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Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

So the child that out of her own will started to strike for climate awareness is beeing used?

I didn’t follow every nook and crany of her story, but I didn’t see her promoting anything that a rational objective observer should also conclude.

What I did see, were a big amount of butthurt middle aged men who couldn’t handle what a girl telling them the truth does to their own self image. And instead of using this as a chance to groe as a person they start to rationalize their behaviour in ways which are uncompatible with the reality.

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> out of her own will

citation needed. the fact that this girl has been launched into stardom practically overnight is a sign that she's not "in charge".

I remember there beeing school strikes in Germany inspired by her well before she was a topic in the national media landscape. The Germans school kids who followed her example saw it on social media mostly. Only once it was clear that that school striking swedish girl inspired a whole lot of others throughout Europe, the (German) media picked up. I remember thinking that is was a tiny bit late.

This wouldn't be extraordinary. Your claim however is. And you know the drill: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Especially when you use that claim in an ad hominem attack to silence someones arguments.

> the fact that this girl has been launched into stardom practically overnight is a sign that she's not "in charge"

Why?

This spurns an interesting question: When is something of your own free will?

Disregard the subject matter for a moment, if you will, but if someone has been subtly indoctrinated enough (or a madman is fully convicted in his beliefs), are they truly their own?

In principle you are asking a good question here, but what fascinates me much more on this topic is just how allergic some people react given the idea that a 16 year old girl could question their morality.

Because this is what it always boils down to: figures like her act as a mirror and many people don't like what they see in it. And it is easier to attack the mirror than dealing with what it tells you.

She hasn't questioned my morality, though.

I suspect most siding with her would stop once they actually need to carve into their own way of life. I've seen many environmentalist types care about the environment so long as it is not directly impacting theirs... It makes it easy to evangelize while being on the absolute upper crust of humanity.

Well, here's a different side of the coin - how many 16 year old suicide bombers are doing that of their own free will? Could a system of beliefs expected to lead to that end state be called 'indoctrination'?

That's exactly my point.

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