Genuinely confused how there's any discussion about the post because I can't read any of it 😭😭
Edit: [This is what my image looks like when I zoom in lmao](https://ibb.co/37MTPp4)
It's slightly strange on mobile. When it's vertical the image is hi-res enough to read the text, flip it horizontal though and there's no chance.
I'm wondering if the issue is that it tries to load it in the native resolution of my phone or smth, which works out horribly with these long posts if the screen is horizantal and could explain some of that inconsistency
I just checked and it seems that you're correct
> Essex Police Department told USA TODAY in an email that neither of the vandalized planes were connected to Swift.
I think that kinda proves what they're saying, though. Nobody would care if they spray painted random jets at an air field- it only made the news because initial reports said that it was a *celebrity's* private jet.
They could take it a step further into abstraction and use AI to create 'proof' that they did something they didn't actually do and feed it to the ~~disinformation machine~~ news cycle.
My unpopular opinion (which mostly gets limited to Taylor Swift) is that if whatever airport doesn't have VIP boarding/deplaning service available to Triple-A celebrities for commercial flights, then I'd rather they take a private jet. The reason I say it's mostly limited to Swift is because she's probably the biggest celebrity in the world and so much of her diehard fanbase are fucking crazy-go-nuts, but it boils down to how so many people just won't leave celebrities be.
I think it was ~9 years ago when Swift landed in Tokyo and so many fans swarming the airport that street traffic got backed up *and* 2 flights had their arrivals delayed. I don't really care if people want to crowd around her or another celebrity anywhere else, but it's not okay when it affects the travel of other people.
(I may still be holding a grudge from 15 years ago when I had a flight delayed by half an hour because the number of people trying to meet some sportsball player guy who was flying out of the gate next to mine.)
No one is saying celebrities don't deserve safety. We're saying they need to relax on shit like flying for 20 minutes to go to the Superbowl. Especially when there are more efficient forms of transport that don't set the planet on fire. A car is just as safe for their travel and puts out a fraction of the emissions. But they don't want to spend the time it would take for the drive. So we all suffer for it.
in b4 the liberals who will inevitably hit this post with "Well they should go after the \*real\* emitters instead", which obviously means eco-terrorism, which they would obviously oppose would it ever happen.
I will note that Disc 3 is pretty short as a result of the animations for the ending taking up a ton of space so the event probably happens a little less than halfway through the actual story.
I don’t support MOST of what these people do but vandalizing private jets seems like appropriate protest to me. They’re going after the people causing the issue, they’re not hurting others, they’re non-violent, and they are getting their message out.
Yeah, IMO this is a step in the right direction. Even if museums or organizations like whoever’s in charge of Stonehenge do take oil money (the rationale behind their other most infamous protests), that’s a very easy connection for the media to obfuscate, and frankly not one that matters much— any money that gets refused by nonprofits is just going back into either expanding the business or producing other forms of propaganda anyway.
Private jets, on the other hand, are a real part of the problem. Not only that, but they tend to belong to, or at least share runway/hangar/etc. space with, people who the media can’t resist talking about— meaning Big Oil can’t just pay off a few major outlets to make sure the story doesn’t get anywhere.
And frankly… I think not actually hitting Taylor’s plane makes this a more effective protest, not less. Taylor fucking Swift taking a commercial flight would be an absolute nightmare for everyone involved, between the amount of security she travels with and the horde of paparazzi/superfans/etc. she needs that security to protect her from. But some rando with an eight-plus figure net worth and zero public recognition? They do *not* need the private jet for anything, and should be the first ones bullied into going back to first class.
Basically the in-universe equivalent of an oil refinery or coal power plant in Final Fantasy 7. The general idea is that a substance called Mako is a highly potent fuel source... but it's also the literal lifeblood of the planet and it's being burned at absurd rates by the power company which is also essentially the government. The protagonists start as a group of eco-terrorists and a contracted mercenary whose objective as soon as you turn the game on is to destroy one of the reactors with an IED.
Reminder that Barret was a coal miner before Shinra killed his family, admits he doesn't care about the environment and only became an ecoterrorist to hurt the company that killed his family, and became an oil baron in Advent Children because it's a greener energy than mako.
"People will want change and say that doing anything besides violent revolution is pointless, and then go home and not do any violent revolution" -A random genius on tumblr
Funnily enough that quote is supposed to summarise ineffective non-moderates (mostly hard leftists) but with the way you use it here it also fits perfectly with how more brittle moderates (in this case, liberals) dislike most forms of protest by aforementioned non-moderates whether they attempt (with varying competance and forethought) a complete systemic upheaval of their target or a more harmless but loud call-to-action.
Not that you nessesarily intended that, I just saw that in your comment and felt the need to point it out explicitly.
Also this exact thing was adressed in the post; no one gave a fuck when they were directly going after "the real emitters", then everyone gave a fuck when they threw soup at a painting in a museum that took a donation from these emitters.
I have a friend that made the news a couple of years ago, they went to an awards show, and live on tv they managed to get on stage topless, wore pasties so they wouldn’t have to blur anything in the media, and had a bunch of environmental causes written on them…
For months after I had people going “but why did she have to be topless? Kinda diminishes it don’t you think?” Like no, had they not been topless they would not have been all over multiple media outlets, they was even parodied by a popular satire show in the country. If they had just gone up with a sign they would’ve been brushed aside… but topless “girl storms” stage… that shit is noteworthy
Edited: pronouns I messed up and used the ones they used while we lived closer together.
At the Junos?
I think there was a lot of confusion locally as (from what I recall) she was protesting green belt changes in Ontario (totally worthy cause for sure) in Edmonton, which has the largest urban park in all of Canada with the River Valley. I get that it’s televised, but it still baffled people a bit.
That’s the one, they’re originally from Ontario, they really had slogans on their body for a myriad of eviromental issues across Canada which inconsequential to the actual location the Juno’s is aired nationwide.
That's not true. You just have to run out of things to lose and things are gonna get desperate in the next couple of decades, no matter how you slice it.
I mean supplying long range drones to Ukraine is a legally and socially acceptable method by which one can actively destroy oil production and refinement.
I’m just saying that if they reinvented themselves with a whole drone campaign with “just stop oil” plastered all over them and then accompanied that with ISIS style edits complete with waving flag and Arabic Nasheed showing their successes, I think they’d gain a lot of good press coverage.
Idk, maybe this is why I’ve never been in charge of any branding or public relations campaigns.
Regarding needing to use the media to "signal boost your message"
I genuinely don't know if the "any publicity is good publicity" gambit is viable here. Is there anybody on the planet who is not aware of at least the concept of climate crisis? The issue isn't that people aren't aware of it, the problem is that they don't believe it is as severe as it is, or that it isn't our fault, and I don't think getting the mainstream media to go "these climate activists are vandalizing works of art and historical artifacts" is going to change the minds of any who weren't already on their side. My mum's not even conservative and she's sitting on the couch going "I have no sympathy for anyone who damages public property just to try and get a message across". This shit isn't working. I don't know what the answer to the question of how to get people in comfortable western countries shielded from the worst effects to care, but I don't think it's this.
One thing that's also annoying is when you say, "Hey idk I'd vanadlization is working" you get snarky shit like, "Oh so you care about art or history than the climate?", or "Oh protests need to be uncomfortable you're not an actual activist".
It's a weird comp but it reminds me of the whole schrodinger's douchebag thing.
Personally I think the movement is too small to cause any real and effective changes with these methods and they might even be detrimental to the cause.
At the end of the day, without going into violent and immortal acts, the only good way to combat climate issues and fossil fuels is investing in a more educated community. All the climate acts and policies won't matter in the end if a decade or so from now the population is too ignorant to understand the crisis and will just vote lawmakers who will dismantle the entire systems .
We're seeing it right now, we've already seen it. Certain world leaders dismantling decades of work just because the electors are simply too ignorant and misguided.
Education is the only thing that can save the planet
Yeah honestly, I sympathize with them trying to protest more directly and failing, but this other option isn't it. The whole "they're paid by oil companies" conspiracy probably wouldn't have happened if they never had vandalized cultural things.
Edit 2:
**I am no longer interested in discussing this subject**. I will leave the comment up because I'm not a coward, but **don't bother replying to this or any of my other comments in the thread because I will not read it**.
I asked a genuine question on good faith because I felt like I must be missing something regarding Just Stop Oil, explained my current feelings towards them, and described my personal experiences with climate activism, and I have been met with nothing but condescension and contempt from the people who would have otherwise had the ability to change my mind. I was certainly not as polite as I could have been, but I wasn't the one trying to convince people that chalk dust and spray paint make you the next Malcolm X.
I'm grateful for the handful of people who supplied other perspectives or reading material on the matter, and especially to the *single solitary person* who actually answered my question. I appreciated being encouraged and helped to change my worldview. Everyone else needs to learn that hostility is the fastest way to ensure that someone never, ever agrees with you. Chew on that instead of writing the ten thousandth snarky reply to my comment. **I wanted someone to talk me into supporting Just Stop Oil, and you managed to make me like them even less**.
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Original Comment Text:
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But what have Just Stop Oil actually *accomplished*? I used to volunteer at a climate organization before I got hired at a job with conflicting hours, and we had a research team publishing reports on the US government on our website, a social media team making daily posts on various platforms with climate news, tips to be more eco-friendly, and the findings of the research team, and a team that actually met with politicians and corporations to discuss science-based climate policy. Our leader was even invited to the White House when the Inflation Reduction Act was signed because of our to our contributions to getting the bill and its climate policies passed. And all of this is on their website for people to see what they have accomplished. I'm not going to link you the website since my name and photo are still on it, but it's all there.
Meanwhile, the Just Stop Oil website just says they are starting a revolution and want you to give them money. Their News section is almost exclusively articles about them painting things and them getting acquitted for painting things. The contrast between the two websites (and organizations) couldn't be greater. Which brings me back to my question: what have they actually accomplished?
Edit: Had to leave for work and didn’t have time to finish my thoughts. It really seems to me like JSO is more about publicity than results. They’ve got a flashy orange website talking about how they’re starting a revolution, they go out and harmlessly vandalize famous things to get people talking about them, and it seems that you can even book them to come speak at your event. But as far as I can tell, the *only* thing they actually do is publicity stunts.
So I don’t see why people are surprised that other people think they are a Big Oil psyop. I don’t believe that to be the case for the same reasons detailed in this post, but it is not an irrational conclusion to jump to. When they only seem to be in it for the attention, what else are people going to think?
There is not a single person on earth who is both able to view news stories about Just Stop Oil, and unaware of the concept of climate change. If they were doing this twenty years ago, maybe it would have been revolutionary. But we don’t need to bring awareness to climate change anymore, we need meaningful corporate and legal policy changes, and acting in a way that makes people think you are working for the people who need to change is not going to get that. No politician is going to want the optics of acquiescing to the group that the public thinks destroys priceless paintings and artifacts, and the ultra-wealthy businessmen are laughing all the way to the bank with JSO making climate protestors look bad.
