[maeil]

> Sabotaging any infrastracture harms people. Transitioning to clean energy can be (and is being) sped up by actual peaceful actions.

It's entirely arbitrary to propose that only "peaceful" (an inherently relative term depending on your personal belief system) action can speed this up, while non-peaceful action cannot, that this property is a necessary requirement.

Unless of course your definition of "peaceful" is "thing that speeds up this transition". Would be pretty different from the average definition of the word, though.

[perching_aix]

They didn't say anything about peacefulness being a requirement to speeding up a transition to clean energy.

They also didn't say that it's the peacefulness aspect of the ongoing peaceful changes that is accelerating transition.

You're trying to outreason an opinion, and not only that, but you're also attempting to do so by putting words into their mouth. Please reconsider.

Debating the unspecified nature of a word isn't exactly the most productive thing in the world either. The vast, vast majority of natural language is that way. Kind of a pivotal feature of natural languages really.

[maeil]

I think it's very reasonable to take "Sabotaging any infrastructure harms people. Transitioning to clean energy can be (and is being) sped up by actual peaceful actions." as arguing for the sole usage of peaceful actions. If you feel that's an unfair take, feel free to clarify, but that interpretation seems pretty average.

[perching_aix]

No, that is a fair take. It's just not what you seemed to have been discussing before.

[cyberax]

> It's entirely arbitrary to propose that only "peaceful" (an inherently relative term depending on your personal belief system) action can speed this up, while non-peaceful action cannot, that this property is a necessary requirement.

Do a mental experiment, flip around the sides. Is it OK to propose for oil executives to sabotage the lives of ecological activists with violence? Perhaps, burn their houses, deface the headquarters, that kind of thing?

[maeil]

What is the point of this experiment? Is it OK to propose for Ukrainians to sabotage the lives of Russian generals?

I'm trying to apply good faith, in which case I'm going to assume you're not arguing that there has never existed a set of circumstances under which such actions would be "OK". Could you explain directly what your PoV is instead? If it is that "It's OK if Ukrainians take such actions against Russian generals, but not if Tuvaluans/___ take them against oil executives", then why?

[cyberax]

> What is the point of this experiment?

To see if your methods will actually result in anything good.

> Is it OK to propose for Ukrainians to sabotage the lives of Russian generals?

Of course. Top military personnel are a valid target in a war.

> I'm trying to apply good faith, in which case I'm going to assume you're not arguing that there has never existed a set of circumstances under which such actions would be "OK".

Pretty much. If you have to resort to terrorism, then your goal is probably indefensible.

Violence is defensible only as a response to violence.

[maeil]

If I turn up with a bulldozer and destroy your house, is that violence?

How about if I flood your entire state/region permanently, both destroying your living, as well as that of your friends and families, as well as forcing you to relocate to a region you have nothing in common with?

Someone throwing a punch in your face is violence. Is that more acceptable to counter with violence than the previous scenario? I haven't met a single person who genuinely believes that.

"violence" can express itself in many ways.

> Pretty much. If you have to resort to terrorism, then your goal is probably indefensible.

Terrorism is a meaningless tern used to appeal to emotion. One's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Nearly every colonizer was overthrown by such a group. In many places, slavery was overturned by such groups.