Just Stop Oil

[Pickman's model]

"won't persuade a single person to support their cause"

Why the actual fuck does anybody need persuading? Jesus fucking christ you fucking idiots. You actual fucking stupid stupid pricks.

"Well they certainly put me off averting catastrophic climate change when they made that snooker table dirty"

We are not going to avoid this because we are stupid stupid stupid things. We're just not capable of it.

I think we're capable of it. I think most people want to avoid the horrors lying ahead. But when the best minds opposing climate change can't come up with something better than orange powder on snooker tables perhaps it's time for them to cede the climate change protest ground to people who aren't complete muppets

 

[friedaweed]

Civil disobedience is often (indeed more often than not) unpopular, and provokes a strong counter reaction from people and the state.

The actions of suffragettes came in for much of the same sort of criticism that has been directed a JSO over - no support, alienating people, attention seeking - so do you think the suffragettes actions of were counter-productive/ineffective? And if you do not then what makes the suffragettes actions effective and JSO's ineffective?

I'm sorry but I wouldn't put Mr Methane and the Suffragettes in the same can. I understand what you're saying here but the social context of the two groups is eons apart. I think you're doing the suffragettes an injustice by that comparison.

 

[friedaweed]

friedaweed when they did the football protests remember in amongst the mockery and moaning on the general footy forum I go on there was a fair amount of agreement with the message if not the means, more sympathy than I'd have expected.

Yup I get that. I think what some folk are having difficulty with is peoples entitlement to say "what a completely daft thing to do".

I'm not with Barry Hearn or Piers on the subject. I don't think the lad should do bird or be villified in the press, hes done that all by himself. I'm perfectly happy in my own "Meh what soft twat, thats not achieved much" camp.

The thing I find amusing is when you say this there are always folk who rush to think that you're anti protest or ready to ask you "what have you done for this nobel cause today".

Its just plain daft.

I'm still waiting for someone to show me exactly what that puff of orange dust achieved other than wrecking a really nice snookertable. Did they close a rig in response?

No.

 

[edcraw]

I think we're capable of it. I think most people want to avoid the horrors lying ahead. But when the best minds opposing climate change can't come up with something better than orange powder on snooker tables perhaps it's time for them to cede the climate change protest ground to people who aren't complete muppets

The best minds opposing climate change (are there people in favour of it) have been voicing concerns for decades and been ignored by the same people now saying that desecrating a snooker table is going too far!

 

[tommers]

I think we're capable of it. I think most people want to avoid the horrors lying ahead. But when the best minds opposing climate change can't come up with something better than orange powder on snooker tables perhaps it's time for them to cede the climate change protest ground to people who aren't complete muppets

I think you're right that most people do want to avoid the horrors ahead. I just don't think we will.

When my dad was dying of cancer I asked him how it felt, knowing that he was going to die within a few months. He said "sometimes I don't even remember". That's us. We're all just getting on with things, our brains frantically ignoring the looming catastrophe. Because that's how our brains are wired. We're fucked and we will do nothing to avoid it.

At least these people are doing something. It's coming, it's going to be horrific, why aren't we all running about trying to stop it?

My company are flying somebody 12,000km to give a 90 minute presentation. The Americans are digging up Alaska. I'm booking a holiday. We're still flying fruit about in Winter. Like, what the fuck are we playing at?

Meanwhile every couple of years a load of scientists say "we're absolutely fucked you know" and everybody goes "oh no" and then carries on as normal.

We're fucking stupid, and incapable of dealing with this.

 

[Pickman's model]

The best minds opposing climate change (are there people in favour of it) have been voicing concerns for decades and been ignored by the same people now saying that desecrating a snooker table is going too far!

I'm not saying it's going too far tho

 

[Pickman's model]

I think you're right that most people do want to avoid the horrors ahead. I just don't think we will.

When my dad was dying of cancer I asked him how it felt, knowing that he was going to die within a few months. He said "sometimes I don't even remember". That's us. We're all just getting on with things, our brains frantically ignoring the looming catastrophe. Because that's how our brains are wired. We're fucked and we will do nothing to avoid it.