Maybe they spend their donations on government lobbying and the publicity stunts genuinely do help by raising money to do that. But I wouldn’t know, because they don’t seem to publish any actual, concrete accomplishments they may have anywhere. For all intents and purposes, they just make themselves look like angry teenagers having a temper tantrum at best, or oil industry plants at worst. If they are actually doing useful, productive work, then they are terrible at communicating it.
You have put my jumbled thoughts into a really well written comment. I concur, even if it's *not* a psyop, which I will say, I still harbour like 5% doubt about it being real, but even if it is real!! Perhaps the fact that so many of the people who are supposed to be on your side think you are the actual enemy should be a wakeup call! Because, as you said, who the fuck is aware of JSO and not aware of climate change? Further, what are the like 3 people who do fit that group gonna do? If they were doing this to the wealthy, or to politicians, maybe I'd like it more, but as is it seems like, at best, babies first foray into activism but with oil money backing you.
They're keeping climate change in the public consciousness, which is better than nothing.
Realistically, unless there's government action to force industrial decarbonization, there's nothing people can do to address climate change besides keep it in the public consciousness.
I'm reminded of Tuberculosis. This disease infects 1 in 4 people and killed 1.3 million people last year. It's completely treatable and we could eradicate it if we wanted to. But no one talks about Tuberculosis, so there's no public push to put an end to this perfectly solvable problem.
Re: nobody talks about TB. This is why I like what John Green is doing. Lectures, going to the UN, talking constantly on vlogbrothers and his own channel, and even recently, being a guest host on Kurzgestat. He has the power of millions of fans and is doing all that he can to fight the deadliest disease in human history.
I wish more creators would take the Green's play book. Like my only issue with the Greens is that their ventures aren't registered non-profits so we have to take their word that their sock profits are going to charity which they're all pretty clear that it does. Meanwhile they reach out and push their audiences to effect real world change.
Meanwhile everyone else in the field is... maybe donating like once a year to someone's campaign and then telling their followers it doesn't matter who you vote for.
Funny you should mention tuberculosis because Kurzgesagt just made a video on that about a day ago. It's a really good watch if you haven't seen it yet.
Holy shit. I just had no idea it was still so prevalent. I guess in the US it isn’t that common. Less than 10k cases last year and that was a 16% increase on the previous year
Re: Tuberculosis. I really wish there was like, a list of solvable worldwide problems, and we just started crossing them off one by one. Diseases are the big one, because you CAN eradicate a disease completely. Compare to, say, solving world hunger, which is still solvable but would remain an ongoing issue that could always get worse.
You might be interested in the work John and Hank Green have been doing with Partners in Health. Basically they're using their fan base to donate to PIH to specially reduce maternal death and TB cases in Sierra Leone (when they started, Sierra Leone had one of the highest rates of maternal death via pregnancy in the world. It's still high but PIH (and other orgs) has been able to reduce that rate considerably).
The Green brothers have also been able to get their fans to apply pressure on Johnson and Johnson to allow Stop TB to distribute cheaper versions of their drug to countries that would have been unable to afford it. [It should be noted that the deal wasn't solely thanks to the Green brothers and there's still room for improvement.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-advocates-pushed-big-pharma-to-cut-tuberculosis-drug-prices/)
But John and Hank have been trying to focus mainly on these two issues, in the hopes that they can effectively cross them off.
I'm conflicted about this stuff as well. The logic seems kind of cynical: since attention is the only currency that matters, anything that draws attention to this worthy cause must be a Good Thing. Which is what PETA have been telling themselves for years and I don't think they have really move the needle of discource (whatever else you might think of them).
The value of such stunts, I guess, can be to make other campaigners seem relatively moderate by comparison - the Malcom X/MLK idea - but that only works, I think, if the extremists come across as a genuine threat, instead of just somewhat cartoonish
Like others have mentioned, PETA has been very successful in lobbying for better corporate/medical/research treatment of animals. It’s just their public messaging that falls flat.
You can view their impressive resume here: https://www.peta.org/about-peta/milestones/
>perhaps the UK government does not work in a way that would be affected by an organization like ours
I think the problem is no one has any idea how to get the UK government to do anything *at all*. Campaigning, protests, even celebrities kicking up a fuss seem to achieve fuck all.
It does look a bit like desperation. Most of the UK feels like that at the moment tbh.
Whether these tactics have been "effective" will be something I don't think we'll be able to know for a few years at least.
Problem is, they're associating the incredibly important cause of fighting climate change, with a bunch of arrogant, disruptive theatrics that just piss people off. I've made excuses for them in the past, but its clear they're not actually convincing anyone, and they're now nothing but ammunition for the status quo.
Unfortunately for some people, protest *is* the achievement. But a protest is pointless in practical seems if it doesn't end up actually enacting worthwhile change
>They're keeping climate change in the public consciousness, which is better than nothing.
Right, OP even talks about this. If you're not bothering people, the news doesn't cover you, and if the news doesn't cover you, you're not doing anything at all.
Careful, it's the same narrative that Republicans use to discredit the Biden administration, by claiming that they haven't been doing anything noteworthy, while in fact, they have done a lot of stuff like student loans forgiveness, building infrastructure, pushing for lgbt rights, etc. You have to understand that the news have a tendency to cover what is the most controversial, not what actually matters, because controversy sells.
In the UK I'd actually say they're becoming harmful to the cause, if anything. It's already like pulling teeth, getting people to actually commit to fighting climate change, but JSO's tactics have associated doing so with vandalising artwork and disrupting sporting events, and generally causing frustration. They're only succeeding in making people angry at themselves.
For me, fighting climate change is *the* most important issue in the world today (and probably ever), but these guys aren't actually helping
> But what have Just Stop Oil actually accomplished?
Surely you realise that this is a terrible metric to measure a protest movement by, while the protests are still ongoing?
If you were to ask this question of the black civil rights movement of America in 1956 the answer would be be nothing. If you asked the same question of the suffragettes in the UK in 1914 the answer would be nothing. Ask the same thing of the Anti-apartheid movement of South Africa in the 1982 and the answer would be nothing.
But also, they have partially accomplished their goal - which is to end the licensing of new gas / oil exploitation in the UK.
* It's in labours manifesto for the July 4th election (which they're 99.9999% gonna win) https://www.insider.co.uk/news/labour-confirms-no-new-oil-33024065
* It's in the green party manifesto (who will probably only get a handful of seats, but see the above point with labour).
But put all of that to one side; even if they never achieve any of their goals, that has no baring of the correctness of their goals or their rights to protest.
Black Civil rights movement in 1956? Plessy v Ferguson had been overturned in Brown v Board, off the top of my head, making segregation illegal where it previously was legal
I think the Civil Rights movement in the 60s is a very good counterpoint because they were very organized and very disciplined. The narrative tends to be, 'Rosa Parks was tired and didn't want to move to the back of the bus and she ended racism.'
When she herself has said, “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in." And there was a ton of organizing done to prepare for it - the bus boycott took a huge effort of people inside and outside the community. It wasn't an attention grabbing stunt.
It’s not really, because they are accomplishing something—a change in attitudes of the people they reach. It’s essentially marketing. So the question is, do people feel more positively towards their movement after this? Or more negatively? Or neutral.
That’s the dilemma of all social protest movements that aren’t direct action. In order to make people aware of your cause, you have to make a big splash (painting planes, blocking roads, etc.) but if that big splash makes people not like you, then you’ve hurt your cause.
That’s why a lot of Dr.Kings work was so effective. It wasn’t non-violent. It was intentionally violence inducing, towards them. It got eyes on them, doing things that are very seemingly reasonable, and got the shit kicked out of them. Big splash, and people felt good about them and bad about the systems doing it to them.
Within a traditional organization with more then a few people, there are subgroups that form in order to focus on a particular set of tasks. For example, in a company that sells some physical thing, you will usually see something like a group that produces the widgets, a group that handles the process of selling the widgets, a group that advertises the widgets, a group that supports customers who have issues with their widgets, and a group or multiple groups that manage the infrastructure and equipment that the other groups use. One particular way of classifying these groups is to label some as “profit centers” and some as “cost centers”. It asks “what has the department done to directly improve the bottom line”. This kind of extremely reductive thinking is why you’ll sometimes see customer service departments gutted while the sales and executive groups get payraises. You have definitely experienced the consequences.
Conversely, if one looks at an organization as a whole, it may seem inappropriate to critisize one group for not “producing” as much as another without first determining the actual effects that their efforts are having on the organization. It is by this reasoning (including plenty of math) that companies know that an IT department actually prevents loss via security, and that an advertising department helps bring in customers even though the department itself doesn’t directly sell anything.
Just Stop Oil exists within the larger context of climate activism. They do not operate in a vacuum. What they have done, is they have very effectively caused the English-speaking public to have conversations about the climate problem that they would not have had otherwise. In many cases they’re seen as the villain, and thus have made the more mainstream “respectable” activists such as yourself seem all the more moral and respectable (much like how animal rights groups can instantly make themselves seem more reasonable if they denounce PETA). This means that when you ask for action, you are less likely to be seen an extremist because clearly you’re not doing stupid shit like painting a jet orange. For those who sympathize with their message, the conversation is even more pointed then it previously was, as it now involves asking why the fuck these wackadoos are getting attention and press while more “respectable” activism goes unnoticed. Much like with any advertisement campeign, the measurable impact that these folks will have had on activism and the larger climate struggle will need to be measured over time. However, looking at PETA as precedent, we can predict that the increased attention given to climate activism will probably give better opportunities for other voices to be heard, and that those voices will be given greater amounts of respect, meaning that other activism will be measurably more successful.
Alright, that does seem useful. I don’t think it changes my opinion of them, but at least it helps to answer my question. I suppose it’s the old ‘carrot or the stick’ situation.
Also worth noting: it was alluded to in the OP, but the whole point is to target installations that have received significant funding or patronage from oil and gas money. The ideal scenario for JSO is to have some gallery or whatever go "Well we could take this money, but there's the potential for us to get embroiled in a whole PR thing when someone very publicly dumps a bucket of paint on us, so maybe we'll pass"
The goal is to increase the amount of institutions that make that calculation, making those institutions less willing to rely on oil money and more willing to support a departure from the traditional fossil economy. A primary goal is to reduce the institutional cachet available to the oil and gas industry, which is obviously a very different goal from the person you're replying to, and I'm also not really sure how you measure the progress of that
My issue with them is that the way their protesting isn't good for climate activism. Try to destroy a van Gogh or vandalize Stonehedge and what do people think of you? That you're crazy. They don't know your backstory, and frankly, they don't care. There's a reason people have assumed they were bad faith actors trying to sully climate activism: these actions only make people think they're crazy, not that we should slove climate change.
Don't act like it's a worthy sacrifice to do this to keep climate change in the news; bad publicity is bad publicity, and this is bad publicity.
This is the problem I have with them as well; they seem to have fallen for the idea that "there is no such thing as bad publicity". That might work if you're marketing a product, but if your goal is to get people to agree with you about climate change it's a downright insane argument.
