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I think there are a lot of people in desperate situations who feel like the deck is stacked against them. They end up lashing out in completely irrational, oft

I think there are a lot of people in desperate situations who feel like the deck is stacked against them. They end up lashing out in completely irrational, often violent ways. You see them on the news all the time. What I want to happen is for those people to realize that they're not alone, and that the whole world is not working to put them at a disadvantage. Really, it's a rather small group of people who are setting the rest of us up to be rats in a maze with no exit. Then I want us to find those people, and go after their bottom line. Nothing violent, just like... welding the doors shut on opening day, that sort of thing. It might be less rational than something more restrained like getting a law degree and working in the system to bring them to actual justice. But it has... a glimmer of rationality. You're no longer an insane lone wolf lashing out against an impossible situation... now you're a shitty activist, and even if you're not acting with a cohort, you know that cohort is out there. You're not stuck, you're not alone, there's a path forward--you can aspire towards being a less shitty activist. But it requires a justifiable target, a representative of the untenable situation. A list of potential enemies that's far less than everybody. Once that list exists, I want companies to compete to not appear on that list. Markets work without being rational, as does evolution (some predation required). This would be the same.

hluska 2y ago
Yes, I’m sure that welding the doors shut on opening day will really stick it to the man. It certainly won’t horrify the minimum wage employees who go in there to work. What an unbelievably stupid thing to advocate for, much less under the guise of non violence.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  Of course there are a million better ways. You could gather some money an pay the employees to strike, for instance. It should depend very heavily on your target. My point is just that if companies are organizing against you, you should organize against the companies. Symmetry. Deterrence. Doing it well... well that's a life's work. The goal is to get the ball rolling and incrementally improve, not expect people to become Ghandi overnight. And at the outset, the credibility of the threat you can present is more important than the direct applicability of your action. We're not even at the point where "how strong of an action is warranted?" is a conversation. So step one is starting that conversation.

hluska 2y ago

Yes, I’m sure that welding the doors shut on opening day will really stick it to the man. It certainly won’t horrify the minimum wage employees who go in there to work. What an unbelievably stupid thing to advocate for, much less under the guise of non violence.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Of course there are a million better ways. You could gather some money an pay the employees to strike, for instance. It should depend very heavily on your target. My point is just that if companies are organizing against you, you should organize against the companies. Symmetry. Deterrence. Doing it well... well that's a life's work. The goal is to get the ball rolling and incrementally improve, not expect people to become Ghandi overnight. And at the outset, the credibility of the threat you can present is more important than the direct applicability of your action. We're not even at the point where "how strong of an action is warranted?" is a conversation. So step one is starting that conversation.