I advocate for logical and consistent viewpoints on controversial topics. If you’re looking at my profile, I’ve probably made you mad by doing so.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • But come now, certainly you must recognize that that’s not even close to causation. Just because it’s done often doesn’t even come close to meaning that there’s any proof that it functions as you state.

    If I carry a “rock of tiger repellent” and tell you that I’ve never been attacked by a tiger, therefore it must work, it’s the same logic.

    Countries that do not (or rarely) have highway blockades have more civil rights or had them earlier than the US did. They also have stronger protections and aren’t helping bomb Gaza. Using the logic stated by you, that may actually mean that highway protests make things worse.

    Again, just because it agrees with you politically, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There’s no study or data indicating that it functions, and scads of loose polls and information saying it doesn’t (which are only slightly better than no evidence at all). I’d encourage an actual study, but judging by every thread I’ve ever seen on the issue, the only people claiming to be even minutely swayed by these demonstrations were people already on the side of the protesters.


  • In this one instance they might do that. In the area where I live where it was done, there was no space for the emergency vehicles to go in the other direction. Just because there are ways they could do it in this one case doesn’t make it universal.

    Also, are you able to provide the polling you referenced showing that highway blockades change minds? I was unable to find anything other than web and call-in polls, both of which overwhelmingly showed the exact opposite (but those are hardly scientific so I wouldn’t trust them).

    Also, I’m not the one downvoting you. I do not do that.


  • … which just means you have to get creative.

    Freeway blocking is not creative, doesn’t get people present on your side (quite literally the opposite), presents safety risks, may delay emergency vehicles, wastes natural resources, and doesn’t change minds of readers. Same with the stupid “throw soup / oil at a piece of art” shit I saw repeatedly. A throw-away headline seems to be the goal, but it accomplishes next to nothing.

    Target. Those. In. Power. Make life fucking hard for them.

    This thread (not you explicitly) reeks of this attitude I see frequently on Lemmy of “It’s a deeply stupid and astoundingly flawed thing to do, but I’ll defend it to the death because it agrees with my politics!”



  • But there definitely are though. Why wouldn’t you, say, protest the factories where these things are made? Not just hold up some signs outside, but blockade those businesses in.

    Maybe find out who their major shareholders are and publicly shame them. Dig up dirt on them. Do anything you can to stop them.

    Maybe find the neighbourhoods that those shareholders live in and blockade those.

    Protest at the schools that their children go to letting them know their parents are murdering people overseas.

    It took me like 3 minutes to think of those and those are far more effective than what is going on in this news story. Are protesters in America really that short-sighted but they can’t think of anything better than annoying other normal people and making enemies?

    This is like protesting the food in a prison cafeteria by beating the shit out of your cellmate, and then calling him complicit because he ate food yesterday.

    They’re not targeting the right people, they’re simply turning normal people off of their message.




  • So I know this isn’t going to be popular, but… I lived in Saudi Arabia at 14. White people were targeted for kidnapping and rape continually, and no, not only women. Men too.

    I myself was very close to having both happen multiple times and escaped by pure panic and luck. My father and I were nearly killed by police with assault rifles because they wanted a bribe from my Dad. We were forced to drive into the desert at gunpoint to a “second location.”

    This was not unusual for the expats.

    I also went to school in Cincinnati and had the shit beaten out of me multiple times because I was white.

    Racists no matter who they are racist to are fucking gross and I’m sorry you had to go through what you did. Please don’t think your experience applies worldwide though. Being white, gay, black, brown, trans, or damn near anything in some places is fucking dangerous.