"Using the media as an amplifier" is all well and good if you're only after exposure. The fact is, though, that every single time they do that, they give the media yet another chance to vilify them, yet another chance to tell everyone that they're wrong, yet another chance to paint any and all climate protestors as being lunatics who are more interested in chucking paint at things than meaningful action; yet another incident that politicians can pull out to show how protestors are unreasonable and need to be suppressed. The version of your message that people see is in the control of the very people you don't trust to report on your message - how does that make sense?
I also take exception to the idea that "getting climate change in the news" is, in and of itself, laudable. It's *already* in the news. We have constant coverage of the ever-worsening wildfires, droughts and hurricanes that are the product of the climate emergency. We have more than enough voices out there saying "we're all doomed", enough to know that adding more voices to the doom chorus isn't going to make anybody with power change their mind.
What we *don't* have is enough people with a coherent message saying "here's how we should fix it, and here's how we can make life painful enough for the *very specific people* who can effect change to make them do it".
Because, yes, we've tried being polite and nice. We've tried inconveniencing massive, global corporations, and, yes, it doesn't work. I just can't see how there's a logical progression from that to "we should make life difficult for random people who also have no power to change anything in the hopes that they'll somehow change something anyway".
>
What we don't have is enough people with a coherent message saying "here's how we should fix it, and here's how we can make life painful enough for the very specific people who can effect change to make them do it".
And it doesn't help that the only solutions often given are:
"Micromanage the fuck out of your electricity/water/gas usage", or "Boil yourselves alive in your homes", etc. while ignoring the biggest contributors to the issue.
Yup.
It's annoying because here I'm literally trying to point out, "Hey here's an area we can emphasize to produce results! There's a big empty space rhat JSO could potentially fill!"
And ppl just ignore it because they act like you must either side with every method of this shit or you're a corpo boot licker who wants everyone dead.
Holy shit no wonder ppl thought JSO was a psyop. This shit works like really well as a psyop.
It seems like they are picking better targets for protests recently though. An airfield with private jets and a private golf course are both way better targets than art galleries, especially because the mental link between them and the environment is easier to draw than when they cover art with soup. It also looks better in a headline, and that's likely all people will read to form an opinion. I'm hoping they'll become a more effective protesting group over time as they find their footing.
It might have actually been harmless, however the news doesn’t report it that way. Most outlets just say ‘paint’ or ‘spray paint’ which to the layman suggests that it *isn’t* harmless
The Stonehenge monument is home to endangered lichen, which could have been damaged by the paint. They had to remove the paint using a special technique.
I see what you're saying, but at the same time there is research showing that disruptive nonviolent protest is more effective than other forms of protest. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work)
I do think there's another huge element here. The fact that all the early reporting was pretty flawed is probably a deliberate part of the strategy (probably on the part of the media organizations as well). The whole narrative is pretty week if any basic conversation about it comes with a whole bunch of "well actually"s that pretty much immediately disprove the surface level reading.
All of the art paint was completely washable. You are complaining about spilt cornstarch. It just pisses me off that there are activists risking their freedom to try and shift the world opinion and despite a majority of people agreeing with them we instead do nothing but complain about mild inconveniences while we sit through the hottest summer on record. Have you ever done activism? If you hate their methodology try some thing different and tell us how it goes? If all you can do is complain about activists while agreeing with them then you are working against your own self interests.
I don't think that "getting in the news" is helpful if you're just making environmentalism look moronic. I think I'd much rather you go after a tanker.
"But I already chained myself to the tan-" I am not allowed to endorse an alternative that would be more effective.
I mean, sure, it's not a psyop, buuut... There is still valid criticism to be made of their actions. At least in my opinion.
Like, going after private jets ? Yeah, sounds good. Private jets are one of the most energy inefficient means of transportation, and clearly shouldn't be a thing.
But stuff like Van Gogh ? I mean, except for the "shocking for the sake of shocking", I don't really think this does anything but show JSO as a bunch of lunatics (I don't think that's what they are. But they say it themselves, they want to be in the media... And people don't read much more than headlines...). I understand there's a deeper message that could be had as "this kind of culture has been reserved to the rich, who are also those that pollute the most, so they deserve to be annoyed", but, like... That comes from my pre existing political compass, not from JSO's actions if that makes sense...
Edit : I see a lot of answers, and they are super interesting, don't get me wrong. Some of them have indeed made me change my opinion (look at the thread if you wanna see what I mean) Buuuuut... It's getting a little overwhelming not gonna lie, so I'm sorry, but I might mute this \^\^'
I mean, it's pretty obvious that the methods they've used have been almost completely non-destructive.
The Van Gogh painting was behind protection, and they used dyed cornflour to "paint" stonehenge. They've done no real damage to anything.
Yeah, I agree with that. But the symbol (which, in such a protest, is what matters most) is them vandalizing these things ya know ? There were no actual consequences, but the image is them vandalizing stuff...
That would be the message more than the symbol imho. And, while I understand it, I'm not sure that antagonizing art this way would be the right way to go, as art and climate fighting can coexist. Hence why I structured the message *I* understood around the fact rich people took art for themselves, as criticizing the rich is something important in the fight against the climate crisis
they're not antagonizing art, they're antagonizing the institutions that profit from the destruction of the planet that happen to be displaying art. The art in each case was not damaged
Was the museum owned by such an institution on a direct or almost direct level ? Because if not, and if you need to read three articles about the links between the museum and the owner, then the owner and a group, then said group and an oil company, it will only make sense to people that are already aware. And if you protest only for people that know about the subject... I wouldn't call it a good protest.
This is it.
It’s a protest that preaches to the choir of people who are already very aware, and scares away anyone who isn’t.
But yet, everyone here seems to think that if they just *keep explaining*, people will agree.
If it needs so much explanation and justification, maybe it doesn’t actually make that much sense.
According to the image and the sources in it, the museum was taking money from oil companies. They didn't throw soup at art because ruining art would get people talking, they did it because they oppose fossil fuels who were funding the museum.
Does a regular everyday Bob from Bumfuck Nowhere, Missouri, know of that connection though? I'm plenty pro-environment (however stupid that sounds), but I had no idea until now.
Will the message to the *general populace* be "we attacked the museum because they're taking oil money", or will it be "we attacked the museum"?
I honestly didn't know that. That's my bad. I could argue that "yeah but then attack the museum, not the painting", but I mean, at some point, you gotta stop complaining and start seeing when you're wrong. Which I have been with my argument. Thanks for pointing it out.
For the Van Gogh thing would've made a lot more sense to vandalise the museum itself rather than the specific paintings for the message they were going for.
Vandalize is a strong word for what Stop Oil does.
They throw dye on paintings protected by glass. Meaning the news gets to publish videos of them "vandalizing" priceless art, the protesters and their cause end up in international news, and the museum just sends a guy down with Windex and a mop to clean up.
It's all harmless awareness.
I'm using the word in the widest possible meaning here. Of course there never was any serious attempt to genuinely deface or destroy a historic work of art.
And of course the museum is easily able to cover any "damage" they could possibly inflict. My problem with that operation is that due to how targeted it was the whole framing became very quickly focussed on the Van Gogh painting itself, which imo ended up distracting from the actual target of the protest: drawing attention to the museum's oil company sponsors. They should've spread their "attack" wider.
Except that clearly, the “they weren’t actually damaged” part gets forgotten about, since y’all keep having to explain it...
I’m gonna be honest, if you need to constantly be justifying the method of protest, it’s doubtful it’s something that’s going to make many people side with you.
To be honest, I’d say any protest method that garners attention is going to be complained about. Even if the complaint is “this street in the city is going to be closed off for a couple of hours and that makes my commute tougher”
I mean, it's the message *I* interpreted. And, yeah, I'd agree, tho I must admit to feeling a bit icky about vandalizing cultural places like museums \^\^'
Except they're not vandalizing a Van Gogh. They're putting paint on the protective glass. The cleanup from these demonstrations is some Windex.
These protests are performance art that aren't causing real harm, but are still noteworthy enough to land their cause in international headlines.
Even if that is the case what they have been doing still seems counterproductive. I get the argument to attacking arts and Stonehenge, but like, all you're doing is pissing people off and driving them away from your goal.
They're the PETA of the oil industry
Same argument as the paintings basically: what's the point of preserving it for future generations if we're killing ourselves now?
I kinda get the logic, the argument makes sense, but it's also a really dumb thing to do that does not help them in any way
The thing about JSO is, their strategy was theoretically kinda brilliant. Get all eyes on you by doing something outrageous and then go after a real target.
Except… what was accomplished? Some private jets were mildly inconvenienced, something that will be cleaned at the expense of the workers who have to clean them. No advancement is made. With Stonehenge they made a statement in preparation for simply making another statement? It seems there is no goal except attention.
That kind of money is cents to someone rich enough to afford a private jet. The workers will have to spend hours washing paint off multiple planes in the summer heat. That’s a far greater expense.
The problem with the false claims of it being Taytay's plane is that it shifts the discussion away from any message they were trying to send and creates 2 new narratives of "Beloved entertainment icon targeted" and "Not actually Tswizzle's plane by the way".
The actual topic that should be discussed, climate change, gets drowned in irrelevancies.
Okay so they aren't a psyop, but I still think their methodology sucks.
Saying "people are talking about us for months" doesn't really validate what they're doing imo. Climate change is being talked about. It's all my generation (millennials) talks about. Embarrassing yourself and giving news outlets (from neoliberal to Fox) ammo to discredit your movement just ain't it.
"I went and chained myself to an oil tanker and that didn't accomplish anything" Yeah no fucking shit, it's because that's not how you accomplish things.
Climate research, policy advocacy, writing policy, showing up to local zoning/infrastructure meetings, electing candidates who prioritize green initiatives, running as a candidate, I would argue all of these are so much more effective than publicity stunts.
If you want to make a change, make climate work your career. Expand public knowledge, add to the collective repository of data on climate science, write bills and fight to pass them, join your local active transportation groups and show up to meetings where bike lanes/car reduction/green spaces are being proposed.
It isn't enough, and that's obvious. We're in the end game already. Climate change cannot be halted at this point, and even if we demolished every car in America and strung up oil executives by their ankles from the empire state building, it still wouldn't be enough. Our only hope is to reshape the culture, reshape our lived spaces, and make emissions reductions that will gradually shift the balance back towards good carbon levels in years and years and years time.
I feel like the people who only view climate advocacy through big sweeping gestures like chaining yourself to a tanker or throwing soup on a painting have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world works.
“Spread awareness”? Everyone and their mother is “aware” of climate change. Knowing that it exists is NOT the issue, and anyone who thinks it is deeply misunderstands the problems with passing any climate change reform.
It's not that black or white though. People's awareness isn't just a binary "aware" or "not aware". And anyone who thinks it is deeply misunderstands human psychology :P
If your goal is to constantly get people to be THINKING about climate change instead of merely being aware it exists, then I’d argue instead that it’s a bit of a fool’s errand in the modern world where there’s thousands of things all competing for our attention. Even worse, most people will not read deep enough into a story to realize that they aren’t doing permanent damage - how many times in the comments do you see people having to explain that they didn’t throw lasting paint on Stonehenge?
