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I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention, with the hope that some of the people who hear about the action will also take a little time to learn abo

I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention, with the hope that some of the people who hear about the action will also take a little time to learn about the issue. There are climate-change protests every day worldwide that get no attention from media at all.

richbell 2y ago
YouTuber Tom Nicholas made a sort of "behind the scenes" video that explores their methods and motivations. https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU
slothtrop 2y ago
Climate-change has been salient for decades. Everyone who exposes themselves to the news-cycle is aware of it, and the attention people give to these protests is through said news. It's redundant. People have mostly made up their minds, but through message discipline it's possible to convey interesting data and that could potentially lead to follow-ups, which at best inform voting preferences or consumer choices. These stunts make the papers mostly because they're rage-bait, and consumers get their 2 min of hate. To biased readers, protests like these or those that target average people reflect negatively, which backfires on the entire ostensible "point" of these stunts (as opposed to the actual purpose) because it can be dismissed out of spite. The broken record you hear is "protests are supposed to be inconvenient". That is not true. They're supposed to win hearts and minds, engender sympathy, as that is what builds traction. It's possible to use inconvenience for that, but it's on a gradient. Civil rights protests were effective, but no one seriously believes it's because they managed to annoy and inconvenience average people really well.
legitster 2y ago
I don't know if it's the good kind of attention. It's pretty arguable that PETA adopting similar tactics has arguably slowed their cause more than helped. In PETA's case, they suck all of the air out of the room from other animal welfare organizations. These public displays do not change minds so much as they drive donations. So they end up control a bigger share of a shrinking pot. At least in PETA's case they can show examples of animal cruelty and make people aware about an issue. But I don't think there's a single person out there in the world who needs museums vandalized to learn about climate change. Meanwhile, there are lots of examples of tactful organizations that do not get headline attention but get decent policy results.
- lanfeust6 2y ago
  Always reminded of this, and that I always forget about alternative orgs like "Vegan Outreach" : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... I think this oversimplifies things because one is a younger organization, and there are a ton of similarly named ones. People can't think of very many international charities, but the ones that come to mind aren't known for being notorious and off-putting (e.g. Unicef, Red Cross). Possibly PETA cannibalizes here as without them another more appealing replacement would get similar recognition? I'm not sure. personally it's rationalist adjacent writing that got me interested in avoiding some conventional factory farmed products
bitshiftfaced 2y ago
Which is why it's a good thing there's a consequence here. If they got off easy, we'd see a lot more stunts like this. Probably at some point, one of these stunts could cause irreversible damage to a painting.
drewcoo 2y ago
> I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention And rage-bait gets more views. Protests designed for social media? Well played!

richbell 2y ago

YouTuber Tom Nicholas made a sort of "behind the scenes" video that explores their methods and motivations. https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU

slothtrop 2y ago

Climate-change has been salient for decades. Everyone who exposes themselves to the news-cycle is aware of it, and the attention people give to these protests is through said news. It's redundant. People have mostly made up their minds, but through message discipline it's possible to convey interesting data and that could potentially lead to follow-ups, which at best inform voting preferences or consumer choices. These stunts make the papers mostly because they're rage-bait, and consumers get their 2 min of hate. To biased readers, protests like these or those that target average people reflect negatively, which backfires on the entire ostensible "point" of these stunts (as opposed to the actual purpose) because it can be dismissed out of spite. The broken record you hear is "protests are supposed to be inconvenient". That is not true. They're supposed to win hearts and minds, engender sympathy, as that is what builds traction. It's possible to use inconvenience for that, but it's on a gradient. Civil rights protests were effective, but no one seriously believes it's because they managed to annoy and inconvenience average people really well.

legitster 2y ago

I don't know if it's the good kind of attention. It's pretty arguable that PETA adopting similar tactics has arguably slowed their cause more than helped. In PETA's case, they suck all of the air out of the room from other animal welfare organizations. These public displays do not change minds so much as they drive donations. So they end up control a bigger share of a shrinking pot. At least in PETA's case they can show examples of animal cruelty and make people aware about an issue. But I don't think there's a single person out there in the world who needs museums vandalized to learn about climate change. Meanwhile, there are lots of examples of tactful organizations that do not get headline attention but get decent policy results.

lanfeust6 2y ago
Always reminded of this, and that I always forget about alternative orgs like "Vegan Outreach" : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage... I think this oversimplifies things because one is a younger organization, and there are a ton of similarly named ones. People can't think of very many international charities, but the ones that come to mind aren't known for being notorious and off-putting (e.g. Unicef, Red Cross). Possibly PETA cannibalizes here as without them another more appealing replacement would get similar recognition? I'm not sure. personally it's rationalist adjacent writing that got me interested in avoiding some conventional factory farmed products

bitshiftfaced 2y ago

Which is why it's a good thing there's a consequence here. If they got off easy, we'd see a lot more stunts like this. Probably at some point, one of these stunts could cause irreversible damage to a painting.

drewcoo 2y ago

> I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention And rage-bait gets more views. Protests designed for social media? Well played!