At least these people are doing something. It's coming, it's going to be horrific, why aren't we all running about trying to stop it?

My company are flying somebody 12,000km to give a 90 minute presentation. The Americans are digging up Alaska. I'm booking a holiday. We're still flying fruit about in Winter. Like, what the fuck are we playing at?

Meanwhile every couple of years a load of scientists say "we're absolutely fucked you know" and everybody goes "oh no" and then carries on as normal.

We're fucking stupid, and incapable of dealing with this.

The tragedy is we never needed to be here and that even now some mitigation is possible but it's pedal to the floor and full speed ahead

 

[albionism]

 

[kabbes]

Mr.Bishie posted a Twitter thread earlier that explains why the objections posters here are making to this protest miss the point. It includes (amongst other points):



It then includes a few graphs as examples of what it is talking about, such as this:





The point isn’t to “win support”, it’s merely to get the topic into the news. This has a very good social-theoretic basis. The idea of restricting the activities of oil giants is currently what is called a “polemic representation” — a notion that is popular within a particular minority but arouses anger and resistance outside that minority. As a minority group, you want to turn your polemic representation into a hegemonic one, i.e a representation that is taken for granted as the truth. This is done via emancipation — first, you diffuse the representation, then you institutionalise it, then you popularise it and finally it becomes the new reality. But diffusion only happens by forcing it into the news agenda, because the very nature of polemical ideas is that people don’t want to talk about them. Yes, this stunt won’t change people’s minds. But the aim is to get people to talk about it, not agree with you. And to do that, you have to put it into the news. As Bernard Cohen famously put it in 1963, “The media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” Wikipedia has an article on some of the theories that surround this: Agenda-setting theory - Wikipedia

 

[friedaweed]

 

[NoXion]

Mr.Bishie posted a Twitter thread earlier that explains why the objections posters here are making to this protest miss the point. It includes (amongst other points):



It then includes a few graphs as examples of what it is talking about, such as this:



View attachment 371245

The point isn’t to “win support”, it’s merely to get the topic into the news. This has a very good social-theoretic basis. The idea of restricting the activities of oil giants is currently what is called a “polemic representation” — a notion that is popular within a particular minority but arouses anger and resistance outside that minority. As a minority group, you want to turn your polemic representation into a hegemonic one, i.e a representation that is taken for granted as the truth. This is done via emancipation — first, you diffuse the representation, then you institutionalise it, then you popularise it and finally it becomes the new reality. But diffusion only happens by forcing it into the news agenda, because the very nature of polemical ideas is that people don’t want to talk about them. Yes, this stunt won’t change people’s minds. But the aim is to get people to talk about it, not agree with you. And to do that, you have to put it into the news. As Bernard Cohen famously put it in 1963, “The media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” Wikipedia has an article on some of the theories that surround this: Agenda-setting theory - Wikipedia

RE: that chart. Would be interesting to see if that sudden increase in concern from four years ago has been sustained, or if it's just another blip like what happened with the flooding.

Given that, I have my doubts about the sustainability of JSO's tactics. Lots of scope for fatigue.

 

[1927]

And gas?

And coal?

 

[Rob Ray]

I wouldn't put Mr Methane and the Suffragettes in the same can

Quite famously the Suffragettes not only disrupted extremely popular sporting event the Grand National (Davison's action was described at the time as "hideous in its tragic futility" by the Graun, which felt the incident was "sinking into odium and disrepute the very cause which this unhappy lady had wished to serve") - they also went considerably further by burning down hotels and attacking senior politicians. They very much weren't the sort of people who cared about being ridiculed or upsetting the broader public through spectacle.

perhaps it's time for them to cede the climate change protest ground to people who aren't complete muppets

I look forward to meeting these (currently very well hidden) superior strategists.

 

[planetgeli]

Quite famously the Suffragettes not only disrupted extremely popular sporting event the Grand National

No they didn't.

It was the Derby.

 

[Rob Ray]

No they didn't.

It was the Derby.

