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by crubier 13 days ago
Absolutely not.

At the VERY least, the road blockers should be fined the cost they caused to society.

Block Golden gate bridge for 1h30min for 10,000 people (Avg salary $50/h)? That will be 1.5 * 10,000 * 50 = $750,000 damage.

1 comments

Well, if they caused you any specific loss nothing prevents you from suing them in civil court like in any other situation when somebody causes you a specific loss. That though is a completely different thing from criminal prosecution.
And if someone died in ambulance that couldn’t get to a hospital in time?
you're talking hypotheticals while in real life for example:

"A Waymo self-driving car blocked a road near a deadly fire, hindering first responders. " https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6uhcVYhmULU

"Waymos blocked roads and caused chaos during San Francisco power outage" https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/waymo-san-francisco-po...

Waymo and specific people there responsible for that programming/bugs could probably be charged with criminal negligence by an enthusiastic prosecutor, yet haven't been. Why? Probably common sense. Like recognizing that there weren't criminal intent. And such situations is a price of progress. The same with protests. They weren't conspiring to block ambulances. And such situations is a price of freedom of protests and speech. Though if somebody dies that way, i think they would have a civil case against the protesters. The same way like affected people can have a civil case against Waymo in the situations mentioned above.

Neither of those are acceptable. Why would you think Waymo not following the law is somehow a justification for it to continue to put people’s lives at risk to enable protesters to do the same?