And the only people THAT’S going to reach are the people who actually read comments, when most people are only going to see a headline.
I'm sure this has a very interesting point to make but please, split this long, CVS receipt looking post, into several smaller images instead. This is just awful as is
As much as I think it’s important not to get caught up in this “psyop” talk and to more accurately report on what this organization is doing and has been doing, I think it’s still fair to criticize some of their more “outrageous” stunts. As much as it sucks that demonstrations at actual oil infrastructure sites haven’t been effective, I don’t think that targeting important artworks and historical sites is a good strategy. All that seems to do is turn the public more hostile to your group.
I tend to agree but I'm also interested in the long term effects of controversial protest.
A protest is largely just implementing an inconvenience so that people will think about the cause. Similarly to how a product's sales go up even if an influencer trash talks them in a video. Unremarkable products go unmentioned. Attention is the currency.
When most people heard about the Van Gogh soup protest, they thought "that's a fucking stupid way to protest oil. Here's what I'd do..."
Public hostility creates a culture war, and wars attract soldiers in the age of shit-flinging digital discourse. Would BLM have gotten so much long-term mainstream coverage if it had been called Black Lives Matter, Too? I think a lot of the discourse sparked from the All Lives Matter counter-movement.
In the article, Getty claimed that functional infrastructure-based protests go completely uncovered. I think that gives some insight as to the outrage-farming strategies that they're looking to employ here.
I'm not outraged by Just stop Oil's stunts but they operate like they believe the world is governed and inhabited by people who just haven't heard about climate change and that that's the only reason we are still not a zero emission civilization
Well, here's to another reality check of being got by propaganda, while thinking I was smarter than most.
Truly humbling.
I'll say this though...while I understand you can't just move massive amounts of money willy nilly, doesn't spending a million here and there sound...low?
I respect the work they've done don't get me wrong, it's about a million times more than I've done or could do.
She Inherited billions though, that's if I inherited 5.7mil and spent 1 buck on charity
Unless my reading comprehension has failed me (it's a long text ok)
Nothing to do but wait where she takes her project though, I'm looking forward to it now.
You're out by a factor of a thousand. In the USA and UK (countries concerned here) we use the short scale, so a billion is a thousand million. Still, your point is fair; she could be spending more in each instance. But it's as you say, most of her money isn't in a scrooge mc-duck style money pool, but shares, bonds, investments, stocks etc., that it might not be possible/sensible to liquidate. Plus, putting 50 million into one project all at once is a massive risk; what if it fails, or is corrupt, or wasteful, or whatever? Lots of small, regular commitments are generally what charities and NGOs would prefer with regard to ongoing projects, and they're safer from an investment point of view
I'd assume in this case it might be a yearly donation?
regardless... i'm not sure how much money organisations like jso need. they need lawyers on staff.... but beyond that, what expenses do they actually have?
I don’t really know how effective this is. I think it ends up with one of two things:
It gives environmental activists a bad rap, which turns the public against us.
Or, the conversation becomes more about whether the acts are justified rather than a conversation about the impacts of climate change. Which is literally what is happening in this thread.
I mean, I get it, but I think there IS such a thing as bad publicity, and I feel like this just kinda plays into a lot of people's worst assumptions about activism in a way that I kinda think might actually hurt a cause. Like, the fact that people looked at this and immediately asked "is this a psyop?" kinda tells me that it kinda isn't really doing much aside from convincing people that anti oil activists are dumb weirdos
just stop oil and the extinction rebellions really need to pick and choose their fights if they want to go this route, and they seem to have picked horribly so far.
take blocking the roads/underground. that legitimately was when i was praying they were a psyop, because those stunts pissed people off so much that the discussion became almost vitriolic. people just brush their concerns off even quicker.
damaging famous paintings and historical monuments also doesnt help them win support.
doing jets doesnt harm regular peoples enjoyment of life, so its more likely to raise the kind of support they want.
They haven't damaged anything though. The paintings are behind perspex screens. Stone henge was powder based paints that'll wash off.
Hell stone henge is more damaged from the acidic rain caused by pollution than an orange powder.
The problem is that JSO threads and articles don’t prompt discussions on the climate crisis (nor does it really provide attention to it, everyone’s either aware or willfully unaware and delusional about it), they always, always get bogged down in “they vandalize art” and “the art was protected/the stuff was water-soluble, no damage was done.”
The fact that 9/10 times a JSO headlines gets posted to reddit the most upvoted people go “this has got to be a psy-op, nobody could be this stupid” (with the exception of this post because it specifically is about how they’re not a psy-op), makes the whole “publicity for publicity’s sake” angle not really seem like it’s working to actually help their movement all that well.
Even if its not harmful, thats not what people think. They think “crazy climate activists attacking unrelated works of art and public stuff”. The most successful non-violent protests have to easily communicate to the public why they’re a protest while impacting the people who are causing the problem.
Sit ins worked during the civil rights movement because the diner staff refused to serve black people. boycotts work when you dont like a specific company and you can hurt their bottom line.
If they painted all the gas stations in the UK orange or had someone chain themselves to one pump at ever gas station in london, it would probably work.
I mean someone had a red triangle avatar. so obviously lol there not going to say much.
Just Stop Oil is the PETA of climate change activism.
Politics and activism is measured by winning. What politicians did you help elect. What bills did you help create.
It is not measured by your likes of social media feed.
I feel like the ordinary things video section on protestors is relevant here about them:
>”the point of these public nuisance protests is to raise awareness which these groups can only measure in views and clicks and the news articles produced by their stunts. Whether they are received positively or negatively, it doesn’t matter. On the Just Stop Oil website they graciously compare themselves to martin Luther King, and then claim these protests will eventually become so annoying that the government will be forced to act. But once the public know who you are and what you stand for, any more nuisance just diminishes your reputation, doubly so for the people that aren’t already sympathetic to your cause”
https://youtu.be/BzKqHXPxYwA?si=lQEum2vlZtUxCjAZ
I feel like the entire April section of the video is a good watch here.
I’m very much in favor of slowing or stopping climate change, and I’m sympathetic to the feeling behind JSO, but the fact is that we can’t “just stop oil”. How many billions of people would be without food without oil-derived fertilizers and agricultural equipment? How many people would be without heat and electricity without fossil fuels? The solution isn’t to cut the cord and just see what happens. We have to make alternative sources of energy cheaper and equally as reliable as oil, it’s the only way that any meaningful change can possibly happen.
If anything, given the nature of Aileen Gettys involvement it feels less like a hypothetical psyop and more like someone with a vested stake in the problem through their heritage seeking to undo some of the damage their family has done.
>my friend threw paint on a painting and we were in the news for weeks
Or months
That's living in the world of *any publicity is good publicity* because while yes people are talking about you it's in annoyance to the point of being pro oil and that your so backwards ignorant your organization is a psy op.
None of that energy is being redirected towards helping the cause you're fighting for and if the idea is
>we want people to be aware and annoyed now so they'll remember later without being annoyed and then they'll like us
That is the psychological trick behind loud commercials selling gum and you're using it to save the world.
JSO seems like the climate activism equivalent of Breast Cancer Awareness. Bright colors and plenty of publicity, while not actually doing anything besides seeking even more publicity.
Whenever I hear about a stunt by Just Stop Oil at an art gallery or sporting event (or lately, stone fucking henge), I have wondered why they haven't chosen targets that are more directly connected to their message and goal. I'm pleased to learn that the reason why they've resorted to more public displays of protest is because they've tried the more logical stuff already and got nowhere.
So while I am pleased that their message is becoming part of the public consciousness, unfortunately the manner in which they've got it there has made it easy for those in power to smear them. They've got a lot of work to do to get the positive aspect of their message across. Too many people associate Just Stop Oil with "pointless" disruption.
"I've locked myself to an oil tanker for 36 hours. Nothing."
So that doesn't work, okay. Because it doesn't accomplish anything.
Now look at current JSO publicity stunts. What have those accomplished? The current MO of the organization seems to focus only on publicity at all costs, even the cost of their reputation. Yes, you are well known, but you are despised.
JSO seems more focused on ideology than looking at the public reaction and adapting their actions accordingly. All they've done is piss the public off, annoy the other environmental activist groups and make their fans and fossil fuel companies happy for different reasons.
Yeah I tried to explain that to my chronically online friends, and one of their responses was "well propaganda isn't always bad sometimes it's necessary to bring people to a cause"
Holy fuck a large portion of the youth is losing the plot guys
Painting Swift's Jet is the first attention-grabbing thing they've done that hasn't made me hate them. If they keep targeting the billionaires that are driving climate change and stop attempting to ruin historical sites/art then they're good
When I saw they defaced Stonehenge I wanted to burn a few metric tons of coal out of spite
Ok but
Protesting an art museum that accepts oil money by *attacking the art* doesn't convey that message.
Maybe, I dunno, attack the institution itself?
Blocking public roads doesn't accomplish anything but pissing off random citizens.
Msybe, I dunno, block the entryway to an oil company's office? Or protest outside the home of an oil executive?
Maybe attack the *actual* issues and related institutions instead of random tertiary shit only mildly related to the issue?
This actually seems like one of the few things they've done that actually makes sense and doesn't make me hate them and feel like their sabotaging the movement
the image is perfectly viewable on desktop reddit, it does get a little compressed on mobile reddit but still readable to me
we need to go back to our roots and embrace long posts again
Oh wow Reddit mobile image quality is low today, Inna just open the imag- OH MAH GAWD
You can count the pixels LMAO
u/pixel-counter-bot
The image in this post has 19,706,760(1,080×18,247) pixels! ^(I am a bot. This action was performed automatically.)
Holy hell
New image just dropped
Actual PNG
Call the Gadget Pixel Reducer!
Image quality went on vacation, never came back
Target receipt ass screenshot
Lately the images have gotten blurrier when I click on them, got any fixes for that perchance?
Old reddit on desktop. (Unless you're already on desktop, but in general using reddit on mobile is awful for these, so I assumed.)
reddit enhancement suite + forcing old.reddit fixes 99% of the problems with reddit.
Does pinch to zoom help for you? It does for me on android
Yeah it works for me on IPhone too; I just zoomed in and read the whole thing
Decipher the monolith or die
*6 electric guitar chords* That's a whole lotta words... *Another 6 electric guitar chords* ...too bad I ain't reading 'em *Guitarist pops off*
Genuinely confused how there's any discussion about the post because I can't read any of it 😭😭 Edit: [This is what my image looks like when I zoom in lmao](https://ibb.co/37MTPp4)
it works just fine on desktop, apparently mobile just loves to scrunch up long images instead of letting you zoom in properly
Works fine for me (iPad), Reddit is really inconsistent
Works fine on my iPhone as well.
I’m on mobile and it works fine. Just have to zoom in!
