26
Sitting on the Road is Dangerous
(lemmy.world)
Bad take after bad take from this cartoonist.
They seem angry...
Here we go. So many bad takes here, so let me explain for those who don't understand how protest works:
Stopping traffic doesn't save the environment. Never has, never will. Neither does throwing paint on artwork or ancient monuments.
IT'S ABOUT ATTENTION. It's about keeping the issue in the papers, on the TV, on the Facebook feed and front page of Reddit. Remember Extinction Rebellion? They used to do this shit then stopped because of the bad press. You hear about them anymore? Ever hear the phrase 'there's no such thing as bad press'? It's true. Because as long as people are talking about you then you remain relevant.
Climate change is a global existential problem and it's not going to be solved by ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Criticising the heroes who sacrifice their freedom to make the world a better place just marks you as a shortsighted legacy media chode. You're worried about people being made late for work? Come see me again when the supermarket shelves are empty and everywhere between the tropics is unliveable.
I'm at the point where every time someone yells at me for protesting and tells me how useless it is, I chalk that up as a little sign of success, however small. If this guy is taking time out of his day to rant at me at length about what I'm doing, that means others are likely taking notice too.
Do I think protesting is going to magically solve the issue? Of course not. But it's something I can do to bring attention to the issue, spread awareness, and encourage others who feel the same way but might feel alone or unsupported about it. I'm always happy to hear about what else I can do to better effect, but somehow that never seems to be something the naysayers are willing to provide. It's always just tearing down, no advice or building up.
Is the joke "protesting is useless", or "protest shouldn't be inconvinient"?
Regardless, lmao got em.
Here in Germany, for 1,5 out of 50 years there was every other day some news titled "climate-". Since the activist group withdrew, silence has covered the topic again. They should get medals.
How does making cars idle save the environment?
That's like looking at a tennis match and asking "how does wearing white win the game?".
Ignoring context to feign confusion is some weaksauce trolling.
No, this isn't me feigning ignorance. There are much better uses of a person's time if their goal is environmentalism than sitting in traffic.
Possibly , but that's not what you said.
The implication was that making cars idle was the point of blocking in the road, which is wasn't/isn't.
How does ?
A failure of sentence structure or purposeful trolling.
I will concede that I phrased that poorly. I realize that making cars idle was not the point, but that is was the result would be.
Fair enough.
You realise that the fact you're even talking about it means it's doing more than just making cars idle.
Now, whether it's actually helping anything in a tangible way, that's a different conversation entirely.
That was my point: I don't think it has a tangible benefit.
I disagree somewhat, though not entirely.
TL;DR;
It's advertising and or brand/cause awareness.
This is effective in drawing attention, good or bad attention is subjective i suppose.
It's one of those brand awareness things, but instead of a brand it's a cause.
You aren't supposed to see this type of demonstration and think to yourself "they have made an excellent point, I'm going to immediately do all i can to support this cause".
It's a background awareness thing that builds trust and/or familiarity and works in concert with other things to try and ensure that if/when you are "ready" for action in the same vein, this is the name/cause you have in the forefront of your mind.
Because it's people, there are probably many different goals and approaches.
There are definitely people doing this just for the attention, others who are working with a ted from scrubs mindset and I'm sure many others that are less than kind.
It absolutely has downsides as well, you'll piss off a lot of people by disrupting their daily life, a lot of those people have their own immediate survival shit to deal with and lofty causes aren't a thing they are going to get to any time soon.
Point is, just like any advertising, just because it doesn't feel like it's working doesn't mean it isn't.
It might put you off entirely but it's a numbers game.
Making using car uncomfortable and unreliable should push people to abandon it for other means of transportation.
This isn't how to do that. This is a one time inconvenience that gets somebody arrested. If you want less reliance on cars, bigger societal changes need to happen.
And how does the average joe bring about social change?
With great difficulty.
Indeed. I think, historically, the best way for the average joe to bring about social change is protest.
Organized protest is good. One guy going to play in traffic is less good.
It doesn't, which is why I think the conspiracy that Just Stop Oil is sponsored by big oil to give the environmental movement a bad name is quite plausible. The other explanation is they're organically that stupid.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
26 points (100.0% liked)
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