Comment on Poignant post on the state of things
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 4 months agoI support protesting wholeheartedly, but blocking a road is among the most moronic ways to protest I can think of.
They are blocking emergency vehicles, people going to work, people doing errands, visiting family, goods being transported etc.
There is a reason people get pissed off and pull them off of the road themselves. It does absolutely nothing to further their cause.
It doesn’t even effect the people they protest against.
Imagine missing your kids show, mothers dying breath or the flight to your long awaited vacation and family visit because someone couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to protest than sitting down and being an absolute butthole.
IanAtCambio@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Isn’t the inconvenience literally the point though?
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I don’t call people potentially dying an inconvenience.
They have no moral right to decide wether or not people make it to where they are going.
So what do they hope to achieve?
If it is awarenes, then there are much better ways of doing it
IanAtCambio@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Just wondering if you’ve ever participated in a protest or this is just an academic exercise. In my experience well behaved protests are basically ineffective. It’s true that you can actually end up vilifying the cause in the eyes of people that you’ve inconvenienced.
But that creates social pressure on our leaders to address the problem. Either by compromise with the protests demands or clearing them out by force.
I get that it may block the direct path of an ambulance potentially. But most gps algorithms when they see a ton of stationary phones in the street interpret that as traffic and try to route around it.
At the end of the day, yes there is the small potential for harm to a few individuals, but (hopefully) the benefits to a larger group offset that.
I went to UT and there were protests in the street all the time. It always inconvenienced me and I actually came to blows with a few of the protesters, but they should know that’s a possibility going into it. There’s really no right or wrong here. There’s only large organized group against a few impacted drivers.
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I appreciate your arguments but respectfyully disagree.
A GPS guided detour should not be necessary for vital social functions to operate.
I also dislike the small potential for harm to a few individuals when there are better ways to get the point across.
Block construction.
Occupy offices and locations.
March.
Send letters and run awareness campaigns.
Vote.
Do anything you can that makes people see you. Just don’t block the road. To me that is too risky. If everybody would protest like that to achieve their political goals we would live in total anarchy.
Hope my opinions make sense even though you might disagree.