this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (79 children)

Those stones will be suuuper useful to us after we died because our global ecosystem collapsed.

Maybe we should set up our own stones for explaining to future generations why we didnt do anything about climate change until it was too late.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (77 children)

I'm not sure how this helps though. These people can say to future generations, "well, we didn't get people to stop using fossil fuels, but we did damage a 5000-year-old monument that was made long before anyone had the idea of burning fossil fuels to make people aware of a problem they were already aware of but powerless to do anything about."

This isn't going to stop oil companies from drilling for oil.

It reminds me of a friend of mine I used to follow elsewhere on social media. Every day, she would post pictures of 'death row dogs' in nearby shelters that were going to be euthanized. There was fuck all I could do about it. I already have two dogs, from shelters. I don't have room for more and I couldn't afford more. So all it did was make me feel like shit. Then she started posting photos with "too late" messages and I stopped following her.

How does that help?

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de -4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (6 children)

Your example shows exactly what people are missing. Just because you did not have the capacity for more dogs doesnt mean that other people never got convinced to save one of those dogs. If those pictures convinced even just one person to adopt a dog, then it was worth the minor inconvienience that you had to go through.

Similarly the actual damage from this protest is slim to none (if they used the same stuff as usual that just washes away with water) and if it convinces somebody to get politically active for climate change then it was already worth it.

You thinking that you are powerless, shouldnt result in other people being forced to be powerless when they are not.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Who's actually doing that, though? I mean that sincerely. Is there anyone who wouldn't have gotten involved, but who was swayed to do so by orange paint on historical artifacts? This seems like directionless compensatory venting by activists whose other strategies are failing to meaningfully persuade.

Further, what's the balance of people in the other direction who have an inkling that they'd consider doing more, but who are swayed against it by the increasingly unhinged extremist tactics these protestors are using? There's an entire online ecosystem rife with a combination of climate denialism, analytical paralysis, and doomsaying, and there's a non-zero number of people who likely either stop caring or throw their hands up in frustration because protestors are doing more harm than good by throwing what I'm sure looks to them like ridiculous tantrums. For every ally they gain, they probably lose some, too.

And that's not even touching on the fact that systemic structural changes are the only possible solution to this problem, and making the average person feel guilty and/or agitated is a weird form of victim shaming.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

A better way to propose your question is: out of all the millions of people on Earth who hear about these activities, will literally 0 of them take any meaningful action against climate change?

The likelihood of that quite small, suggesting a non-zero value. That non-zero value is likely to be smaller than the damages of water-washable paint.

I'm not advocating for anyone here, but I think that's the calculus OP was suggesting, and it makes perfect sense to me.

If eye-rolling and annoyance produced greenhouse gases, then it might be a different story.

[–] Blackbeard@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I'm not sure I follow. You're suggesting that >0 people take meaningful action as a result of hearing about this protest. I'm saying that >0 people take fewer meaningful actions as a result, and >0 probably turn away from your cause when they hear about stupid shit like this. So for every one convert in the right direction, there are some in the other direction. Whether or not the two balance is certainly up for debate, and which side you prefer to highlight at the expense of the other, depends on your preconceived opinion.

Which really just reiterates that this kind of nonsense is a net negative, because the people who respond positively to it were already converts in the first place.

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