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Comment by rozenmd | Hacker News Reader

> because of kids who wanted an adrenaline rush.

Just because a cop decided to pull the trigger on a 17 year old instead of literally any other course of action, you mean?

Edit: sorry, emotional response.

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This comment echoes a lot of the sentiments I'm seeing in this thread. I have to wonder if holding the proverbial gun to the head of the world around you, ready to pull the trigger at any well-timed injustice, paying lip service to the destruction of private property in spite of the authoritarian sentiments it fosters, and generally thumbing one's nose at the idea that it's entirely possible that neither the police nor the rioters are in the right, is the intellectually-honest approach?

That's a lot of really big words.

Anyway, the French protest very often. People joke that it's their national passtime. If these protestors are almost entirely children I have a hard time believing this is about civil injustice and I am more inclined to believe this is just for fun and clout.

Here are some smaller ones for you then: €1+ billion worth of damage to private property isn't in the norm for France's protest fixation, and regardless of the motivations of the actors, my concern is how many people here are giving it lip service like France deserved it for one officer's bad(?) shoot.

That was just a signal to start the fun, it could have been anything else.

This has nothing to do with the kid being shot or with asking for less police brutality.

This is rather for thugs to show that they can do whatever they want and don't care about the police or anybody else.

yup yup

Kids seem to be replaying 2005 to be on the track of their big brothers.

But suburbs no longer exist, and the legitimate grievance and political claims from back then are hardly current anymore.

So it's just for fame they do that now. And the one who spoke up in the news, or faced trials, are just airheads who did this for the clout and to follow friends. They're not criminals or activists.

And honestly, it feels weird.

The clout culture is no more important than the state or the left wing political demands of our generations. We're old.

However, in a way, they have anarchy in their blood. So it will be interesting to see what they will become in a decade or two.

If it's only children protesting I have a hard time sympathizing with the protests. I feel that if something truly heinous happened then many French people would be protesting, not just children on TikTok.

That’s a bit of unfair thinking.

Why? If people will fully developed brains who have an active, vested interest in society don't care. If activists don't care. If the only people who care are, on average, 15 years old, then why should I feel the protests are important?

It's as much of an overreaction to shoot the driver as it is to riot and burn cities in response to the shooting.

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