3 ms·

My point isn't whether this particular protest is "good" or "bad". Even knowing relatively little about this protest, I think that I would likely agree with the

My point isn't whether this particular protest is "good" or "bad". Even knowing relatively little about this protest, I think that I would likely agree with the protesters. My issue is that I don't see any reason why Uber should be obligated to stop service just because there is a protest going on. A lot of people in this thread seem to feel that having a protest entitles you to ruin other peoples' day and anyone who helps the people you are screwing is a bad guy. I see no good argument that supports that mentality.

danharaj 10y ago
The history of direct action and protest which disrupts daily life is argument enough: It works. History also shows us that when people ignore injustice and just get on with their day, that allows the injustice to grow and fester. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated while the majority of people who could have stopped it did nothing. The word entitlement is so charged and vague, what do you mean by it? No one is legally entitled to disrupt peoples' lives, but the reason why people choose to protest and disrupt society until their demands are met is because they believe that society does not deserve to go on undisrupted while it allows some injustice to continue. Let's be real. If no one protested this ban on muslims, very few peoples' lives would be disrupted. It would be a slight hiccup to just discard these people from society and replace whatever function they played. We are all disposable. That is why people protest, because otherwise injustice would go unpunished. The abstract reasoning is this: If society is structured in such a way that an injustice can occur and persist with no disruption to society, then people are morally obligated to disrupt society when that injustice occurs in order to remedy it and prevent it in the future. The justification is empirical: Evidence demonstrates that when most people can go about their day without hindrance while atrocities are being committed, they will gladly get used to and accept those atrocities as a fact of life.
- benchaney 10y ago
  If you want to claim that the justification is empirical, you are going to need some real empirical evidence. With respect to the word entitlement: I mean ethically. When someone is angry (like the people in this thread promising to delete Uber) that something didn't happen, then it seems like they felt entitled to have it happen.

danharaj 10y ago

The history of direct action and protest which disrupts daily life is argument enough: It works. History also shows us that when people ignore injustice and just get on with their day, that allows the injustice to grow and fester. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated while the majority of people who could have stopped it did nothing. The word entitlement is so charged and vague, what do you mean by it? No one is legally entitled to disrupt peoples' lives, but the reason why people choose to protest and disrupt society until their demands are met is because they believe that society does not deserve to go on undisrupted while it allows some injustice to continue. Let's be real. If no one protested this ban on muslims, very few peoples' lives would be disrupted. It would be a slight hiccup to just discard these people from society and replace whatever function they played. We are all disposable. That is why people protest, because otherwise injustice would go unpunished. The abstract reasoning is this: If society is structured in such a way that an injustice can occur and persist with no disruption to society, then people are morally obligated to disrupt society when that injustice occurs in order to remedy it and prevent it in the future. The justification is empirical: Evidence demonstrates that when most people can go about their day without hindrance while atrocities are being committed, they will gladly get used to and accept those atrocities as a fact of life.

benchaney 10y ago
If you want to claim that the justification is empirical, you are going to need some real empirical evidence. With respect to the word entitlement: I mean ethically. When someone is angry (like the people in this thread promising to delete Uber) that something didn't happen, then it seems like they felt entitled to have it happen.