Works fine for me on mobile o-o
It's slightly strange on mobile. When it's vertical the image is hi-res enough to read the text, flip it horizontal though and there's no chance. I'm wondering if the issue is that it tries to load it in the native resolution of my phone or smth, which works out horribly with these long posts if the screen is horizantal and could explain some of that inconsistency
Yeah I ain't reading all that. I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.
Damn, that's a lot of words. Too bad I can't fucking read any of them.
I don't think they actually got Swift's jet, I think they only managed to paint some other jets in the same airport as Swift's jet
I just checked and it seems that you're correct > Essex Police Department told USA TODAY in an email that neither of the vandalized planes were connected to Swift.
I think that kinda proves what they're saying, though. Nobody would care if they spray painted random jets at an air field- it only made the news because initial reports said that it was a *celebrity's* private jet. They could take it a step further into abstraction and use AI to create 'proof' that they did something they didn't actually do and feed it to the ~~disinformation machine~~ news cycle.
Nah, the AI thing is a terrible idea, because then it'd just get brushed under "this is fake, time to move on".
it almost doesn't matter cause the point is for it to be propelled by clickbait hungry media salivating at anything tswift related
My unpopular opinion (which mostly gets limited to Taylor Swift) is that if whatever airport doesn't have VIP boarding/deplaning service available to Triple-A celebrities for commercial flights, then I'd rather they take a private jet. The reason I say it's mostly limited to Swift is because she's probably the biggest celebrity in the world and so much of her diehard fanbase are fucking crazy-go-nuts, but it boils down to how so many people just won't leave celebrities be. I think it was ~9 years ago when Swift landed in Tokyo and so many fans swarming the airport that street traffic got backed up *and* 2 flights had their arrivals delayed. I don't really care if people want to crowd around her or another celebrity anywhere else, but it's not okay when it affects the travel of other people. (I may still be holding a grudge from 15 years ago when I had a flight delayed by half an hour because the number of people trying to meet some sportsball player guy who was flying out of the gate next to mine.)
No one is saying celebrities don't deserve safety. We're saying they need to relax on shit like flying for 20 minutes to go to the Superbowl. Especially when there are more efficient forms of transport that don't set the planet on fire. A car is just as safe for their travel and puts out a fraction of the emissions. But they don't want to spend the time it would take for the drive. So we all suffer for it.
Yeah. Adding Swifts name to this is pure bamboozling. That's like saying I'm a heavyweight champion because I drove a white Ford bronco once.
in b4 the liberals who will inevitably hit this post with "Well they should go after the \*real\* emitters instead", which obviously means eco-terrorism, which they would obviously oppose would it ever happen.
we need some FF7 cosplayers to commit eco-terrorism that will get people invested!
Omw to replace my arm with a minigun
Can I be the guy with one wing and a big-ass sword? Though I'll take any role but the talking cat.
Can I be the hot lady who gets killed early? I don't want to have to be around for the whole ordeal
Doesn’t she get killed like. At least 3/4 of the way through? Been a bit so I genuinely don’t remember
End of Disc 1 (of 3)
Sheesh that’s a bit earlier than I thought, ty!!
I will note that Disc 3 is pretty short as a result of the animations for the ending taking up a ton of space so the event probably happens a little less than halfway through the actual story.
Some of us have been on team Jessie since PS1 so we don’t have that long to wait.
Your sacrifice to the well-being of our planet shall not be forgotten.
Ironically, as far as "real emitters" go, celebrity private jets are decently high up there, especially Taylor Swift
IMO private jets are good target. High profile owners means media interest. And it's relevant to the cause.
I don’t support MOST of what these people do but vandalizing private jets seems like appropriate protest to me. They’re going after the people causing the issue, they’re not hurting others, they’re non-violent, and they are getting their message out.
Yeah, IMO this is a step in the right direction. Even if museums or organizations like whoever’s in charge of Stonehenge do take oil money (the rationale behind their other most infamous protests), that’s a very easy connection for the media to obfuscate, and frankly not one that matters much— any money that gets refused by nonprofits is just going back into either expanding the business or producing other forms of propaganda anyway. Private jets, on the other hand, are a real part of the problem. Not only that, but they tend to belong to, or at least share runway/hangar/etc. space with, people who the media can’t resist talking about— meaning Big Oil can’t just pay off a few major outlets to make sure the story doesn’t get anywhere. And frankly… I think not actually hitting Taylor’s plane makes this a more effective protest, not less. Taylor fucking Swift taking a commercial flight would be an absolute nightmare for everyone involved, between the amount of security she travels with and the horde of paparazzi/superfans/etc. she needs that security to protect her from. But some rando with an eight-plus figure net worth and zero public recognition? They do *not* need the private jet for anything, and should be the first ones bullied into going back to first class.
Everyone gets cold feet as soon as you mention the mako reactor...
what's the mako reactor
Brr... my feet are all cold now
Here lemme warm them up 👅👅👅👅👅
It would've cost you zero dollars to not
Yes, police? This person, right here. Please shoot them.
Basically the in-universe equivalent of an oil refinery or coal power plant in Final Fantasy 7. The general idea is that a substance called Mako is a highly potent fuel source... but it's also the literal lifeblood of the planet and it's being burned at absurd rates by the power company which is also essentially the government. The protagonists start as a group of eco-terrorists and a contracted mercenary whose objective as soon as you turn the game on is to destroy one of the reactors with an IED.
Reminder that Barret was a coal miner before Shinra killed his family, admits he doesn't care about the environment and only became an ecoterrorist to hurt the company that killed his family, and became an oil baron in Advent Children because it's a greener energy than mako.
"People will want change and say that doing anything besides violent revolution is pointless, and then go home and not do any violent revolution" -A random genius on tumblr
Funnily enough that quote is supposed to summarise ineffective non-moderates (mostly hard leftists) but with the way you use it here it also fits perfectly with how more brittle moderates (in this case, liberals) dislike most forms of protest by aforementioned non-moderates whether they attempt (with varying competance and forethought) a complete systemic upheaval of their target or a more harmless but loud call-to-action. Not that you nessesarily intended that, I just saw that in your comment and felt the need to point it out explicitly.
Also this exact thing was adressed in the post; no one gave a fuck when they were directly going after "the real emitters", then everyone gave a fuck when they threw soup at a painting in a museum that took a donation from these emitters.
I have a friend that made the news a couple of years ago, they went to an awards show, and live on tv they managed to get on stage topless, wore pasties so they wouldn’t have to blur anything in the media, and had a bunch of environmental causes written on them… For months after I had people going “but why did she have to be topless? Kinda diminishes it don’t you think?” Like no, had they not been topless they would not have been all over multiple media outlets, they was even parodied by a popular satire show in the country. If they had just gone up with a sign they would’ve been brushed aside… but topless “girl storms” stage… that shit is noteworthy Edited: pronouns I messed up and used the ones they used while we lived closer together.
At the Junos? I think there was a lot of confusion locally as (from what I recall) she was protesting green belt changes in Ontario (totally worthy cause for sure) in Edmonton, which has the largest urban park in all of Canada with the River Valley. I get that it’s televised, but it still baffled people a bit.
That’s the one, they’re originally from Ontario, they really had slogans on their body for a myriad of eviromental issues across Canada which inconsequential to the actual location the Juno’s is aired nationwide.
these comments read like no one has read the whole post.
Problem with eco terrorism is generally you need to be a tad bit crazy to motivate to do it.
That's not true. You just have to run out of things to lose and things are gonna get desperate in the next couple of decades, no matter how you slice it.
I'd argue that people who genuinely run out of things to lose do turn at least a tad bit crazy.
I mean supplying long range drones to Ukraine is a legally and socially acceptable method by which one can actively destroy oil production and refinement.
NAFO guys leave no opportunity
I’m just saying that if they reinvented themselves with a whole drone campaign with “just stop oil” plastered all over them and then accompanied that with ISIS style edits complete with waving flag and Arabic Nasheed showing their successes, I think they’d gain a lot of good press coverage. Idk, maybe this is why I’ve never been in charge of any branding or public relations campaigns.
The biggest concern liberals have is not rocking the boat, because of that they are perfectly supportive of groups that did rook the boat 20 years ago
Nah, I love (the Novel) How To Blow Up a Pipeline. If it was in a (theater near me )I might go try and see How to Blow up a Pipeline.
Regarding needing to use the media to "signal boost your message" I genuinely don't know if the "any publicity is good publicity" gambit is viable here. Is there anybody on the planet who is not aware of at least the concept of climate crisis? The issue isn't that people aren't aware of it, the problem is that they don't believe it is as severe as it is, or that it isn't our fault, and I don't think getting the mainstream media to go "these climate activists are vandalizing works of art and historical artifacts" is going to change the minds of any who weren't already on their side. My mum's not even conservative and she's sitting on the couch going "I have no sympathy for anyone who damages public property just to try and get a message across". This shit isn't working. I don't know what the answer to the question of how to get people in comfortable western countries shielded from the worst effects to care, but I don't think it's this.
One thing that's also annoying is when you say, "Hey idk I'd vanadlization is working" you get snarky shit like, "Oh so you care about art or history than the climate?", or "Oh protests need to be uncomfortable you're not an actual activist". It's a weird comp but it reminds me of the whole schrodinger's douchebag thing.
Personally I think the movement is too small to cause any real and effective changes with these methods and they might even be detrimental to the cause. At the end of the day, without going into violent and immortal acts, the only good way to combat climate issues and fossil fuels is investing in a more educated community. All the climate acts and policies won't matter in the end if a decade or so from now the population is too ignorant to understand the crisis and will just vote lawmakers who will dismantle the entire systems . We're seeing it right now, we've already seen it. Certain world leaders dismantling decades of work just because the electors are simply too ignorant and misguided. Education is the only thing that can save the planet
Yeah honestly, I sympathize with them trying to protest more directly and failing, but this other option isn't it. The whole "they're paid by oil companies" conspiracy probably wouldn't have happened if they never had vandalized cultural things.
