We have lost all sense of how to influence the world and all ability to gauge scale.
Absolutely correct!
I believe in “voting with your wallet” and I do little sacrifices to respect my ideas, but I’m conscious that I’m just one step above people clicking on petitions online in terms of impact.
I think the point is that we’re deluded to think that voting with our wallets does anything. You still work. You still buy. You still support the system. The one step you’re taking only gets you partway from the couch to the refrigerator. It doesn’t get you out the door and into a protest that would actually make a difference.
Indeed, you are thoroughly pacified. Your objections and moral outage quelled and your sense of significance sustained by the illusion that simply buying from a different conglomerate will have any impact.
Any suggestion that your impotent protest is inadequate must surely come from a childish fool.
It’s so hard for people to agree that we should be doing something. Instead you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy. If OP was a hypocrite but they still said the right thing why would you deliberately disagree? What would motivate you to act?
Ok, let’s dive into it. What does “doing something” exactly mean? I’ve been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.
“Doing something” means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people “doing something” means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.
What does it mean for you “doing something”? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I’ll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always “very small”.
Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.
you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy
Who said I’m not doing anything? OP said “You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.” to which I replied that I’m no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race… and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.
If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don’t know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.
Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it’s an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.
Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it’s an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.
First of all, I didn’t accuse anybody of anything here except try to push back against what I percieved as a comment that is disapproving of debate:
Ping me when you changed the world with whatever you are actually doing behind that keyboard 👋
Secondly, Minimizing participation in the orphan-crushing machine but also debating politics on available platforms are not antithetical. Debating online is as important as doing the rest of the things you say are “real” worthwhile pursuits. For instance: How can we pursue a cure for cancer if the political climate ensures scientists are scorned and distrusted? If evangelising about the “real” problems you care about is labelled as politics then can you really make progress without “political” action such as debating?
In the same vein, doing the small things in protest is the stepping stones to doing bigger things. It works the same way for any pursuit. Why shouldn’t I practice discipline with my disdain for all the small evil while also pushing for more?
Edit: Add the quote that i felt was misunderstanding why we need to protest in our own small ways.
Edit2: I think we are in agreement. I misread the thread. My comment is actually a refutation of the main post.
Debating online is as important as doing the rest of the things you say are “real” worthwhile pursuits.
I love debating because, with time, I became aware of angles I had missed. However, I stop when the other side embraces extremist, black&white, and childish positions. “Fuck the system” works when you are a teenager or listening to punk rock, but otherwise it is just ridiculous.
For instance: How can we pursue a cure for cancer if the political climate ensures scientists are scorned and distrusted?
You can’t. However, you also can’t if you are not 100% in the system and aligned. Anything requiring funding or permits most likely becomes harder the less aligned you are since you’d clash with politics, you’d never meet people with money, you’d become a liability, and so on.
I’m all in to go to protests, to vote with my wallet, and to preach my values. I’m also conscious of the negligible impact that I will have since large organized movements can barely move the needle, and that there are so many other ways to change the world.
I must be imagining all the Governors in the northern states begging us Canadians to start visiting again. Voting with you wallet does work if enough people get on board.
Absolutely correct!
I believe in “voting with your wallet” and I do little sacrifices to respect my ideas, but I’m conscious that I’m just one step above people clicking on petitions online in terms of impact.
I think the point is that we’re deluded to think that voting with our wallets does anything. You still work. You still buy. You still support the system. The one step you’re taking only gets you partway from the couch to the refrigerator. It doesn’t get you out the door and into a protest that would actually make a difference.
Of course, because I’m no more 16 arguing that a revolution is the solution.
Indeed, you are thoroughly pacified. Your objections and moral outage quelled and your sense of significance sustained by the illusion that simply buying from a different conglomerate will have any impact.
Any suggestion that your impotent protest is inadequate must surely come from a childish fool.
