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Just Stop Oil protestors interrupt UK’s biggest games event EGX
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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I mean I have debilitating social anxiety and spend a lot of energy every day trying to keep put of people's way and not inconvenience them.
Literally the only reason I was able to force myself to go to protests like these is because of how much I care about the environment, like anyone with any sort of morals whatsoever should as well. Its also why I go to protests that do things "the right way" that don't get mentioned on the news at all, have no effect on anyone and are completely ignored by absolutely everyone and I also do as much as I can to reduce my own impact despite how small a drop in the ocean it is comparatively. I never drive even when I lived in the middle of nowhere and had a cycle 3 miles to a bus stop to get into the city to do my job, I eat almost no meat, invest my savings into green energy and worked to become the head of the ecological advisory committee at my work.
And yes, I know plenty about the people I'm disrupting from my copius interactions with them, like how even times where we shut down a minor road for 5 minutes at a time, and where you can easily detour around it, people will act like you've just nurdered their first born infront of them, and will stubbornly sit their in traffic and scream at you to move, even after telling them can go down another road if they are actually in a hurry.
And I know people will literally pull out infront of an ambulance to block it from going down the lane we cleared for emergency vehicles and them blame their actions on us. And I know a lot of those pepper genuinely think fighting someone or running them over is an appropriate response to being mildly inconvenienced for 5 minutes.
And I know none of the people that scream and shout, have ever done anything to help the cause. They will say "I used to support you until this" but when asked what they actually DID to support us, they always draw a blank or say some childish bullshit like "well I did recycle but now I'm going to stop just to spite you"
Like if you take a step back and look at the big picture and what you're arguing. That we should just take the impending climate crisis lying down if the alternate is some gamers having their convention disrupted for 2 minutes. You'll see how fucking absurd and narcissistic you sound.
The stance appears to be - "We're not trying to change the minds of the people whose lives we disrupt because they are all mindless morons who have never cared about the environment and deserve to made miserable. And of course we aren't really disrupting them anyway - any real disruption is caused by people out to discredit us. Everyone I meet is angry at me for some reason."
I just don't think it is very effective as a way of driving the change you want to see, as it tends to promote the belief 'ah environmentalists - they're arseholes'
The problem is those kinds of people think that no matter what we do. If we go protest oil depots its "they're just making it harder for workers trying to dontheir jobs" if we go to the HQ of Shell its the same or "its going to be the janitor that cleans up" or if we go to the houses of oil execs or politicians like Rishi Sunak it's "what if his kids were home, these people are dangerous" or for literally any scenario you have things like "but I bey they use electricity .hypocrites" or "bet zero means we'd have to stop breathing!! That's what they actually want" or a thousand other dumbass takes.
Keep telling yourself that. You set yourself to only preach to the fully converted.
I don't need to tell myself anything. Barry (62) who thinks climate change isn't real, has voted Tory consistently since he was 18 and would practically cum in his trousers at an excuse to be violent to any group of people the mail tells him are bad, tells me plenty.
Barry was never, ever going to do anything constructive no matter how we protest, so why waste effort trying to appease him?
And you’ve convinced yourself that everyone who disagrees with your approach is Barry apparently.
They aren’t.
Not literally that exact type of person. Like some people do believe in climate change and tell themselves they support the environmentalist cause, but have never gone to a protest, or written to their MP or voted around the issue and never will no matter how many protests that happen, or how many studies are published or videos putting it into layman's terms. They just want to mostly ignore the issue, drive to work, drive home, put on love island and switch their brain off. Because actually doing anything about it is effort and their top priority is their own convenience.
The people who actually give enough of a fuck to do something/anything about this catastrophic issue isn't going to throw a temper tantrum because their video games convention got interrupted for 30 seconds. Because if you ACTUALLY give a shit, the very idea of comparing complete ecological and societal collapse to 30 seconds of the most mild inconvenience imaginable is completely and utterly fucking ridiculous.
Sure, but it's not five minutes is it. It's fucking HOURS because (a) you've glued yourselves to the roads and (b) congestion.
I would completely support a five minute road blockage.
Well I've got good news for you. The vast vast majority of these protests are either "rolling" protests where they walk down the road, or ones where traffic is stopped for a short amount of time before moving aside. The ones where people glue themselves to the road are now very much in the minority, but are usually the ones that get the most coverage from rage baiting media.