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How is this "bizarre and out of touch"? Both the peaceful and the violent kinds of protests are disrupting by nature and it seems normal for someone that is not

How is this "bizarre and out of touch"? Both the peaceful and the violent kinds of protests are disrupting by nature and it seems normal for someone that is not interested, a business owner, say, to plan ahead and try to limit the disruption. People have been planking up their windows ahead of hurricanes forever. The world doesn't and shouldn't stop spinning because a small minority is overly excited about something that the rest doesn't care about.

aendruk 4y ago
https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/109932142206991785 https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/109932142206991785
- johncoltrane 4y ago
  Oh… a random anticapitalist poster. That's worth a thousand words at least.
contrapunctus 4y ago
Perhaps the following perspective will help you understand. A protest is _supposed_ to disrupt, in order to get the world at large to look at injustices which have conveniently been ignored under the status quo. The _whole point_ of a protest is to stop business as usual, and attempt to change it. What drives a person to protest? It is a desperate measure for people who have been failed by society at all other turns. What drove them there cannot have been some trivial matter. While it takes a significant amount of dissatisfaction among a significant section of the population to create a protest - so it's probably not something "a small minority is overly excited about" (also, "overly" by whose standards? Yours?) - does it _matter_ whether it's a majority or minority that's protesting? Is a tyranny of the majority the kind of world you're after? To try and keep up "business as usual" in the face of its systemic failures is to try and Band-Aid a gaping wound. It's on the same level as installing benches unsuitable for sleeping, rather than tackling homelessness. It's not planking up your windows for a hurricane. It's holding an umbrella in one and hoping that nothing will change. It's the epitome of short-sightedness.
- johncoltrane 4y ago
  I don't need to understand the perspective of the protester. I have protested in the past and may do it again in the future if something really bothers me. And, well… I have been part of the violent crowd in a number of occasions, actually, so I happen to know the physical cost of it all. Protesters may feel that their concerns and actions are justified but that doesn't mean that everyone else must agree with them. That doesn't mean that the targets of their uncontrolled anger must stay passive either. Alice may justifiably be angry about something, but Bob is equally justified in his desire to not have his store's window smashed… and she _must_ acknowledge that symmetry if she doesn't want to be bitten too hard by Bob's reaction to her action. Protesters are definitely justified in using their right to protest (or fighting for it), but those who don't share their concerns are equally justified in making contingency plans.

aendruk 4y ago

https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/109932142206991785 https://todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/109932142206991785

johncoltrane 4y ago
Oh… a random anticapitalist poster. That's worth a thousand words at least.

contrapunctus 4y ago

Perhaps the following perspective will help you understand. A protest is _supposed_ to disrupt, in order to get the world at large to look at injustices which have conveniently been ignored under the status quo. The _whole point_ of a protest is to stop business as usual, and attempt to change it. What drives a person to protest? It is a desperate measure for people who have been failed by society at all other turns. What drove them there cannot have been some trivial matter. While it takes a significant amount of dissatisfaction among a significant section of the population to create a protest - so it's probably not something "a small minority is overly excited about" (also, "overly" by whose standards? Yours?) - does it _matter_ whether it's a majority or minority that's protesting? Is a tyranny of the majority the kind of world you're after? To try and keep up "business as usual" in the face of its systemic failures is to try and Band-Aid a gaping wound. It's on the same level as installing benches unsuitable for sleeping, rather than tackling homelessness. It's not planking up your windows for a hurricane. It's holding an umbrella in one and hoping that nothing will change. It's the epitome of short-sightedness.

johncoltrane 4y ago
I don't need to understand the perspective of the protester. I have protested in the past and may do it again in the future if something really bothers me. And, well… I have been part of the violent crowd in a number of occasions, actually, so I happen to know the physical cost of it all. Protesters may feel that their concerns and actions are justified but that doesn't mean that everyone else must agree with them. That doesn't mean that the targets of their uncontrolled anger must stay passive either. Alice may justifiably be angry about something, but Bob is equally justified in his desire to not have his store's window smashed… and she _must_ acknowledge that symmetry if she doesn't want to be bitten too hard by Bob's reaction to her action. Protesters are definitely justified in using their right to protest (or fighting for it), but those who don't share their concerns are equally justified in making contingency plans.