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Extinction Rebellion Blockade Google HQ
- adrianN 7y agoThe continuing inaction of all governments leads to increasing radicalization in the climate movement. I wonder how long before the protests stop being peaceful.
- NotAnEconomist 7y agoEnvironment activists have been bombing things for decades. If anything, they've calmed down.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoThat would be unfortunate as it would make it easy to discredit the entire movement regardless of the underlying science.
- adrianN 7y agoI agree, but it only takes only one really desperate person to start bombing refineries. If peaceful protests continue to have no effect, I fear that there will be someone willing to do something like this.
- bamboozled 7y agoIn this case though, what is being discredited aside from poor behaviour? The cause? It’s not like we’re going to have a habitable world in the best future if nothing is done, as things get more desperate people will more easily be able to rationalise extreme behaviour, More people will sympathise with it too.
- mc32 7y agoOnce it starts being violent paradoxically it would result in increased environmental impact.
- throwaway21981 7y ago> I wonder how long before the protests stop being peaceful. -1 day: https://www.euronews.com/2019/10/15/extinction-rebellion-co-founder-arrested-after-smashing-ministry-window https://www.euronews.com/2019/10/15/extinction-rebellion-co-...
- Miner49er 7y agoSmashing a window is not really violence/not peaceful.
- cameronbrown 7y agoSeriously? Of course it is. Shattered glass is a massive public danger.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoGlass was cracked, not smashed. There are no pieces to be seen in the video.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's interesting that this health hazard, which is highly localised, gets the adjective "massive", while the regular pollution in London which is also hazardous to health doesn't. Pollution isn't even classed as "violence" by almost anyone.
- happytoexplain 7y agoThis is maybe a little dishonest. Obviously for every existing public opinion or movement there is a non-zero number of individual members who have engaged in something literally violent. It's not useful to extrapolate that into calling all public opinions and movements violent.
- 7y ago
- pjc50 7y agoThere have been waves of high-conflict environmentalism in the past. For decades, in fact. In 1985 Greenpeace tried to stop the French government from polluting the entire atmosphere with above-ground nuclear bomb testing, so the DGSE sank their boat and murdered a photographer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior Anti-oil-pollution activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed in Nigeria after a rigged trial; it later emerged that some of the witnesses had been bribed by Shell.
- throwawaysea 7y agoThe protesters are rightly being arrested. Sorry but you don’t get to blockade people from getting to where they want to go (work in this case) just because you personally think your opinions/issues are a higher priority than others’ priorities. And climbing onto the roofs of private property is not a “peaceful protest”, it is vigilantism. Furthermore some of the demands outlined in the article (asking google to censor videos) are not reasonable.
- thrower123 7y agoEnvironmental activists would do much better if they weren't so hell-bent on being a pain in the ass and inconveniencing everyone else. All it accomplishes is breeding distaste. Maybe it's just me, but this kind of childish behavior doesn't make me sympathetic, it engenders the complete opposite effect.
- adwww 7y agoMaybe they should write a petition or something. That ought to work right?
- quotemstr 7y agoWhat gives them a right to do anything that "work[s]"? If they can't get their way through rational persuasion, they don't get to have their way at all. That's how democracy works.
- megous 7y agoRational persuasion is really not how democracy works, or ever worked.
- perfunctory 7y ago> What gives them a right to do anything that "work[s]"? Nothing. At least not the legal rights. They accept the arrest and corresponding consequences. That's what civil disobedience is about.
- cameronbrown 7y agoYeah this isn't fun.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoThis appears to refer to one of Google's London offices, not the Googleplex in Silicon Valley.
- jrockway 7y agoTo blockade that, all you need to do is schedule a concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater.
- michannne 7y agoI remember when the way to get people to "wake up" on creationism was to unite sub-groups and pump out loads of content that rationally went over all the scientific evidence against it and trusted people to make up their own minds, including all of the debates between atheists/anti-creationism and pro-creationism speakers. Despite there being very little hope in rattling an entrenched belief like that, many people began to think outside scope of their religion and creationism is not as widely accepted as it once was. I hope that in the future the new generation of rational believers on climate change can adopt a similar non-violent mindset instead of letting their passion get the best of them.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- brosinante 7y agoAh, yes - we wouldn't want the web devs to feel bad on their way to work.
