Comment by d4nt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by d4nt | Hacker News Reader

We've forgotten the core point of protesting. The article skirts near the truth in the section about how hierarchical organisations are more effective than the modern decentralised variety, but it frustratingly seems to still miss the point.

The Iraq war protests, while massive, never seriously threatened the government or the established order of things. Whereas, the Poll Tax riots in the U.K. where relatively small, but Thatcher was ousted by her own party within months.

Protests work when they threaten to overthrow the government. They could either do that through existing democratic processes, via financial means (e.g. tax revolt) or violently. But the point is the same, governments are motivated by self preservation.

Protests need either powerful organisational structures with figureheads that could assume power, or a broad enough base with sufficient reckless abandonment that it could turn into armed uprising. Without either of those things, the incumbents in power are not threatened enough to act. The actual event where you all march on the streets is just a demonstration that your organisation is powerful enough to threaten the government. It's not meant to be a fun day out with the kids.

Zeynep Tufecki's boom Twitter and Tear Gas argues this exact point very thoroughly. Would recommend to anyone interested by this discussion.

This is the only thing that makes sense. The people, governments, and institutions being protested only know one language: violence. Otherwise, they will hold onto their power no matter what, as long as they can. People often forget or never learn this. There are lots of parents teaching their children all sorts of fantasies about government, armies, and police, that these are institutions that should be respected and trusted rather than feared, disbelieved, and toppled. Attitudes like that lead to the ineffective protests we've seen lately. The people being protested do not care if there are millions in the streets if those millions will never pose a threat and those millions cannot pose a threat if they have delusional misconceptions about their role and the role of the people they're protesting. A lot of power and responsibility lies with parents and many of them are too clueless to see the world for what it is, let alone teach their children to react to it properly.

> "This is the only thing that makes sense. The people, governments, and institutions being protested only know one language: violence."

Not true. They also understand money. I'd say money is the best thing to focus on if you want a truly effective protest. Violence is too easy to condemn by those not taking part. That's why I'd say we'd be better off arranging protests as boycotts rather than marching in the street.

That said, there is a sense of community with collective gatherings like street protests. I'd say fostering connections between people is probably the main strength of protesting in the streets.

The threat of economic reprimand ("money") is indirectly and maybe unknowingly a threat of violence.

> That said, there is a sense of community with collective gatherings like street protests. I'd say fostering connections between people is probably the main strength of protesting in the streets.

Yes!

After Trump was elected, I went to my first street protests and I was shocked at how positive it felt. The sense of community and togetherness was amazing. I talked to more strangers that day than I had in the previous year. People were kind, and funny, welcoming.

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