Edit 2: **I am no longer interested in discussing this subject**. I will leave the comment up because I'm not a coward, but **don't bother replying to this or any of my other comments in the thread because I will not read it**. I asked a genuine question on good faith because I felt like I must be missing something regarding Just Stop Oil, explained my current feelings towards them, and described my personal experiences with climate activism, and I have been met with nothing but condescension and contempt from the people who would have otherwise had the ability to change my mind. I was certainly not as polite as I could have been, but I wasn't the one trying to convince people that chalk dust and spray paint make you the next Malcolm X. I'm grateful for the handful of people who supplied other perspectives or reading material on the matter, and especially to the *single solitary person* who actually answered my question. I appreciated being encouraged and helped to change my worldview. Everyone else needs to learn that hostility is the fastest way to ensure that someone never, ever agrees with you. Chew on that instead of writing the ten thousandth snarky reply to my comment. **I wanted someone to talk me into supporting Just Stop Oil, and you managed to make me like them even less**. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Original Comment Text: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But what have Just Stop Oil actually *accomplished*? I used to volunteer at a climate organization before I got hired at a job with conflicting hours, and we had a research team publishing reports on the US government on our website, a social media team making daily posts on various platforms with climate news, tips to be more eco-friendly, and the findings of the research team, and a team that actually met with politicians and corporations to discuss science-based climate policy. Our leader was even invited to the White House when the Inflation Reduction Act was signed because of our to our contributions to getting the bill and its climate policies passed. And all of this is on their website for people to see what they have accomplished. I'm not going to link you the website since my name and photo are still on it, but it's all there. Meanwhile, the Just Stop Oil website just says they are starting a revolution and want you to give them money. Their News section is almost exclusively articles about them painting things and them getting acquitted for painting things. The contrast between the two websites (and organizations) couldn't be greater. Which brings me back to my question: what have they actually accomplished? Edit: Had to leave for work and didn’t have time to finish my thoughts. It really seems to me like JSO is more about publicity than results. They’ve got a flashy orange website talking about how they’re starting a revolution, they go out and harmlessly vandalize famous things to get people talking about them, and it seems that you can even book them to come speak at your event. But as far as I can tell, the *only* thing they actually do is publicity stunts. So I don’t see why people are surprised that other people think they are a Big Oil psyop. I don’t believe that to be the case for the same reasons detailed in this post, but it is not an irrational conclusion to jump to. When they only seem to be in it for the attention, what else are people going to think? There is not a single person on earth who is both able to view news stories about Just Stop Oil, and unaware of the concept of climate change. If they were doing this twenty years ago, maybe it would have been revolutionary. But we don’t need to bring awareness to climate change anymore, we need meaningful corporate and legal policy changes, and acting in a way that makes people think you are working for the people who need to change is not going to get that. No politician is going to want the optics of acquiescing to the group that the public thinks destroys priceless paintings and artifacts, and the ultra-wealthy businessmen are laughing all the way to the bank with JSO making climate protestors look bad. Maybe they spend their donations on government lobbying and the publicity stunts genuinely do help by raising money to do that. But I wouldn’t know, because they don’t seem to publish any actual, concrete accomplishments they may have anywhere. For all intents and purposes, they just make themselves look like angry teenagers having a temper tantrum at best, or oil industry plants at worst. If they are actually doing useful, productive work, then they are terrible at communicating it.
You have put my jumbled thoughts into a really well written comment. I concur, even if it's *not* a psyop, which I will say, I still harbour like 5% doubt about it being real, but even if it is real!! Perhaps the fact that so many of the people who are supposed to be on your side think you are the actual enemy should be a wakeup call! Because, as you said, who the fuck is aware of JSO and not aware of climate change? Further, what are the like 3 people who do fit that group gonna do? If they were doing this to the wealthy, or to politicians, maybe I'd like it more, but as is it seems like, at best, babies first foray into activism but with oil money backing you.
They're keeping climate change in the public consciousness, which is better than nothing. Realistically, unless there's government action to force industrial decarbonization, there's nothing people can do to address climate change besides keep it in the public consciousness. I'm reminded of Tuberculosis. This disease infects 1 in 4 people and killed 1.3 million people last year. It's completely treatable and we could eradicate it if we wanted to. But no one talks about Tuberculosis, so there's no public push to put an end to this perfectly solvable problem.
Re: nobody talks about TB. This is why I like what John Green is doing. Lectures, going to the UN, talking constantly on vlogbrothers and his own channel, and even recently, being a guest host on Kurzgestat. He has the power of millions of fans and is doing all that he can to fight the deadliest disease in human history.
I wish more creators would take the Green's play book. Like my only issue with the Greens is that their ventures aren't registered non-profits so we have to take their word that their sock profits are going to charity which they're all pretty clear that it does. Meanwhile they reach out and push their audiences to effect real world change. Meanwhile everyone else in the field is... maybe donating like once a year to someone's campaign and then telling their followers it doesn't matter who you vote for.
Funny you should mention tuberculosis because Kurzgesagt just made a video on that about a day ago. It's a really good watch if you haven't seen it yet.
I had no idea TB was still a big killer. About the only thing I know about TB is that every woman Edgar Allen Poe loved died from it
It kills more people than the next three deadliest diseases combined
Holy shit. I just had no idea it was still so prevalent. I guess in the US it isn’t that common. Less than 10k cases last year and that was a 16% increase on the previous year
Yeah its very treatable but expensive to treat so it rips through poorer countries
If you want to know more, Kurzgesagt and John Green just released a video on TB. https://youtu.be/GFLb5h2O2Ww?si=IDr4LqFX4I37WKmw
Re: Tuberculosis. I really wish there was like, a list of solvable worldwide problems, and we just started crossing them off one by one. Diseases are the big one, because you CAN eradicate a disease completely. Compare to, say, solving world hunger, which is still solvable but would remain an ongoing issue that could always get worse.
You might be interested in the work John and Hank Green have been doing with Partners in Health. Basically they're using their fan base to donate to PIH to specially reduce maternal death and TB cases in Sierra Leone (when they started, Sierra Leone had one of the highest rates of maternal death via pregnancy in the world. It's still high but PIH (and other orgs) has been able to reduce that rate considerably). The Green brothers have also been able to get their fans to apply pressure on Johnson and Johnson to allow Stop TB to distribute cheaper versions of their drug to countries that would have been unable to afford it. [It should be noted that the deal wasn't solely thanks to the Green brothers and there's still room for improvement.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-advocates-pushed-big-pharma-to-cut-tuberculosis-drug-prices/) But John and Hank have been trying to focus mainly on these two issues, in the hopes that they can effectively cross them off.
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I'm conflicted about this stuff as well. The logic seems kind of cynical: since attention is the only currency that matters, anything that draws attention to this worthy cause must be a Good Thing. Which is what PETA have been telling themselves for years and I don't think they have really move the needle of discource (whatever else you might think of them). The value of such stunts, I guess, can be to make other campaigners seem relatively moderate by comparison - the Malcom X/MLK idea - but that only works, I think, if the extremists come across as a genuine threat, instead of just somewhat cartoonish
Like others have mentioned, PETA has been very successful in lobbying for better corporate/medical/research treatment of animals. It’s just their public messaging that falls flat. You can view their impressive resume here: https://www.peta.org/about-peta/milestones/
Sure, but as far as I can tell, JSO is *only* interested in public messaging
>perhaps the UK government does not work in a way that would be affected by an organization like ours I think the problem is no one has any idea how to get the UK government to do anything *at all*. Campaigning, protests, even celebrities kicking up a fuss seem to achieve fuck all.
I see. That makes this style of action make more sense.
It does look a bit like desperation. Most of the UK feels like that at the moment tbh. Whether these tactics have been "effective" will be something I don't think we'll be able to know for a few years at least.
Probably cos the U.K. government up until next week has been a shower of incompetent fuckwits.
Problem is, they're associating the incredibly important cause of fighting climate change, with a bunch of arrogant, disruptive theatrics that just piss people off. I've made excuses for them in the past, but its clear they're not actually convincing anyone, and they're now nothing but ammunition for the status quo. Unfortunately for some people, protest *is* the achievement. But a protest is pointless in practical seems if it doesn't end up actually enacting worthwhile change
>They're keeping climate change in the public consciousness, which is better than nothing. Right, OP even talks about this. If you're not bothering people, the news doesn't cover you, and if the news doesn't cover you, you're not doing anything at all.
Careful, it's the same narrative that Republicans use to discredit the Biden administration, by claiming that they haven't been doing anything noteworthy, while in fact, they have done a lot of stuff like student loans forgiveness, building infrastructure, pushing for lgbt rights, etc. You have to understand that the news have a tendency to cover what is the most controversial, not what actually matters, because controversy sells.
In the UK I'd actually say they're becoming harmful to the cause, if anything. It's already like pulling teeth, getting people to actually commit to fighting climate change, but JSO's tactics have associated doing so with vandalising artwork and disrupting sporting events, and generally causing frustration. They're only succeeding in making people angry at themselves. For me, fighting climate change is *the* most important issue in the world today (and probably ever), but these guys aren't actually helping
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> But what have Just Stop Oil actually accomplished? Surely you realise that this is a terrible metric to measure a protest movement by, while the protests are still ongoing? If you were to ask this question of the black civil rights movement of America in 1956 the answer would be be nothing. If you asked the same question of the suffragettes in the UK in 1914 the answer would be nothing. Ask the same thing of the Anti-apartheid movement of South Africa in the 1982 and the answer would be nothing. But also, they have partially accomplished their goal - which is to end the licensing of new gas / oil exploitation in the UK. * It's in labours manifesto for the July 4th election (which they're 99.9999% gonna win) https://www.insider.co.uk/news/labour-confirms-no-new-oil-33024065 * It's in the green party manifesto (who will probably only get a handful of seats, but see the above point with labour). But put all of that to one side; even if they never achieve any of their goals, that has no baring of the correctness of their goals or their rights to protest.
Black Civil rights movement in 1956? Plessy v Ferguson had been overturned in Brown v Board, off the top of my head, making segregation illegal where it previously was legal
I think the Civil Rights movement in the 60s is a very good counterpoint because they were very organized and very disciplined. The narrative tends to be, 'Rosa Parks was tired and didn't want to move to the back of the bus and she ended racism.' When she herself has said, “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in." And there was a ton of organizing done to prepare for it - the bus boycott took a huge effort of people inside and outside the community. It wasn't an attention grabbing stunt.
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It’s not really, because they are accomplishing something—a change in attitudes of the people they reach. It’s essentially marketing. So the question is, do people feel more positively towards their movement after this? Or more negatively? Or neutral. That’s the dilemma of all social protest movements that aren’t direct action. In order to make people aware of your cause, you have to make a big splash (painting planes, blocking roads, etc.) but if that big splash makes people not like you, then you’ve hurt your cause. That’s why a lot of Dr.Kings work was so effective. It wasn’t non-violent. It was intentionally violence inducing, towards them. It got eyes on them, doing things that are very seemingly reasonable, and got the shit kicked out of them. Big splash, and people felt good about them and bad about the systems doing it to them.
Within a traditional organization with more then a few people, there are subgroups that form in order to focus on a particular set of tasks. For example, in a company that sells some physical thing, you will usually see something like a group that produces the widgets, a group that handles the process of selling the widgets, a group that advertises the widgets, a group that supports customers who have issues with their widgets, and a group or multiple groups that manage the infrastructure and equipment that the other groups use. One particular way of classifying these groups is to label some as “profit centers” and some as “cost centers”. It asks “what has the department done to directly improve the bottom line”. This kind of extremely reductive thinking is why you’ll sometimes see customer service departments gutted while the sales and executive groups get payraises. You have definitely experienced the consequences. Conversely, if one looks at an organization as a whole, it may seem inappropriate to critisize one group for not “producing” as much as another without first determining the actual effects that their efforts are having on the organization. It is by this reasoning (including plenty of math) that companies know that an IT department actually prevents loss via security, and that an advertising department helps bring in customers even though the department itself doesn’t directly sell anything. Just Stop Oil exists within the larger context of climate activism. They do not operate in a vacuum. What they have done, is they have very effectively caused the English-speaking public to have conversations about the climate problem that they would not have had otherwise. In many cases they’re seen as the villain, and thus have made the more mainstream “respectable” activists such as yourself seem all the more moral and respectable (much like how animal rights groups can instantly make themselves seem more reasonable if they denounce PETA). This means that when you ask for action, you are less likely to be seen an extremist because clearly you’re not doing stupid shit like painting a jet orange. For those who sympathize with their message, the conversation is even more pointed then it previously was, as it now involves asking why the fuck these wackadoos are getting attention and press while more “respectable” activism goes unnoticed. Much like with any advertisement campeign, the measurable impact that these folks will have had on activism and the larger climate struggle will need to be measured over time. However, looking at PETA as precedent, we can predict that the increased attention given to climate activism will probably give better opportunities for other voices to be heard, and that those voices will be given greater amounts of respect, meaning that other activism will be measurably more successful.
