Don't expect to reason with protesters if you're not even willing to talk to them. Way to be the uptight sheltered techies you're being made out to be. That being said, I don't think it's legal to block a vehicle, and protesters would probably be better served doing something productive rather than complaining immaturely in this matter.
Shame on everyone!
What these people are complaining about is a two tiered system, where one set of laws apply to the people who live in the city and another set apply to corporations like Google. Why should that bus get to do something that common citizens are not allowed to, simply because it's owned by a company instead of a person?
It shouldn't, but that's not an issue for a mob to take up. Call the police, or go talk to your local legislators if tech companies are being given unfair perks, but taking justice into your own hands is illegal for a very good reason.
Instead we're rally behind some people who had to sit in a bus for an extra thirty minutes than they normally would. It's a miracle those poor souls managed to last as long as they did- can you imagine what kind of tragedy it would have been if the bus's wifi had broke down?
What I said is that I'm not obligated to "reason" with someone that illegally demands my attention. Maybe abortion doctors should be obligated to "reason" with pro-life protestors, to open a conversation? Hey, a lot of time those guys aren't even breaking the law.
What the OP calls being an "uptight techie" I call being an ordinary human being in an allegedly civilized country.
At the end of the day though, the bus protest is not really about the bus but about the overall situation with housing, power, and inequality.
no, it's like the "open letter"s you see floating about the internet - they don't care one way or another about the protesters, they are actually addressing the people whose opinions on the matter they do care about (in this case, their twitter followers)
Edit: as to why they didn't talk to the protesters, it's because they were busy yelling and there's a bus in between them.
Civil Disobedience is pretty much by definition illegal.
Would you have said the same thing about the Greensboro sit-ins? Not trying to be snarky, curious as to where the line is drawn for being productive or being a nuisance in your opinion.