Apologies for that, I care even less about horse racing than I do about snooker so it's all "that horsey stuff" to me.

 

[1927]

If, as looks likely they disrupt the London marathon on Sunday, I wonder what all those people who’ve trained all year, some gif many years, will feel about their antics.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

If, as looks likely they disrupt the London marathon on Sunday...

Isn’t that XR & not JSO? Or both?

 

[Rob Ray]

If, as looks likely they disrupt the London marathon on Sunday, I wonder what all those people who’ve trained all year, some gif many years, will feel about their antics.

Probably most of them will be very angry. But as has been repeatedly said on this thread, whether they're angry or not is irrelevant to JSO's strategy.

 

[chilango]

Over the last 30-40 years environmentalists have tried pretty much every tactic in the book. (Almost) anything that anyone is advocating as an alternative to JSO's stunts has already been given a go, several times.

Some have worked better than others. None have been effective "enough" in the big picture.

The same - of course - is also true of JSO's stuntism.

Where do we go from here? Fuck knows.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Apologies for that, I care even about horse racing than I do about snooker.

And did it make any difference?

Fucking stupid thing to do. The horse fell and could easily have been killed.

 

[chilango]

If, as looks likely they disrupt the London marathon on Sunday, I wonder what all those people who’ve trained all year, some gif many years, will feel about their antics.

[glib] No marathons on a dead planet. [/glib]

 

[Rob Ray]

And did it make any difference?

Fucking stupid thing to do. The horse fell and could easily have been killed.

Well ... yes. It became an iconic moment in feminist history which is celebrated 110 years later by the very people who initially slagged it off, and was part of the most successful drive to expand the franchise in British history.

 

[chilango]

Just out of curiosity...what was the last successful movement for change in this country that had widespread popular support, positive media coverage, didn't inconvenience anyone...and won?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well ... yes. It became an iconic moment in feminist history which is still celebrated 110 years later, and was part of the most successful drive to expand the franchise in British history.

It was taken up as a symbol by the Suffragettes, but did it make any difference? Lots of European countries extended the franchise at the end of WW1. The UK extended it somewhat, then completed the job ten years later. Nothing remarkable about the UK in that regard.

 

[Rob Ray]

It was taken up as a symbol by the Suffragettes, but did it make any difference? Lots of European countries extended the franchise at the end of WW1. The UK extended it somewhat, then completed the job ten years later. Nothing remarkable about the UK in that regard.

of course it made a difference. What, you think the franchise magically extended of its own accord after hundreds of years? You can't just hand wave about "the historic moment" while dismissing what the historic moment was materially comprised of, that's just silly.

 

[friedaweed]

Quite famously the Suffragettes not only disrupted extremely popular sporting event the Grand National (Davison's action was described at the time as "hideous in its tragic futility" by the Graun, which felt the incident was "sinking into odium and disrepute the very cause which this unhappy lady had wished to serve") - they also went considerably further by burning down hotels and attacking senior politicians. They very much weren't the sort of people who cared about being ridiculed or upsetting the broader public through spectacle.


I look forward to meeting these (currently very well hidden) superior strategists.

You see I'm all for that. Just leave the snooker table alone.

Why didn't he just superglue himself to Hazel Irvine or walk in and put 50p down on the side of the table. He'd of still made his point.

A snooker table is sacred. End of.

 

[ddraig]

And did it make any difference?

Fucking stupid thing to do. The horse fell and could easily have been killed.

Horses die at the grand national and other horse racing "events" all the time, they sometimes get shot, that ok with you?

 

[ddraig]

sound of goalposts moving

 

[8ball]

friedaweed when they did the football protests remember in amongst the mockery and moaning on the general footy forum I go on there was a fair amount of agreement with the message if not the means, more sympathy than I'd have expected.

That’s a big part of the aim. Get people saying “I agree they have a point, but I hate their tactics”.

XR can then do the fluffier stuff.

 

[8ball]

Just out of curiosity...what was the last successful movement for change in this country that had widespread popular support, positive media coverage, didn't inconvenience anyone...and won?

Brexit.



<runs away cackling>