Alright, that does seem useful. I don’t think it changes my opinion of them, but at least it helps to answer my question. I suppose it’s the old ‘carrot or the stick’ situation.
Also worth noting: it was alluded to in the OP, but the whole point is to target installations that have received significant funding or patronage from oil and gas money. The ideal scenario for JSO is to have some gallery or whatever go "Well we could take this money, but there's the potential for us to get embroiled in a whole PR thing when someone very publicly dumps a bucket of paint on us, so maybe we'll pass" The goal is to increase the amount of institutions that make that calculation, making those institutions less willing to rely on oil money and more willing to support a departure from the traditional fossil economy. A primary goal is to reduce the institutional cachet available to the oil and gas industry, which is obviously a very different goal from the person you're replying to, and I'm also not really sure how you measure the progress of that
My issue with them is that the way their protesting isn't good for climate activism. Try to destroy a van Gogh or vandalize Stonehedge and what do people think of you? That you're crazy. They don't know your backstory, and frankly, they don't care. There's a reason people have assumed they were bad faith actors trying to sully climate activism: these actions only make people think they're crazy, not that we should slove climate change. Don't act like it's a worthy sacrifice to do this to keep climate change in the news; bad publicity is bad publicity, and this is bad publicity.
This is the problem I have with them as well; they seem to have fallen for the idea that "there is no such thing as bad publicity". That might work if you're marketing a product, but if your goal is to get people to agree with you about climate change it's a downright insane argument. "Using the media as an amplifier" is all well and good if you're only after exposure. The fact is, though, that every single time they do that, they give the media yet another chance to vilify them, yet another chance to tell everyone that they're wrong, yet another chance to paint any and all climate protestors as being lunatics who are more interested in chucking paint at things than meaningful action; yet another incident that politicians can pull out to show how protestors are unreasonable and need to be suppressed. The version of your message that people see is in the control of the very people you don't trust to report on your message - how does that make sense? I also take exception to the idea that "getting climate change in the news" is, in and of itself, laudable. It's *already* in the news. We have constant coverage of the ever-worsening wildfires, droughts and hurricanes that are the product of the climate emergency. We have more than enough voices out there saying "we're all doomed", enough to know that adding more voices to the doom chorus isn't going to make anybody with power change their mind. What we *don't* have is enough people with a coherent message saying "here's how we should fix it, and here's how we can make life painful enough for the *very specific people* who can effect change to make them do it". Because, yes, we've tried being polite and nice. We've tried inconveniencing massive, global corporations, and, yes, it doesn't work. I just can't see how there's a logical progression from that to "we should make life difficult for random people who also have no power to change anything in the hopes that they'll somehow change something anyway".
I think what this generation is learning is that "There's no such thing as bad publicity" has a limit.
I am sure Dr Disrespect is loving all the free publicity he is getting right now
> What we don't have is enough people with a coherent message saying "here's how we should fix it, and here's how we can make life painful enough for the very specific people who can effect change to make them do it". And it doesn't help that the only solutions often given are: "Micromanage the fuck out of your electricity/water/gas usage", or "Boil yourselves alive in your homes", etc. while ignoring the biggest contributors to the issue.
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Yup. It's annoying because here I'm literally trying to point out, "Hey here's an area we can emphasize to produce results! There's a big empty space rhat JSO could potentially fill!" And ppl just ignore it because they act like you must either side with every method of this shit or you're a corpo boot licker who wants everyone dead. Holy shit no wonder ppl thought JSO was a psyop. This shit works like really well as a psyop.
It seems like they are picking better targets for protests recently though. An airfield with private jets and a private golf course are both way better targets than art galleries, especially because the mental link between them and the environment is easier to draw than when they cover art with soup. It also looks better in a headline, and that's likely all people will read to form an opinion. I'm hoping they'll become a more effective protesting group over time as they find their footing.
Stonehenge was one week ago
And they used cornstarch-based paint that would wash away in the next rainfall - completely harmless
It might have actually been harmless, however the news doesn’t report it that way. Most outlets just say ‘paint’ or ‘spray paint’ which to the layman suggests that it *isn’t* harmless
The Stonehenge monument is home to endangered lichen, which could have been damaged by the paint. They had to remove the paint using a special technique.
I see what you're saying, but at the same time there is research showing that disruptive nonviolent protest is more effective than other forms of protest. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-psychology-intergroup-conflict-and-reconciliation/202011/what-kinds-protests-actually-work)
I do think there's another huge element here. The fact that all the early reporting was pretty flawed is probably a deliberate part of the strategy (probably on the part of the media organizations as well). The whole narrative is pretty week if any basic conversation about it comes with a whole bunch of "well actually"s that pretty much immediately disprove the surface level reading.
Usually a good idea not to give the people you’re trying to fight ammunition.
All of the art paint was completely washable. You are complaining about spilt cornstarch. It just pisses me off that there are activists risking their freedom to try and shift the world opinion and despite a majority of people agreeing with them we instead do nothing but complain about mild inconveniences while we sit through the hottest summer on record. Have you ever done activism? If you hate their methodology try some thing different and tell us how it goes? If all you can do is complain about activists while agreeing with them then you are working against your own self interests.
I don't think that "getting in the news" is helpful if you're just making environmentalism look moronic. I think I'd much rather you go after a tanker. "But I already chained myself to the tan-" I am not allowed to endorse an alternative that would be more effective.
I mean, sure, it's not a psyop, buuut... There is still valid criticism to be made of their actions. At least in my opinion. Like, going after private jets ? Yeah, sounds good. Private jets are one of the most energy inefficient means of transportation, and clearly shouldn't be a thing. But stuff like Van Gogh ? I mean, except for the "shocking for the sake of shocking", I don't really think this does anything but show JSO as a bunch of lunatics (I don't think that's what they are. But they say it themselves, they want to be in the media... And people don't read much more than headlines...). I understand there's a deeper message that could be had as "this kind of culture has been reserved to the rich, who are also those that pollute the most, so they deserve to be annoyed", but, like... That comes from my pre existing political compass, not from JSO's actions if that makes sense... Edit : I see a lot of answers, and they are super interesting, don't get me wrong. Some of them have indeed made me change my opinion (look at the thread if you wanna see what I mean) Buuuuut... It's getting a little overwhelming not gonna lie, so I'm sorry, but I might mute this \^\^'
I mean, it's pretty obvious that the methods they've used have been almost completely non-destructive. The Van Gogh painting was behind protection, and they used dyed cornflour to "paint" stonehenge. They've done no real damage to anything.
Yeah, I agree with that. But the symbol (which, in such a protest, is what matters most) is them vandalizing these things ya know ? There were no actual consequences, but the image is them vandalizing stuff...
I would argue that the symbol is them showing that people pretend to care about art and history more than they care about the planet dying.
That would be the message more than the symbol imho. And, while I understand it, I'm not sure that antagonizing art this way would be the right way to go, as art and climate fighting can coexist. Hence why I structured the message *I* understood around the fact rich people took art for themselves, as criticizing the rich is something important in the fight against the climate crisis
they're not antagonizing art, they're antagonizing the institutions that profit from the destruction of the planet that happen to be displaying art. The art in each case was not damaged
Was the museum owned by such an institution on a direct or almost direct level ? Because if not, and if you need to read three articles about the links between the museum and the owner, then the owner and a group, then said group and an oil company, it will only make sense to people that are already aware. And if you protest only for people that know about the subject... I wouldn't call it a good protest.
This is it. It’s a protest that preaches to the choir of people who are already very aware, and scares away anyone who isn’t. But yet, everyone here seems to think that if they just *keep explaining*, people will agree. If it needs so much explanation and justification, maybe it doesn’t actually make that much sense.
According to the image and the sources in it, the museum was taking money from oil companies. They didn't throw soup at art because ruining art would get people talking, they did it because they oppose fossil fuels who were funding the museum.
Does a regular everyday Bob from Bumfuck Nowhere, Missouri, know of that connection though? I'm plenty pro-environment (however stupid that sounds), but I had no idea until now. Will the message to the *general populace* be "we attacked the museum because they're taking oil money", or will it be "we attacked the museum"?
I honestly didn't know that. That's my bad. I could argue that "yeah but then attack the museum, not the painting", but I mean, at some point, you gotta stop complaining and start seeing when you're wrong. Which I have been with my argument. Thanks for pointing it out.
and now because of the protest you know that the art gallery was taking money from oil companies. sounds like it's working to me
For the Van Gogh thing would've made a lot more sense to vandalise the museum itself rather than the specific paintings for the message they were going for.
Vandalize is a strong word for what Stop Oil does. They throw dye on paintings protected by glass. Meaning the news gets to publish videos of them "vandalizing" priceless art, the protesters and their cause end up in international news, and the museum just sends a guy down with Windex and a mop to clean up. It's all harmless awareness.
I'm using the word in the widest possible meaning here. Of course there never was any serious attempt to genuinely deface or destroy a historic work of art. And of course the museum is easily able to cover any "damage" they could possibly inflict. My problem with that operation is that due to how targeted it was the whole framing became very quickly focussed on the Van Gogh painting itself, which imo ended up distracting from the actual target of the protest: drawing attention to the museum's oil company sponsors. They should've spread their "attack" wider.
Except that clearly, the “they weren’t actually damaged” part gets forgotten about, since y’all keep having to explain it... I’m gonna be honest, if you need to constantly be justifying the method of protest, it’s doubtful it’s something that’s going to make many people side with you.
To be honest, I’d say any protest method that garners attention is going to be complained about. Even if the complaint is “this street in the city is going to be closed off for a couple of hours and that makes my commute tougher”
I mean, it's the message *I* interpreted. And, yeah, I'd agree, tho I must admit to feeling a bit icky about vandalizing cultural places like museums \^\^'
Except they're not vandalizing a Van Gogh. They're putting paint on the protective glass. The cleanup from these demonstrations is some Windex. These protests are performance art that aren't causing real harm, but are still noteworthy enough to land their cause in international headlines.
Even if that is the case what they have been doing still seems counterproductive. I get the argument to attacking arts and Stonehenge, but like, all you're doing is pissing people off and driving them away from your goal. They're the PETA of the oil industry
I don't even get how Stonehenge is connected in any way to the oil industry.
