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Most people would agree that peaceful demonstration to push the government to take (meaningful and immediate) action on climate change is worth a lot more than

Most people would agree that peaceful demonstration to push the government to take (meaningful and immediate) action on climate change is worth a lot more than your commute.

FartyMcFarter 7y ago
They were blocking commuters from taking public trains though...
- adwww 7y ago
  They actually backed down from their original - misjudged - planned action of blocking the London Underground. I agree it seems a silly target, people doing the right thing, but I think their point was we cannot continue business as usual and just hope for the best.
  - FartyMcFarter 7y ago
    They blocked the London DLR trains instead: https://www.nme.com/news/music/plan-ongoing-escalation-inside-extinction-rebellion-protest-bringing-london-standstill-2477513 https://www.nme.com/news/music/plan-ongoing-escalation-insid...
- mffnbs 7y ago
  Blocking commuters gets people talking.
AnaniasAnanas 7y ago
Peaceful demonstration is pretty much always worth nothing though.
manigandham 7y ago
Most people? Not so sure. The ones who would agree are probably in that protest. Also in this day and age, these things accomplish very little, and certainly not any government action other than spending taxpayer funds on increased peacekeeping. If a demonstration is actively blocking people from commuting then it's just harming innocent civilians and only hurting the cause. There are better ways to create change then causing chaos in the lives of people who can't do anything about it.
- glenneroo 7y ago
  If you watch this video[0] where they interview people actually stuck in the traffic, the "victims" seem to be quite supportive of the movement. It's perhaps a biased view from The Guardian, I'm sure some people think like you do, but it's at least evidence of the opposite being also true to some extent. Regarding what it actually accomplishes, here[1] is an older rundown (from April) of their main requests and the results so far. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6xT62MZrRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6xT62MZrRM [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/extinction-rebellion-assessing-the-impact https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/extincti...
- necovek 7y ago
  It's unfortunate when people are blocked from going about their daily activities, but when you are attempting to raise awareness, I think it's a reasonable approach. Now, while there is no protest without any use of force (whether force of gravity by peacefully taking over an area, requiring force to be removed, or "force of language"), we generally categorise protest as peaceful if force is only used in defiance (you have to use the force to remove me). Peaceful protest does not equate to inconvenient to everybody (actually, they are usually designed to be inconvenient to get their message across). Civilians are not "innocent" in the sense that they have elected the government a protest is aimed at. How much sympathy protesters will get is a topic of discussion for themselves, and I am sure they carefully weigh that before staging a protest. If you can't distance your inconvenience from whether the protest has merits, you probably don't intrinsically trust the democratic process ("I know better what they need").
  - finnthehuman 7y ago
    >but when you are attempting to raise awareness, I think it's a reasonable approach. Seems like "raising awareness" is a convenient blanket excuse for people to do whatever the fuck they want, and blame everyone else if the actions breed resentment that's counterproductive to the original goal.
    - phatfish 7y ago
coldtea 7y ago
Who asked them? Not to mention, people only agree when they're not the ones in the commute.

Most people would agree that peaceful demonstration to push the government to take (meaningful and immediate) action on climate change is worth a lot more than your commute.

FartyMcFarter 7y ago

They were blocking commuters from taking public trains though...

adwww 7y ago
They actually backed down from their original - misjudged - planned action of blocking the London Underground. I agree it seems a silly target, people doing the right thing, but I think their point was we cannot continue business as usual and just hope for the best.
- FartyMcFarter 7y ago
  They blocked the London DLR trains instead: https://www.nme.com/news/music/plan-ongoing-escalation-inside-extinction-rebellion-protest-bringing-london-standstill-2477513 https://www.nme.com/news/music/plan-ongoing-escalation-insid...
mffnbs 7y ago
Blocking commuters gets people talking.

AnaniasAnanas 7y ago

Peaceful demonstration is pretty much always worth nothing though.

manigandham 7y ago

Most people? Not so sure. The ones who would agree are probably in that protest. Also in this day and age, these things accomplish very little, and certainly not any government action other than spending taxpayer funds on increased peacekeeping. If a demonstration is actively blocking people from commuting then it's just harming innocent civilians and only hurting the cause. There are better ways to create change then causing chaos in the lives of people who can't do anything about it.

glenneroo 7y ago
If you watch this video[0] where they interview people actually stuck in the traffic, the "victims" seem to be quite supportive of the movement. It's perhaps a biased view from The Guardian, I'm sure some people think like you do, but it's at least evidence of the opposite being also true to some extent. Regarding what it actually accomplishes, here[1] is an older rundown (from April) of their main requests and the results so far. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6xT62MZrRM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6xT62MZrRM [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/extinction-rebellion-assessing-the-impact https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/25/extincti...
necovek 7y ago
It's unfortunate when people are blocked from going about their daily activities, but when you are attempting to raise awareness, I think it's a reasonable approach. Now, while there is no protest without any use of force (whether force of gravity by peacefully taking over an area, requiring force to be removed, or "force of language"), we generally categorise protest as peaceful if force is only used in defiance (you have to use the force to remove me). Peaceful protest does not equate to inconvenient to everybody (actually, they are usually designed to be inconvenient to get their message across). Civilians are not "innocent" in the sense that they have elected the government a protest is aimed at. How much sympathy protesters will get is a topic of discussion for themselves, and I am sure they carefully weigh that before staging a protest. If you can't distance your inconvenience from whether the protest has merits, you probably don't intrinsically trust the democratic process ("I know better what they need").
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  >but when you are attempting to raise awareness, I think it's a reasonable approach. Seems like "raising awareness" is a convenient blanket excuse for people to do whatever the fuck they want, and blame everyone else if the actions breed resentment that's counterproductive to the original goal.
  - phatfish 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago

Who asked them? Not to mention, people only agree when they're not the ones in the commute.