[Clubber]

If your goal is to enact change, you need the numbers on your side, because ultimately it comes down to polls and votes. If you piss off all the people by sitting in the road blocking traffic, essentially hijacking them and keeping them from getting to work, they will think of your cause and become aggravated, thus reducing the numbers on your side.

If your goal is to just aggravate people to make yourself feel better without enacting change, carry on.

This seems like pretty common sense stuff.

>I'd venture you've never actively participated in such acts...

You're right. The best way to convince someone to a side is to use compelling, rational arguments. Not lying to them, not embellishing, not hyperbole, not using emotional arguments. It's certainly not throwing a temper tantrum like a petulant child and prevent working people, who didn't cause your problem by the way, from getting to their shit job so they can put food on the damn table.

In fact, if you are a protest leader and you tell people to stand in traffic and one of them gets hit, you should be prosecuted for reckless endangerment and thrown into jail.

[piva00]

> If your goal is to enact change, you need the numbers on your side, because ultimately it comes down to polls and votes. If you piss off all the people by sitting in the road blocking traffic, essentially hijacking them and keeping them from getting to work, they will think of your cause and become aggravated, thus reducing the numbers on your side.

> You're right. The best way to convince someone to a side is to use compelling, rational arguments. Not lying to them, not embellishing, not hyperbole, not using emotional arguments.

We've been hearing about how fossil fuels are causing climate change for a very long time, just me personally have been educated about it since I was in school in the 90s back in Brazil.

The ones who could be educated and onboard about it already are, if someone will decide to be against the cause simply by being inconvenienced by additional traffic on one day of protest then they belong exactly to the ones who wouldn't be convinced by appeasement, pissing people off is the last resort to bring the discussion into light in an extreme way for those who cannot be convinced otherwise.

Can it create grudges? Of course, those are exactly the ones who are already pro-fossil fuel anyway, people do not listen to rational arguments. It's pretty fucking clear they don't, I don't know why you still believe that. People as a group/mass mostly respond to emotions, if rational arguments would always win hearts and minds the USA wouldn't have elected Trump, and fascism overall wouldn't have a chance anywhere in the world, so on and so forth.

> In fact, if you are a protest leader and you tell people to stand in traffic and one of them gets hit, you should be prosecuted for reckless endangerment and thrown into jail.

You show some true colours here, this argument is usually thrown by people who are on the side of authoritarianism. Protests are supposed to inconvenience people and here you are defending that traffic is more important than protesting against a major emergency for a few hours to a day.

Even you don't seem to be the kind who respond to rational arguments since the arguments for why these protests exist is pretty rational.

Don't you think that people organising have already tried other avenues to enact change? It's been decades of other attempts, including education, and mostly they fail because big businesses has the money (and with it the power) to lobby the exact people who should represent the interests of the common folk to stop this emergency.

Do you think the first attempt those organisations have done is to inconvenience people just for funsies? It's the last resort, if you have better ideas on how to demonstrate that this is important, that it is an emergency, that people should pay more attention and act then please help them, because so far you can only complain about some small inconvenience compared to what the consequences to the future will be, and brought nothing new to the table.

It would be lovely if the world worked the way you think it does, it simply doesn't. Again, people do not respond to rationality the way you think they do.

[Clubber]

Good reply, but the texts are getting long, so I'll try to reply to most points briefly.

>Can it create grudges? Of course, those are exactly the ones who are already pro-fossil fuel anyway, people do not listen to rational arguments. It's pretty fucking clear they don't, I don't know why you still believe that. People as a group/mass mostly respond to emotions

Emotional arguments work temporarily. If you want to ram a really bad crime bill through congress, you argue about "super-predators." If you want to get a war started in a hurry, you send a very respected general to the UN with a vile of "yellow cake uranium." People will realize they've been fooled after a year or two and no longer take anything you say seriously. To use a comedy term, "you've lost the crowd." See Greta Thunberg, "HoW dArE yOu!" People shut you out.

Unfortunately, fixing climate change isn't a one or two year deal. We have to be constantly vigilant and constantly reduce carbon output. Emotional arguments in a situation like this will rollercoaster because people get sick of the emotional arguments pretty fast and people stop listening to you. This is bad for any cause.

>if rational arguments would always win hearts and minds the USA wouldn't have elected Trump, and fascism overall wouldn't have a chance anywhere in the world, so on and so forth.

So I make it a point to support whoever is in office. I supported Clinton, W, Obama, Trump, Biden and I support Trump again. I do this because I want them to succeed, because it's in my best interest for the country to succeed. When you've taken this view for as many years as I have, you understand where each side is coming from. If you don't understand why Trump was elected, you have a pretty major blind spot in your political views.

>You show some true colours here, this argument is usually thrown by people who are on the side of authoritarianism. Protests are supposed to inconvenience people and here you are defending that traffic is more important than protesting against a major emergency for a few hours to a day.

So if I don't think you should con kids into sitting in the street for your cause, I'm authoritarian. This is the same game people have been playing for decades and the people are sick of it. "Racist," "Nazi," "Fascist," "Authoritarian," are all convenient names to call people when you can't really back up your argument rationally. I would suggest stop using it because after 12+ years of hearing things like this, people are on to this rhetoric.

The news has been using hysterics like this for decades and look at them now. Laying off staff, losing money, soon to shut down. It just doesn't work anymore and it's counterproductive to your cause. You wonder why Trump got elected, I'll bet a good chunk of people are sick of the hysterics.

>Even you don't seem to be the kind who respond to rational arguments since the arguments for why these protests exist is pretty rational.

Sitting in the street blocking traffic is the opposite of rational. If you think this is a rational action, you might be believing your own emotional argument. Emotional arguments are to trick people into doing what you want, you're not supposed to believe them yourself.

>Don't you think that people organising have already tried other avenues to enact change? It's been decades of other attempts, including education, and mostly they fail because big businesses has the money (and with it the power) to lobby the exact people who should represent the interests of the common folk to stop this emergency.

Again, hysterics. People are sick of hearing hysterics. Climate change is a problem we need to solve and it will take a very long time to unwind our traditional energy sources. Hysterics are counterproductive to any long term action because people realize you are essentially lying to them.

>Do you think the first attempt those organisations have done is to inconvenience people just for funsies?

It's starting to feel that way, yes. It seems it's the only thing people know how to do. All the BLM protests, all the damage, all the fires, all the hysterics, only one bad cop got prosecuted and that was Chauvin. You think he's the only dirty cop? It didn't do anything except perhaps embolden the people who support cops. "See we need cops, look at how all these people are destroying their city." Pretty counterproductive.

>It's the last resort, if you have better ideas on how to demonstrate that this is important, that it is an emergency, that people should pay more attention and act then please help them, because so far you can only complain about some small inconvenience compared to what the consequences to the future will be, and brought nothing new to the table.

I call my representatives. They actually have the power to make change, unlike the poor lady you're preventing from getting to her shit job with stunts like conning people to sit in the road. I'll bet if you got every person who protests to write a letter to their representatives a few times a week instead of sitting in the middle of the street, you'll have a much better outcome. Consider campaign donations. They don't have to be big, $5, $10, just enough to differentiate you from all the crazy people who yell and scream at their representatives. Be rational, be respectful. I'll bet when someone yells and screams at you, you immediately write them off as a nutter. Representatives do the same.

>It would be lovely if the world worked the way you think it does, it simply doesn't. Again, people do not respond to rationality the way you think they do.

I mean Trump got elected. That is a big, red, flashing sign with an arrow pointing to the fact that hysterics have a shelf life.