No, don’t just tell me the harm you reckon is happening, demonstrate it.

You want to claim some harm is happening, then show your working.

I’ve given some pretty compelling evidence that public support for these activists is extremely high, and in response you have… some flatulence.

Here, I’ll respond in the way you did:

But it is moving the needle, it totally is!

See? I can say things too.

Even a single nullification is incredibly rare, but it’s happening enough that the government is making efforts to stamp out discussion of jury nullification.

We all know what the Streisand Effect is, so the logical result here is that more and more people will hear about the practice, more people will do it, and the public and those in power will get the message - you can’t weaponise the legal system against us anymore.

It might even get to the point that they’re afraid to prosecute because they don’t want more nullifications to happen.

Then what? What do the people in power do when they discover that they can no do that? They start to be afraid of what else people might nullify. What about actual violent actions, would people get a free pass then? How willing would they be to throw the cops against people when those people are starting to wake up to the fact that we outnumber them, and we don’t have to convict people if we don’t want to?

When they’re afraid of that, you might start to see action. Or you might see more violent repression, at which point who knows what the next step will be, but it’s better than sitting around waiting for committees to decide that action must be taken which will then be ignored by those in power.

And we get ignorant people and despots because people in power use propaganda to miseducate the public, not because art galleries close.

Is there any data in here to suggest what the actual effect is on level of support, rather than people self-reporting their change in level of support?

Because here’s one reading of the data, which I think is entirely reasonable:

1. The people who report “no effect” on their support, which at 40% is the largest single group, already support efforts to address climate change, and this makes no difference to them.

2. The people who report a decrease, great or otherwise, of their support, are just conservatives who know that the talking point is “this action decreases support” and so they’re answering in a way that supports that narrative. In reality, these people were already opposed to any meaningful action in the first place, and this didn’t change their actual level of support.

Without further analysis, this survey doesn’t say much. Even the questions dishonestly imply that actual damage is being done to art, when that generally isn’t the case.

Again, that survey comes up against a tide of jury nullifications, which would indicate a very strong material support for these activists and the cause they represent. The courts are trying to penalise people for mentioning climate change in their defense, which has got to blow back in their faces eventually. In fact these court cases may be an important part of swinging public sentiment against the government and towards radical action to change things.

Unless you can demonstrate an actual harm that these people are doing to the cause, I am going to give them my support for doing SOMETHING. If it moves the needle a millionth of a percent in the right direction, tear down all the art galleries. We only have one planet.

Many of these cases have had jury nullification, which means a jury of twelve people who have been vetted to remove bias, all unanimously agreed to say “fuck you” to the legal system rather than lock up JSO activists.

That tells me that there is considerable public support for them, whatever you say to the contrary.

Edit: Here’s a study about the actual problems facing the climate movement. Support isn’t the issue:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3

Abstract:

Mitigating climate change necessitates global cooperation, yet global data on individuals’ willingness to act remain scarce. In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. Countries facing heightened vulnerability to climate change show a particularly high willingness to contribute. Despite these encouraging statistics, we document that the world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, wherein individuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act. This perception gap, combined with individuals showing conditionally cooperative behaviour, poses challenges to further climate action. Therefore, raising awareness about the broad global support for climate action becomes critically important in promoting a unified response to climate change. Global support and cooperation are necessary for successful climate action. Large-scale representative survey results show that most of the population around the world is willing to support climate action, while a perception gap exists regarding other citizens’ intention to act.

The abstract of that paper says that the real problem is people’s lack of awareness of how incredibly high the support for climate action is, because that informs how likely they are to act.

In which case, all this hand-wringing about which actions increase or decrease support is a red herring, because the support is not actually in danger.

I would suggest that the real problem is people who handwring about the support creating the perception that the cause is less popular than it is.

How the fuck did you read that as anything but a joke? Like seriously, how? What did you think I was saying with that comment?

EDIT: And just to be clear, I am an anarchist and I think it’s absurd that any state has the hubris to tell anyone that they’re not allowed to die. FOH.