- conflictsablock 7y agoI think the point is that conflict and arguing doesnt change minds, it can be used as a blocker to stop something but it doesnt affect the underlying opinion of those on the other side. So its really only ever of limited value
- abacadaba 7y ago"in the future" quite an assumption here
- t0astbread 7y agoHave ER considered teaming with an organization dedicated to digital freedom (like the EFF) for cases like this? Because just coming into a new space, pressing your own demands and ignoring pre-existing efforts looks very unprofessional (IMO at least).
- Bantros 7y agoHopefully not, the EFF has a clear set of goals and principles
- throwawaysea 7y agoThis. Extinction Rebellion is already being co-opted for unrelated issues. > We demand a just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable people and indigenous sovereignty; establishes reparations and remediation led by and for Black people, Indigenous people, people of color and poor communities Their demands are somewhat nonsensical IMO: https://extinctionrebellion.us/ https://extinctionrebellion.us/ > We do not trust our Government to make the bold, swift and long-term changes necessary to achieve these changes and we do not intend to hand further power to our politicians. Instead we demand a Citizens’ Assembly to oversee the changes, as we rise from the wreckage, creating a democracy fit for purpose. They don’t trust the nebulous “government” and demand a group be placed into power by citizens. So...a representative democracy? Like the one they’ve failed to gain support within (to the extent they demand anyways)?
- pjc50 7y agoThose are absolutely not unrelated, in issues from Amazon logging to the Dakota pipeline to Nigerian oil.
- iliketocomplain 7y agoI hate this blatant racism of the PC people.
- perfunctory 7y agoI don't want to sound dismissive but I am afraid we must conclude that "pre-existing efforts" have utterly failed. Global emissions are still rising, investments into fossil infrastructure are still rising, fossil subsidies are not repealed.
- ramblerman 7y agoDo they have a manifesto, demands or plan somewhere? It’s a bit sad to see the youth so pessimistic. Growing up with Star Trek myself I always believed science would grow faster than human damage.
- a_humean 7y agoThey have them here: https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/ https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/
- truculent 7y agoYes, although I would say their place in the climate movement is more as a unified protest outlet. Their 3 demands[1]: - Tell the truth - Act Now - Beyond Politics [1]: https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/ https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/
- happytoexplain 7y agoFYI, I think you're getting downvoted because the word "pessimistic" often colloquially implies being at least somewhat "wrong" about the topic at hand, though I don't think you were trying to make any such judgement.
- claudeganon 7y agoMight also be that Star Trek takes place in a universe where only AFTER massive wars and near extinction does humanity set aside its short-sightedness and cruelty to embrace egalitarianism. Within the Star Trek universe, there is no history of science outpacing human damage. They barely save themselves from the brink.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> It’s a bit sad to see the youth so pessimistic. Growing up with Star Trek I forget if we are one or two destructive global wars behind schedule compared to the original Star Trek timeline, but at any case we have not reached anywhere close to the lows Star Trek predicted we would before we got to the brighter (internally to humanity, most of the time, at least) future that show portrayed, which lows included the near total elimination of human civilization through science slaved to destructive ideals. These kids aren't, compared to that, pessimistic; they are fighting for the possibility to avoid that.
- throwawaysea 7y agoJust a reminder that climate change is not an existential threat. A problem, yes. An existential threat, no. Greta Thunberg and these activists are hysterical and engaging in alarmism. But why take it from me? Here’s the Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, an expert on the topic, saying as much: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/08/is-global-warming-existential-threat.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/08/is-global-warming-exi...
- deadbunny 7y agoIt's almost as if they're having to use emotionally charged language to get their point across after decades of no one paying any attention...
- iliketocomplain 7y agoThey don't want to get a point across. They want people to do as they say, or else.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoIt's not an existential threat to the human species, but it is to millions of humans and it is to a majority of the other species on the planet.
- aaron695 7y agoIt will be / is interesting watching this cult mutate. Currently they are taking advantage of the fact we are reasonably lax about policing protest and punishment, which we consider part of democracy. But it can be shut down. And will be. It will be a loss to society. Like most cults they will adapt. They might splinter and turn violent. They might start things like self-immolation. They are forming strong emotion bonds around a issue that they consider a important part of their being. You could see perhaps IRA style commitment. But because of the lack of a past history it is easy to infiltrate, unlike religious separatist movements. You do see a large amount of mentally ill people drawn to these cults, which is sad really.