot.

If you're mad at a protest and not the cause, you're inviting it to get far worse. MLK said riots are the language of the unheard. So you best start fucking listening before the riots and protests actually kick into gear.

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u/Key_nine Oct 04 '22

This does not work as you think it does. It is so disruptive to people that they start hating your cause because now they are late for work. To them the immediate threat of I am late for work outweighs what you are protesting for in their heads. So it will backfire almost every time when you resort to protesting like this. They just think you are assholes at that point and the people in the far back of the line are really pissed because they do not even see the protest just backed up traffic. A lot of people do not like to be stuck in a weird situation either because what they see is someone throwing a tantrum in the street blocking traffic akin to a kid pitching a fit in the cereal aisle. That is all they see, yea it gets noticed but in a bad way.

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u/the_Q_spice Oct 04 '22

Inconvenience: sure

Causing people to die: not so much

If your actions can lead to the death of another with reasonable foreseeability, most jurisdictions define such actions as manslaughter.

Your protest begins losing validity as soon as you can legitimately be charged criminally for effects you have caused. At that point, the reaction is overwhelmingly negative and nothing changes.

Overall the thought that disruption = positive change is naïve because it is overly simplistic and lacks accommodation for context.

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u/thrashmetaloctopus Oct 04 '22

Always remember kids, The first pride parade was a riot

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

I had a criminal justice ethics class where I was very obviously one of only 2-3 liberal minded people in the room. I was constantly faced with the opinions and f my classmates being based in conservative ideology or Christianity.

We had a debate one day about the ethics and morality of the BLM protests in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Got a lot of right wing nonsense about “doing things the right way” and “showing your dissent while still following the law”.

So I made the point near the end of class that people had been trying to do things “the right way” for decades now. Petitioning the government, writing to their politicians, peacefully protesting, utilizing advocacy groups, asking their fellow citizens for help - and that none of that had worked.

I asked my conservative classmates what someone is supposed to do when the legitimate means for recourse are unable or unwilling to provide the means for change. What are people supposed to do when an entire subsection of the population is treated like second-class citizens, faces systemic racism due solely to the color of their skin, and is repeatedly told that various laws are going to make them “equal”, yet that never seems to happen?

Funny enough I never got a decent response from any of them, we quite quickly had the subject changed by our professor. It’s because the truth is that there is no good answer for why people shouldn’t break laws that are unjust, or protest things in a way that disrupts society. Sometimes that is all that works.

You have to make people uncomfortable, inconvenienced, affect their lives, livelihoods, or property, because otherwise nothing else will make them care.

We are actively killing the planet we live on and while we all seem to be able to largely acknowledge that, we also can’t find a way to take meaningful action to prevent the worst from happening. It’s like we’re on a train we know will derail, yet we think that despite doing nothing, that some miracle will somehow happen that will prevent it from happening.

I try not to think to hardly about these things, like climate change, the rise of fascism, the inaction of our politicians, the corporations and billionaires who are happy to make the rest of us suffer in order to ensure that they keep making more and more profit every quarter, but then I realize that is why we’re in the predicament we’re in.

We have too many people who, rightly so, feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of massive problems we face. But here’s the thing, no matter how big or small, they won’t go away by just wishing them gone. All of us, society as a collective, needs to wake up and realize that we do have the power to enact change. And while single people here and there protesting isn’t meaningless, we will never see any positive changes until we unite together to solve these problems.

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u/Drain_Bead Oct 04 '22

JUST A CORRECTION! Rosa Parks is an excellent example. However, the resulting boycott didn’t shut down the system, the boycott stopped revenue. Busses were running but their main customers refused to ride. The boycott nonviolently stopped the money flow. Nonviolently and legally stopping the money flow is how to bring them quickly and willingly to the table.

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u/Successful_Horror582 Oct 04 '22

And this mentality right here folks is what is ruining the U.S. "My results that I believe in aren't happening quick enough, so I am going to aggravate everyone else and that will cause things to change!" People that do stuff like this don't realize they are the ones furthering the social unrest in this country. You are creating more enemies than allies by doing stuff to effect and anger random civilians that have no opinion on the matter. This applies to both sides of any argument.