I’m gonna go ahead and feel threatened.

There is no ethical suicide under capitalism.

It’s a little jarring in a world of deep-fried memes.

No worries, Know Your Meme is still fairly reliable.

The Freedom Frank is War, Hallowiener is Death, Mtn Dew is Pestilence and Baja Blast is Famine.

I think this is how the smaller ones flourish - people look for alternatives.

Based on the space I would guess it just had “girlfriend” because that’s a pretty straightforward joke.

But I found it instead of guessing:

I love that opening this I can immediately tell that it’s not AI generated, and not just because everyone’s got reasonable proportions and numbers of parts, and the face can handle being split by that line while still retaining its structure.

It’s obvious because there’s composition, negative space that’s not crammed with prompt-maximising guff. There’s a focus, deliberate lines of action implying tension and intention. It’s five heroes with the eye at the centre of their motion, with a godlike being looming ominously over them. The eye is red which is reflected in the looming figure’s eyes, implying a connection between them.

I have no idea about the story here, I’ve never seen it before, but I can glean that much just from the design. This is what art is, it tells a story or expresses something. This is why it matters that someone made it on purpose.

I’ve told you how the concepts apply, if you found it confusing you could ask. You didn’t.

But you’ve admitted you’re not actually interested in my answers, you just want to accuse me of pulling things out of my arse:

I was simply establishing the fact that neither of us had them.

I don’t know why I’d bother with someone whose only point here is to tear down whatever I’m saying. You don’t even seem to have a position.

That’s not how that works. I told you the point I had a problem with and wanted sourced, and you admitted it was pure speculation.

If you are skeptical about anything specific I’m saying, you can ask for the same thing. You didn’t, you just said I hadn’t sourced anything, which wasn’t true, I gave you links so you could educate yourself, and since you’re still confused on what any of it means, apparently you didn’t do that. When I asked you what you wanted specifically sourced, you named everything, which is as pointless as naming nothing.

This is presumably because you don’t actually care about sources, you were just embarrassed that you had to admit it was pure speculation and you wanted to project that back at me.

If you’re actually curious to understand what I’m saying, you can ask a specific question, but you’re not doing that. If you’re just going to keep insisting that I’m pulling things out of my arse, you’re wrong, but I won’t keep replying.

(I know, you don’t believe my source)

That’s literally not what I said, I said something direct and specific, something you can read in the first paragraph of that source. I believed what they were saying and I repeated it to you. I read your source back to you and you misunderstood.

This is the problem - you clearly aren’t engaging in what’s being said. If you did so directly and specifically, then maybe you could get farther, but you dissolve things into nonspecific drivel, to the point it’s just either wrong or meaningless.

It’s like if I asked you, “What’s 2+2?” and you replied, “The nature of addition is involved in the very definition of numbers, which comes from set theory. Entire books have been written on this subject before we can even define the number 2 and I couldn’t possibly cover it all, it’s just so complicated.”

Like sure, maybe that’s all true, but motherfucker, what is 2+2? You go broad and vague and mysterious with things that sometimes have simple answers.

Maybe that’s why you feel it’s pointless having conversations online. I certainly don’t find that, but I try to stay focused on the points and deal with things directly, and when someone is wasting my time I tell them so and I disengage.

Again, you seemed responsive to what I was saying at first, but when you’re talking about the limits of the “speed of language” in response to a request for details, you are clearly looking for an out. I wouldn’t spend this much time talking about this with someone if I thought it was a waste of time. I’m making the effort to give you this feedback because you’ve shown the ability to be responsive and I don’t sense any ill-will. But if you find that “this always happens”, then maybe you need to take a good look at why, and what it is that you’re doing that might cause that.

Oh so you want sources for literally every tiny claim with no evidence that you’ve engaged at all, but you’re sticking with “pure speculation” for your claims and you’re fine with that? Just checking.

Rain world.

Are SCUBA and cave exploration not dangerous enough for you? Why not do both, at the same time, at even deeper depths! Hear the call of the void louder and clearer than ever!