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> You do understand how what you perceive and what they intend are different things, right? If the protestors are utterly incapable of bridging that gap it doe

> You do understand how what you perceive and what they intend are different things, right? If the protestors are utterly incapable of bridging that gap it doesn't matter what their intentions are as they are failing to win hearts and minds. That leap you speak to is only a minor baby step. If they really wanted to convince me of the value of their message they could start by not intentionally pissing me off. This isn't rocket science. This complete lack of common sense on behalf of the protestors typically indicates youth. Everybody else has since either developed a few drops of empathy or moved on to anything more self-indulgent.

ashtonkem 6y ago
> That leap you speak to is only a minor baby step. It absolutely is not a baby step. In fact it is a really big deal to jump from your own experience to assuming the intent of other people. That is actually a really fast way to anger people in my experience, because it requires that you pretend that you understand what is going on in another person's head. Saying "your actions caused X" is pretty straightforward, but "you intended to cause X" or "you intended to cause X and X alone" requires mind reading ability on your part. Again, you can disagree with it as a tactic, I genuinely do not care about that. What bothers me is that you're unilaterally asserting that you personally understand the intention of the protestors, which is quite the assertion, and one that you have only backed up by "this is how I feel about it".
- austincheney 6y ago
  > It absolutely is not a baby step. In fact it is a really big deal to jump from your own experience to assuming the intent of other people. That is actually a really fast way to anger people in my experience, because it requires that you pretend that you understand what is going on in another person's head. That is not correct. If you are blocking a freeway causing hours of traffic delays then I am not making assumptions about what's in somebody else's head. I don't care what their intentions are. They have made me disgruntled and digusted with their protest message completely alienating me from their cause. From that moment forward I would vote against and fund in opposition to everything they advocate. As the audience all that matters is what's in my head, which I don't have to guess at. The inability for people to accept that reality tells me the things they are protesting about aren't important to them.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    The protests are working. It doesn't matter if you hypothetically would be pissed off about being stuck in traffic because of one, they are demonstrably working. So they absolutely continue despite your objections. See: https://thehill.com/homenews/news/502267-support-for-black-lives-matter-doubles-since-2016-poll https://thehill.com/homenews/news/502267-support-for-black-l... https://news.gallup.com/poll/317321/believe-protest-actions-aid-black-adults.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/317321/believe-protest-actions-... I think you should take a step back and really consider why you're arguing so vociferously over hypothetically being caught in traffic because of a protest when there are much larger issues at play here.
    - austincheney 6y ago
      Neither of your links mention anything related to blocking freeways. Your second link mentions that violent protests are viewed extremely negatively. Where I live blocking a freeway would be viewed similarly. As negative as the numbers in your source suggest doing that a few times would tank support for any protest movement.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That’s literally a different argument. You’ve moved from “they’re intending to cause harm to people like me” to “I believe this tactic alienates people like me”. As I’ve said repeatedly, the latter is an argument about the efficacy of this type of protest. You’re free to believe that, I don’t care. But understand that “it doesn’t work” is a completely unrelated argument from “its intended to do X”.
  - biaachmonkie 6y ago
    > From that moment forward I would vote against and fund in opposition to everything they advocate. So given the protests in the U.S.recently have been about the treatment of minorities by the Police specifically the killing and abuse of black people. Are you saying that if you were to be stopped in traffic due to a such a protest you would then support, fund, and vote for more Police abuse and killing of black people? Is that really what you're saying?
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  And even if he personally is turned off the issue at hand because he experiences some personal convenience, so what? He's not the target audience of the protests, just collateral "damage" (if you can even call it that). Government officials and all the millions of people reached by news media coverage of the protests are the real target audience. And you can't deny that it's working; year-on-year nationwide opinion polls show an astounding reversal from majority disapproval of the Black Lives Matter movement to majority approval. It's been the most successful modern protest movement going possibly all the way back to the 70s. So who fucking cares if some people got stuck in traffic. The protests are working, and the people who weren't even stuck in traffic but are complaining anyway because they hypothetically could have been (like this guy) should just be roundly ignored. Listening to their opinions is a terrible idea if your actual intent is to further the movement.

ashtonkem 6y ago

> That leap you speak to is only a minor baby step. It absolutely is not a baby step. In fact it is a really big deal to jump from your own experience to assuming the intent of other people. That is actually a really fast way to anger people in my experience, because it requires that you pretend that you understand what is going on in another person's head. Saying "your actions caused X" is pretty straightforward, but "you intended to cause X" or "you intended to cause X and X alone" requires mind reading ability on your part. Again, you can disagree with it as a tactic, I genuinely do not care about that. What bothers me is that you're unilaterally asserting that you personally understand the intention of the protestors, which is quite the assertion, and one that you have only backed up by "this is how I feel about it".

austincheney 6y ago
> It absolutely is not a baby step. In fact it is a really big deal to jump from your own experience to assuming the intent of other people. That is actually a really fast way to anger people in my experience, because it requires that you pretend that you understand what is going on in another person's head. That is not correct. If you are blocking a freeway causing hours of traffic delays then I am not making assumptions about what's in somebody else's head. I don't care what their intentions are. They have made me disgruntled and digusted with their protest message completely alienating me from their cause. From that moment forward I would vote against and fund in opposition to everything they advocate. As the audience all that matters is what's in my head, which I don't have to guess at. The inability for people to accept that reality tells me the things they are protesting about aren't important to them.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  The protests are working. It doesn't matter if you hypothetically would be pissed off about being stuck in traffic because of one, they are demonstrably working. So they absolutely continue despite your objections. See: https://thehill.com/homenews/news/502267-support-for-black-lives-matter-doubles-since-2016-poll https://thehill.com/homenews/news/502267-support-for-black-l... https://news.gallup.com/poll/317321/believe-protest-actions-aid-black-adults.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/317321/believe-protest-actions-... I think you should take a step back and really consider why you're arguing so vociferously over hypothetically being caught in traffic because of a protest when there are much larger issues at play here.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    Neither of your links mention anything related to blocking freeways. Your second link mentions that violent protests are viewed extremely negatively. Where I live blocking a freeway would be viewed similarly. As negative as the numbers in your source suggest doing that a few times would tank support for any protest movement.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That’s literally a different argument. You’ve moved from “they’re intending to cause harm to people like me” to “I believe this tactic alienates people like me”. As I’ve said repeatedly, the latter is an argument about the efficacy of this type of protest. You’re free to believe that, I don’t care. But understand that “it doesn’t work” is a completely unrelated argument from “its intended to do X”.
- biaachmonkie 6y ago
  > From that moment forward I would vote against and fund in opposition to everything they advocate. So given the protests in the U.S.recently have been about the treatment of minorities by the Police specifically the killing and abuse of black people. Are you saying that if you were to be stopped in traffic due to a such a protest you would then support, fund, and vote for more Police abuse and killing of black people? Is that really what you're saying?
CydeWeys 6y ago
And even if he personally is turned off the issue at hand because he experiences some personal convenience, so what? He's not the target audience of the protests, just collateral "damage" (if you can even call it that). Government officials and all the millions of people reached by news media coverage of the protests are the real target audience. And you can't deny that it's working; year-on-year nationwide opinion polls show an astounding reversal from majority disapproval of the Black Lives Matter movement to majority approval. It's been the most successful modern protest movement going possibly all the way back to the 70s. So who fucking cares if some people got stuck in traffic. The protests are working, and the people who weren't even stuck in traffic but are complaining anyway because they hypothetically could have been (like this guy) should just be roundly ignored. Listening to their opinions is a terrible idea if your actual intent is to further the movement.