Ping me when you changed the world with whatever you are actually doing behind that keyboard 👋
It’s so hard for people to agree that we should be doing something. Instead you argue that you are not going to do anything just out of spite all because OP personally may not be doing anything but their words are a bit preachy. If OP was a hypocrite but they still said the right thing why would you deliberately disagree? What would motivate you to act?
Ok, let’s dive into it. What does “doing something” exactly mean? I’ve been into this since before I could vote, so I saw quite through it.
“Doing something” means a lot of different things for different people. Signing a petition, going to a march, writing on a wall, you name it. For some people “doing something” means sitting all day discussing about socialism and revolution in a living room. For others it is more biking together with Critical Mass against oil on weekends. There are those seeking small daily actions like recycling, and then there are the activist jumping on a boat with Greenpeace to save the whales, and the terrorists doing anything from damaging something to placing a bomb.
What does it mean for you “doing something”? Once you determine that, determine how much of that something would be adopted by the general population and what level of change could that reasonably achieve. I’ll anticipate the result of you exercise: the bigger is your something and the smaller will be the adoption, but the product in terms of impact will be always “very small”.
Take Occupy Wall Street to make an example. I loved the whole thing, I love the work of David Graeber, and it was a massive success, but what did they achieve in practice? The expression 99% entered in the general culture and there may be a bit more awareness of the problem of billionaires, but looking at cold metrics it was like a big storm, then the sun came back and a few days later the last puddle evaporated.
Who said I’m not doing anything? OP said “You still work. You still buy. You still support the system.” to which I replied that I’m no more a naive 16 years old who shouts fuck the system and dreams to live off-the-grid avoiding the rat-race… and then goes back home to have dinner with mum.
If you are an adult and you want to go for it, be my guest! You may become Greta-Thunberg-famous, and people will follow you on social media. You will convince some people that, I don’t know, we should buy durable and reparable things to save the planet and fight consumerism. You will have an impact, albeit very small, and that will be a massive achievement if you dedicate your whole life to that.
Just, please, stop with idiotic replies accusing people to be enslaved in the system because it’s an insult to anyone who is currently looking for a solution for cancer, saving lives as a firefighter, building houses where people will live, growing crops, and even keeping up internet so people can praise the revolution against the machine from their bedrooms.
First of all, I didn’t accuse anybody of anything here except try to push back against what I percieved as a comment that is disapproving of debate:
Secondly, Minimizing participation in the orphan-crushing machine but also debating politics on available platforms are not antithetical. Debating online is as important as doing the rest of the things you say are “real” worthwhile pursuits. For instance: How can we pursue a cure for cancer if the political climate ensures scientists are scorned and distrusted? If evangelising about the “real” problems you care about is labelled as politics then can you really make progress without “political” action such as debating?
In the same vein, doing the small things in protest is the stepping stones to doing bigger things. It works the same way for any pursuit. Why shouldn’t I practice discipline with my disdain for all the small evil while also pushing for more?
Edit: Add the quote that i felt was misunderstanding why we need to protest in our own small ways.
Edit2: I think we are in agreement. I misread the thread. My comment is actually a refutation of the main post.
I love debating because, with time, I became aware of angles I had missed. However, I stop when the other side embraces extremist, black&white, and childish positions. “Fuck the system” works when you are a teenager or listening to punk rock, but otherwise it is just ridiculous.
You can’t. However, you also can’t if you are not 100% in the system and aligned. Anything requiring funding or permits most likely becomes harder the less aligned you are since you’d clash with politics, you’d never meet people with money, you’d become a liability, and so on.
I’m all in to go to protests, to vote with my wallet, and to preach my values. I’m also conscious of the negligible impact that I will have since large organized movements can barely move the needle, and that there are so many other ways to change the world.
Masturbating, I’m masturbating. And so are you when you think that voting with your wallet does anything.
Wow! Do it in public fully naked with the reasons of the protest tattooed on your body. You may hit the news and reach lots of people!
I must be imagining all the Governors in the northern states begging us Canadians to start visiting again. Voting with you wallet does work if enough people get on board.
I agree that such large-scale action is effective.