[culi]

Waymo was a target during the anti-ICE protests because of Google's collaboration with ICE. In addition, Waymo is seen as a symbol of the gentrification problem.

Agree or disagree with it, my point is that that xkcd doesn't take into account political motivations

[seanmcdirmid]

Protesters block human cars as well as the only difference is that the Waymo driver doesn’t get frustrated and are pretty patient. So protesters need to physically damage the car to make their point, which is a tricky proposition with all the cameras it has (but face masks are common on both sides these days).

[culi]

Except in this case, damaging cars belonging to Google—a collaborator with ICE—is the point. It's more comparable to people who were damaging Tesla vehicles or the Tyre Extinguishers in the UK than the very common tactic of halting traffic/economic activity to threaten "business as usual"

[seanmcdirmid]

Property damage is just hooliganism, thugs make an excuse for it no matter if that’s what they feel like doing.

The eventual result of America falling into chaos will be countries like China having nice stuff like self driving cars (because they don’t tolerate thugs) while the us doesnt.

[viccis]

The US could avoid this by making sure that the social contract here is still in place. People destroy and protest self driving cars because they aren't liberatory automation; they're just another taxi billing us except that they also put humans driving rideshares out of a job. Does China have a problem with their people being forced to do rideshare gigs to get enough food to eat and competing with self driving cars?

[culi]

A riot is the voice of the unheard

[viking123]

If I had to choose I rather take free internet where I don't have to play with some VPN every time I want to do something or play a game in steam. Self driving cars are nice toys though but I don't mind having a driver.

I say this as someone who has lived in China, the system is just too closed and dumb.

[defrost]

Perhaps sometimes a simplistic take like this is true - people destroying just for the sake of destruction and indifferent to the target.

However when destruction is targeted toward specific brands or toward infrastructure being used for specific purposes such takes can no longer be true.

[seanmcdirmid]

Boycotting Waymo? Sure, it sends a message. Bashing in a car so someone else can’t ride it? It just makes the other side look like the good guys and their side look like the bad guys. Is that what they intended? No, obviously not, they just wanted an excuse to do property destruction.

This is why protests are hard. You have to somehow keep it peaceful by dissuading hooliganism who are ultimately attracted by the chaos to do carnage. Those hooligcans aren’t on your side and don’t care about your cause, they just want to bash things in and do some looting. They might as well be working for ICE with the bad rep they are giving to the anti-ICE protestors.

[viccis]

>Bashing in a car so someone else can’t ride it? It just makes the other side look like the good guys and their side look like the bad guys

Not really. If your definition of "good" and "bad" (always a sign of a simplistic mind btw) is "good for Waymo's bottom line" and "bad for Waymo's bottom line" then sure. But if your community's people are suffering and looking to rideshare gigs for a lifeline, and then a company threatens them, then destroying their assets is easy to justify as "good" from a humanistic perspective, even categorically.