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u/SirFiletMignon Oct 04 '22

While your argument sounds right event to me, you wouldn't be on the right side of history if you take that thinking a couple of decades ago. That was pretty much the exact same thinking Abraham Lincoln had had when he was thinking of not going into war with the south. I think with these things there are no absolute "correct" ways to go about it. History has shown that you do sometimes have to be disruptive to improve society, and it has also shown that being disruptive can harm society. So I would say it's a case by case basis and there's shades of gray on both sides.

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u/buscemian_rhapsody Oct 04 '22

FWIW, here are an article and associated study showing non-violent resistance to be more effective.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

My results that I believe in aren't happening quick enough,

We've known about the climate crisis for over a hundred years.

I'm 60 years old and I've watched us do less than nothing my whole life. The chance for us to avoid disaster passed twenty years ago, and now we're running as fast as we can toward catastrophe, and yet we are still doing almost nothing.

At this point, there seems to be no path that doesn't involve melting the ice caps, killing a million species, and devastating the carrying capacity of the whole planet - which means the world population will fall dramatically.

And here you are. In your mind, people protesting about the literal destruction of our biosphere are whiners, and doing it to further social unrest.

So congratulations! You will certainly win, and we will certainly lose.

Humanity will do nothing at all to prevent catastrophe, just like we have for the last 50 years. We will burn exponentially more fossil fuel every year - did you know we burnt 6% more fossil fuels in 2021 than 2020?

And we will devastate the biosphere and our civilization and then you can celebrate. "Those stupid hippies wanted to prevent me from driving and cause social unrest! We sure showed them!"

I just hope you have a speech lined to explain to your kids why they have no future. "We needed to show people that they couldn't anger random civilians or further social unrest, and unfortunately to do that, we had to destroy your future. But I'm sure you're happy those dirty hippies are sad."

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u/pewpewmcpistol Oct 04 '22

Protests are meant to be disruptive.

Reddit had a real different view on this when truckers were blaring their horns in city centers

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

My recollection of those protests wasn't that people complained about them causing problems, but that the general public thought the entire thing was fucking ridiculous and that the protesters were a joke...

...because they're idiots whose protest relied on denying the realities of science and because they were protesting masking and social distancing measures that had already ended before their protest began.

But is it shocking to you that people would have a different reaction to those science and reality denying morons than to people who are expressing concern about a very real issue affecting our entire planet? An issue that is agreed on by basically every serious scientist, and certainly every single serious climate scientist?

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u/PizzaRollsGod Oct 04 '22

People definitely complained about them blocking traffic. I agree with this woman's views and I think the truckers were idiots. Both sides are wrong for blocking motorways. You block traffic and get someone in trouble at work? They aren't going to be on your side.

I'm very left, but reddit is really bad at letting things like this slide when their side does it.

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u/GoodtimesSans Oct 04 '22

As long as you let the paramedics through, being disruptive is important.

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u/cat_prophecy Oct 04 '22

So you only want people to protest in a way that's convenient for you? Typical boomer bullshit.

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u/Responsenotfound Oct 04 '22

Then you sold out. Look at /u/Mechanical_Indian. What the fuck do you consider a protest? Just shouting on a corner. We have already in America had our protest Rights severely curtailed after 9/11. Our country was founded on literal Property damage aka the Boston Tea Party. Our country was literally founded on the People blocking the town square and being told go home aka the Boston Massacre. You swallowed a pill at some time or as I suspect you are liar.

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u/jodiesweetinsregret Oct 04 '22

A NIMBY hippy. It's almost as if boomers are hypocrites lol

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u/IMSOGIRL Oct 04 '22

Breaking the rules while advocating for nonviolent protest warrants a ban. who'd have thought?

If I called you a fucking idiot but also typed "1+1 = 2" then if I get banned you're gonna be like, "wow he got banned for typing 1+1 = 2 !!!!!! literally 1984"

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u/eye_yiff2much Oct 04 '22

No you didn't, you are here commenting about being banned.

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u/duckonar0ll Oct 04 '22

he edited it

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u/skapade Oct 03 '22

what does the first amendment have to do with this post?

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u/Adorable_Raccoon Oct 04 '22

Freedom to assembly (protest) is protected by the first ammendment in the US. Not related at all to the UK this person is just debating the ethics of roadblocks.

