Support any activist initiative that doesn't try to stimulate societal change through destroying public property.
Also, as I said elsewhere, the reason that protests like these are effective is because there are consequences; they are designed to be impossible to ignore. If glue on the frame of a painting is too much destruction, will you only consider protests which have negligible effect appropriate?
They’re just agitators and I wish they’d go away because they aren’t exactly helping, and become just a giant distraction.
Well, it's being discussed, no? That is generally the point of these types of things. The idea is to get from pre-contemplation to contemplation [1], which is a very important process for advocacy of any issue. The goal isn't to sway you to their side. The goal is to get you to think about this thing more. With that being said, they have definitely succeeded. As I stated elsewhere in this thread, the evidence that there is some sort of "blowback" effect, where these things ultimately harm the movement more than help it, isn't really verified in any way. Maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't, but the rich history of similar disruptive protests make me feel that they are ultimately helpful.
> They are not going to convince anyone who isn’t already in agreement with them about climate policy, and to people on the fence they look like insane, spoiled, self-absorbed children.
How does this differ from similar protests in the past? E.g. Rosa Parks, sit-ins, etc. Those protests similarly enraged and annoyed people, but they are now iconic demonstrations.
1. https://medicine.llu.edu/academics/resources/stages-change-m...
This is not a serious organization, it’s useless fantasy. There is no scenario where net emissions are zero by 2025 outside of intentionally plunging the entire globe into unimaginable poverty. This isn’t going to happen because there is no scenario where people sign up for that, and if anyone tried there would be war. Their game is a distraction that takes away from people who are serious about real approaches to get to net zero on a realistic timeline.
Comparing these people - who again state their goal as turning off human civilization - to Rosa Parks is a bit much.
> Comparing these people - who again state their goal as turning off human civilization - to Rosa Parks is a bit much.
How so? I drew the comparison because you were saying that protests which are viewed as whiny, annoying demonstrations are ineffective (I'm paraphrasing here), but I was making the point that many important and effective protests of the past were viewed the same way before. I'm not saying their cause is as noble, just that the methodology is comparable. If you think that they are not comparable, even though the reaction to each is generally the same, I'd be curious as to what you think makes them so unrelated.
As for Rosa Parks, do you really not see the difference between gluing yourself to priceless art in the Louvre and deliberately flouting a specific law meant to oppress you? You can’t possibly not see the difference here, right? Their cause is not noble, it’s nuts. “Shut everything down by 2025!” is not a reasonable or realistic objective, and gluing yourself to stuff or pouring concrete in golf courses to annoy people just makes you look unserious, which they are. Inasmuch as they become the face of the movement to address climate change - and that seems to be at least an indirect outcome if not an objective - climate advocates will get associated with the stupidity. That hurts the overall movement away from fossil fuels.
Wait, how do you know the tactics are ineffective?
> do you really not see the difference between gluing yourself to priceless art in the Louvre and deliberately flouting a specific law meant to oppress you?
Again, I'm not saying there aren't big differences... I'm saying that the specific complaint you had about XR, like them coming across as self-absorbed whiny children, is something that easily could have been said about important protests of the past. So the comparison is still relevant. You complained about these protests disrupting normal people (like the family on the way to the airport in your example), but that same type of disruption was common in these revered protests from the past. So I'll try one last time: if protests from the past caused similar levels of disruption, but we can agree that those who engaged in them were not "insane, spoiled, self-absorbed children", then what makes protesters today using similarly disruptive methods "insane, spoiled, self-absorbed children"?
I can't tell if you're trying to argue dishonestly. I'm not arguing that XR's goals are good, or sane. I'm not saying there are no differences between Civil Rights protests and climate crisis protests. I'm trying to understand why you see these people as "insane, spoiled, self-absorbed children" instead of people simply engaging in protests using methods with precedent.
> the reason that protests like these are effective is because there are consequences; they are designed to be impossible to ignore.
> Well, it's being discussed, no? That is generally the point of these types of things.
And so on. How this works in reality is: if XR threatens to glue their faces to the pavement to block traffic if governments don’t shut down their economies, you end up with some people with their face glued to the pavement and nothing else.
> I'm trying to understand why you see these people as "insane, spoiled, self-absorbed children" instead of people simply engaging in protests using methods with precedent.
You are not trying to understand anything. You have a romantic view of XR and liken then to civil rights protests because it excuses the absurdity of what they do. I’ve pointed out the unseriousness of this organization and I don’t feel it necessary to elaborate further on why comparisons to the civil rights movement are inappropriate. It’s not me who is arguing dishonestly.