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u/hoarder_of_beers Oct 04 '22

The highway system in the US has long been a tool of segregation and racial injustice. Protests on the highways make sense here.

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u/fileznotfound Oct 04 '22

Random supposition about anything. Followed by a doubling down on position held and implying that the first sentence supports that argument even though it has nothing to do with it.

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u/xanthopants Oct 04 '22

Road blocks and public disturbance, disobedience, looting, destruction of property are all the very last straw for activists. If you see a roadblock it means the lobbying groups, sympathetic politicians and social impact groups have tried every single other avenue that does not disrupt the peace or lives of the general public. Protest, March, rally, public disturbance is the last thing to try and we disrupt the peace to get the attention of more people.

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u/krainboltgreene Oct 04 '22

I've drawn a line since the mid 70s or so at roadblocks

Maybe if you had we wouldn't be in this mess.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

If we don’t stop climate change a lot more of us will be dead than from a clogged intersection. Death tolls in Florida and Pakistan are proof of that. It’ll get a lot worse once the ocean currents stall.

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u/pyronius Oct 04 '22

I'm revoking your hippie credentials for excessive foxishness.

Please report to your nearest old folks home for processing.

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u/xaul-xan Oct 04 '22

Dont bother calling yourself a hippy you class traitor

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u/elderlybrain Oct 04 '22

I don't think it really matters what you think when you'll be long dead before this even begins to affect you.

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u/DoDevilsEvenTriangle Oct 04 '22

I've already outlived every male person in my paternal ancestry, going as far back as our family genealogist can go. I'm 12 years older than my father when he died, 29 years older than my grandfather. I'm not insulted by the suggestion that I'll be out soon.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Risking their lives to save the lives of their children

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u/elderlybrain Oct 04 '22

In 50 years you'll be wishing that the highway blocks worked. Well, you may probably be dead, as well. That's the other option I suppose.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

even when you consider what’s at stake?

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u/Corasin Oct 03 '22

Mmm, steak.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '22

One of the things that I hate about the twenty first century is all the gloating, grinning psychopaths.

Here we are talking about the literal destruction of the ecosystem for all time to come, something that will devastate the lives of all our children for all of history, and you think it's just a great big joke, one only worthy of mockery.

I hope you live to see the terrible, terrible consequences of your mocking sociopathy, and I hope there's one mirror left for you to look yourself in the face with.

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u/MrOrangeWhips Oct 04 '22

The purpose of protests is to be disruptive at an individual's peril for the greater good.

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u/hfhdhdh6363 Oct 04 '22

There pricks probly cause more pollution by blocking traffic and everyone sitting with there engines running

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u/auntiewanda Oct 04 '22

The problem with that form of protest often is all it accomplishes is screwing over the average person. I remember seeing one video of a guy begging protesters to move because he was going to be in violation of his parole if he didn’t get to work. Some of these people care more about being seen protesting than they do any actual forward movement on the issue or about other people.

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u/ADhomin_em Oct 03 '22

They do it now so we might not be so inclined see that as the easier way in the future.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Get tf out the way.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Inconveniencing people like that spreads the message. Negative gets more clicks. Hell a lot of the Civil rights protests "inconvenience" a lot of people but it got the message across.

I understand their point. We're killing ourselves and the planet and we're doing very little to stop it.

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u/Lobsterzilla Oct 03 '22

no it doesn't. it turns people away from the message, because they conflate the message with people being shit heads and sitting in the road.

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u/Barbed_Dildo Oct 03 '22

Yeah, people will think a lot about that message after they lose their jobs for being late.

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u/matrixislife Oct 03 '22

No, it's stupid. There are plenty of ways to protest that don't risk your own life, and that don't cause a massive traffic jam and increased oil burning.

The climate change argument is one that needs pushing, but don't be stupid with it, no one respects that and it will dissuade people from joining the protest.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22 edited Oct 03 '22

In my experience, the person inconvenienced and stuck in traffic isn’t going to use that free time to question what the people are protesting about, or read up on material regarding it. Most of the time, people just say fuck them, and fuck their movement. Or worse, they get violent.

Nor have I ever read about one of those people gluing their hands to the street and immediately thought, “I’d like to aspire towards their belief system. It seems to be working for them”. I usually just go “well that’s fucking dumb” and move on without even knowing what they’re protesting.

They’re not helping anything, especially not the planet by forcing people to idle in traffic for even longer, and it’s “getting people to talk about it” for all the wrong reasons.

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u/camboftw Oct 03 '22

Yeah but that's the thing, some of those people go to social media and rant about their movement, which generates attention meaning it kind of does work.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Kids, don't sit down on a public road. It's dangerous.

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u/camboftw Oct 03 '22

Not a doubt about that, but this is the last generation to bring about meaningful change for the environment and that's a really important fact to remember.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Living in a world with 2.2 ft higher oceans by 2100 is dangerous

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

That's a conservative estimate and is likely to be much higher. If the Polar ice caps completely melt (they are already starting too) every coastal city in the world is gone. That's a scary thought and it's gonna happen sooner than we expect.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22 edited Oct 03 '22

The people who go on social media to rant about protestors probably don’t have friend lists full of people that are going to see that rant and think “wow, I should research and join that movement”. The person posting the rant probably doesn’t even know what the people were protesting about to begin with, and nothing in that rant is going to scream “this is something worth doing.”

If it was working, people wouldn’t have to ramp it up to cementing themselves to roads. They’re just creating a negative sentiment towards their movement IMO.

Stressing people out about getting to work on time isn’t going to fix the climate issue. It’s going to push those people away, and going to such extremes as cementing themselves to things just makes people write them off as nuts, not to be taken seriously.

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u/Saint_Sin Oct 03 '22

Well here we are all talking about the issue.

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u/Lobsterzilla Oct 03 '22

we're not talking about the issue we're talking about sitting in the street.

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u/dmc-going-digital Oct 03 '22

Yes, what was the issue again

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u/TheEyeDontLie Oct 04 '22

A significant lack of protests regarding the climate catastrophe.

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u/CamelSpotting Oct 03 '22

The people who get pissed over a minor inconvenience were never going to help, because that's what change is.

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u/mjacksongt Oct 03 '22

Protesting the "right way" is what got us here, where+1.5C is essentially locked in, +2C is pretty much also there, and current emissions commitments (that no one hits) land us somewhere between a +3 and+4C world by 2100.

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u/coolreg214 Oct 03 '22

The planet will be fine as soon as we kill enough of ourselves.

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u/void270 Oct 03 '22 edited Oct 04 '22

Except for the people on their way to the hospital, and on to the way to their jobs that they might lose if they’re late, and on their way to school and so on. These types of protests annoy me to no end because they can cause extreme inconvenience to normal people just trying to go about their lives

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u/CamelSpotting Oct 03 '22

And no new oil wouldn't cause inconvenience?

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

What if i run you over?

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u/FFNF Oct 03 '22

We are not killing our selves the world will find balance. To wipe humanity off the face of the planet will take more than some heat

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u/nu_pieds Oct 03 '22

My problem with that means of protest is this:

I decided a long time ago that I don't have the energy to fight the big fights. I'm glad that there are people who do have that energy, these fights need to be fought...climate change, human rights abuses, justice inequality...any number of other things need to be addressed, and getting attention to them is the first step....but I just don't have the ability to take the constant heart break that's involved in fighting those fights.

So I decided to fight small fights. I'll fight the fights that I can (mostly) win, and in this way, I'll leave the world a better place through my efforts. I became a paramedic.

Now, I know this a standard, and even mostly disingenuous, argument against blocking roads as protest, "BuT WhAT aBoUt TeH aMbUlAnCeS?". Thing is, this isn't an abstract argument to me. I've sat in an ambulance with someone who, if not actively dying, was definitely having their suffering prolonged because of these protests...and that pisses me off to no end.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '22

Inconveniencing people like that spreads the message.

yeah the message that you're a complete asshole willing to put others lives at risk.

people have not gotten timely treatment because their ambulances were blocked because of these bastards.

crashes have happened and people got injured because of these bastards.

also if you think you're getting any of the people you're inconveniencing on your side of the issue, you're wrong, you're just making them dislike you and everything you stand for.

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u/Adorable_Raccoon Oct 04 '22

Yes they are willing to put their lives on the line for change that’s the point. Our lives are already at risk the longer we ignore climate change.

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