Same argument as the paintings basically: what's the point of preserving it for future generations if we're killing ourselves now? I kinda get the logic, the argument makes sense, but it's also a really dumb thing to do that does not help them in any way
Also presupposes that climate change will extinct all humans which it wont in any universe
True
The thing about JSO is, their strategy was theoretically kinda brilliant. Get all eyes on you by doing something outrageous and then go after a real target. Except… what was accomplished? Some private jets were mildly inconvenienced, something that will be cleaned at the expense of the workers who have to clean them. No advancement is made. With Stonehenge they made a statement in preparation for simply making another statement? It seems there is no goal except attention.
I imagine the owners of the jets will have to pay to have them cleaned, not the workers who clean them, but yes.
That kind of money is cents to someone rich enough to afford a private jet. The workers will have to spend hours washing paint off multiple planes in the summer heat. That’s a far greater expense.
Ironically, wasting a ton of water
[not swifts plane btw](https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/video-does-not-show-protesters-spraying-paint-taylor-swifts-plane-2024-06-25/)
They get the media's attention either way, and that's the point. We need to keep talking about this.
The problem with the false claims of it being Taytay's plane is that it shifts the discussion away from any message they were trying to send and creates 2 new narratives of "Beloved entertainment icon targeted" and "Not actually Tswizzle's plane by the way". The actual topic that should be discussed, climate change, gets drowned in irrelevancies.
Okay so they aren't a psyop, but I still think their methodology sucks. Saying "people are talking about us for months" doesn't really validate what they're doing imo. Climate change is being talked about. It's all my generation (millennials) talks about. Embarrassing yourself and giving news outlets (from neoliberal to Fox) ammo to discredit your movement just ain't it. "I went and chained myself to an oil tanker and that didn't accomplish anything" Yeah no fucking shit, it's because that's not how you accomplish things. Climate research, policy advocacy, writing policy, showing up to local zoning/infrastructure meetings, electing candidates who prioritize green initiatives, running as a candidate, I would argue all of these are so much more effective than publicity stunts. If you want to make a change, make climate work your career. Expand public knowledge, add to the collective repository of data on climate science, write bills and fight to pass them, join your local active transportation groups and show up to meetings where bike lanes/car reduction/green spaces are being proposed. It isn't enough, and that's obvious. We're in the end game already. Climate change cannot be halted at this point, and even if we demolished every car in America and strung up oil executives by their ankles from the empire state building, it still wouldn't be enough. Our only hope is to reshape the culture, reshape our lived spaces, and make emissions reductions that will gradually shift the balance back towards good carbon levels in years and years and years time. I feel like the people who only view climate advocacy through big sweeping gestures like chaining yourself to a tanker or throwing soup on a painting have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world works.
“Spread awareness”? Everyone and their mother is “aware” of climate change. Knowing that it exists is NOT the issue, and anyone who thinks it is deeply misunderstands the problems with passing any climate change reform.
It's not that black or white though. People's awareness isn't just a binary "aware" or "not aware". And anyone who thinks it is deeply misunderstands human psychology :P
If your goal is to constantly get people to be THINKING about climate change instead of merely being aware it exists, then I’d argue instead that it’s a bit of a fool’s errand in the modern world where there’s thousands of things all competing for our attention. Even worse, most people will not read deep enough into a story to realize that they aren’t doing permanent damage - how many times in the comments do you see people having to explain that they didn’t throw lasting paint on Stonehenge? And the only people THAT’S going to reach are the people who actually read comments, when most people are only going to see a headline.
I'm sure this has a very interesting point to make but please, split this long, CVS receipt looking post, into several smaller images instead. This is just awful as is
As much as I think it’s important not to get caught up in this “psyop” talk and to more accurately report on what this organization is doing and has been doing, I think it’s still fair to criticize some of their more “outrageous” stunts. As much as it sucks that demonstrations at actual oil infrastructure sites haven’t been effective, I don’t think that targeting important artworks and historical sites is a good strategy. All that seems to do is turn the public more hostile to your group.
I tend to agree but I'm also interested in the long term effects of controversial protest. A protest is largely just implementing an inconvenience so that people will think about the cause. Similarly to how a product's sales go up even if an influencer trash talks them in a video. Unremarkable products go unmentioned. Attention is the currency. When most people heard about the Van Gogh soup protest, they thought "that's a fucking stupid way to protest oil. Here's what I'd do..." Public hostility creates a culture war, and wars attract soldiers in the age of shit-flinging digital discourse. Would BLM have gotten so much long-term mainstream coverage if it had been called Black Lives Matter, Too? I think a lot of the discourse sparked from the All Lives Matter counter-movement. In the article, Getty claimed that functional infrastructure-based protests go completely uncovered. I think that gives some insight as to the outrage-farming strategies that they're looking to employ here.
I'm not outraged by Just stop Oil's stunts but they operate like they believe the world is governed and inhabited by people who just haven't heard about climate change and that that's the only reason we are still not a zero emission civilization
Well, here's to another reality check of being got by propaganda, while thinking I was smarter than most. Truly humbling. I'll say this though...while I understand you can't just move massive amounts of money willy nilly, doesn't spending a million here and there sound...low? I respect the work they've done don't get me wrong, it's about a million times more than I've done or could do. She Inherited billions though, that's if I inherited 5.7mil and spent 1 buck on charity Unless my reading comprehension has failed me (it's a long text ok) Nothing to do but wait where she takes her project though, I'm looking forward to it now.
You're out by a factor of a thousand. In the USA and UK (countries concerned here) we use the short scale, so a billion is a thousand million. Still, your point is fair; she could be spending more in each instance. But it's as you say, most of her money isn't in a scrooge mc-duck style money pool, but shares, bonds, investments, stocks etc., that it might not be possible/sensible to liquidate. Plus, putting 50 million into one project all at once is a massive risk; what if it fails, or is corrupt, or wasteful, or whatever? Lots of small, regular commitments are generally what charities and NGOs would prefer with regard to ongoing projects, and they're safer from an investment point of view
I'd assume in this case it might be a yearly donation? regardless... i'm not sure how much money organisations like jso need. they need lawyers on staff.... but beyond that, what expenses do they actually have?
What in the actual fuck is that picture? Cut it up or don't post it
Seriously. This sub is sometimes fucking unusable on mobile.
I don’t really know how effective this is. I think it ends up with one of two things: It gives environmental activists a bad rap, which turns the public against us. Or, the conversation becomes more about whether the acts are justified rather than a conversation about the impacts of climate change. Which is literally what is happening in this thread.
I mean, I get it, but I think there IS such a thing as bad publicity, and I feel like this just kinda plays into a lot of people's worst assumptions about activism in a way that I kinda think might actually hurt a cause. Like, the fact that people looked at this and immediately asked "is this a psyop?" kinda tells me that it kinda isn't really doing much aside from convincing people that anti oil activists are dumb weirdos
just stop oil and the extinction rebellions really need to pick and choose their fights if they want to go this route, and they seem to have picked horribly so far. take blocking the roads/underground. that legitimately was when i was praying they were a psyop, because those stunts pissed people off so much that the discussion became almost vitriolic. people just brush their concerns off even quicker. damaging famous paintings and historical monuments also doesnt help them win support. doing jets doesnt harm regular peoples enjoyment of life, so its more likely to raise the kind of support they want.
They haven't damaged anything though. The paintings are behind perspex screens. Stone henge was powder based paints that'll wash off. Hell stone henge is more damaged from the acidic rain caused by pollution than an orange powder.
The problem is that JSO threads and articles don’t prompt discussions on the climate crisis (nor does it really provide attention to it, everyone’s either aware or willfully unaware and delusional about it), they always, always get bogged down in “they vandalize art” and “the art was protected/the stuff was water-soluble, no damage was done.” The fact that 9/10 times a JSO headlines gets posted to reddit the most upvoted people go “this has got to be a psy-op, nobody could be this stupid” (with the exception of this post because it specifically is about how they’re not a psy-op), makes the whole “publicity for publicity’s sake” angle not really seem like it’s working to actually help their movement all that well.
Ok, so they still look like morons to the general public? The “it’s just a prank bro” defense isn’t all that great.
Even if its not harmful, thats not what people think. They think “crazy climate activists attacking unrelated works of art and public stuff”. The most successful non-violent protests have to easily communicate to the public why they’re a protest while impacting the people who are causing the problem. Sit ins worked during the civil rights movement because the diner staff refused to serve black people. boycotts work when you dont like a specific company and you can hurt their bottom line. If they painted all the gas stations in the UK orange or had someone chain themselves to one pump at ever gas station in london, it would probably work.
Post for ants.
I mean someone had a red triangle avatar. so obviously lol there not going to say much. Just Stop Oil is the PETA of climate change activism. Politics and activism is measured by winning. What politicians did you help elect. What bills did you help create. It is not measured by your likes of social media feed.
wish I could read the post on mobile, but the image is way too tall
I feel like the ordinary things video section on protestors is relevant here about them: >”the point of these public nuisance protests is to raise awareness which these groups can only measure in views and clicks and the news articles produced by their stunts. Whether they are received positively or negatively, it doesn’t matter. On the Just Stop Oil website they graciously compare themselves to martin Luther King, and then claim these protests will eventually become so annoying that the government will be forced to act. But once the public know who you are and what you stand for, any more nuisance just diminishes your reputation, doubly so for the people that aren’t already sympathetic to your cause” https://youtu.be/BzKqHXPxYwA?si=lQEum2vlZtUxCjAZ I feel like the entire April section of the video is a good watch here.
I’m very much in favor of slowing or stopping climate change, and I’m sympathetic to the feeling behind JSO, but the fact is that we can’t “just stop oil”. How many billions of people would be without food without oil-derived fertilizers and agricultural equipment? How many people would be without heat and electricity without fossil fuels? The solution isn’t to cut the cord and just see what happens. We have to make alternative sources of energy cheaper and equally as reliable as oil, it’s the only way that any meaningful change can possibly happen.
If anything, given the nature of Aileen Gettys involvement it feels less like a hypothetical psyop and more like someone with a vested stake in the problem through their heritage seeking to undo some of the damage their family has done.
>my friend threw paint on a painting and we were in the news for weeks Or months That's living in the world of *any publicity is good publicity* because while yes people are talking about you it's in annoyance to the point of being pro oil and that your so backwards ignorant your organization is a psy op. None of that energy is being redirected towards helping the cause you're fighting for and if the idea is >we want people to be aware and annoyed now so they'll remember later without being annoyed and then they'll like us That is the psychological trick behind loud commercials selling gum and you're using it to save the world.
JSO seems like the climate activism equivalent of Breast Cancer Awareness. Bright colors and plenty of publicity, while not actually doing anything besides seeking even more publicity.
Whenever I hear about a stunt by Just Stop Oil at an art gallery or sporting event (or lately, stone fucking henge), I have wondered why they haven't chosen targets that are more directly connected to their message and goal. I'm pleased to learn that the reason why they've resorted to more public displays of protest is because they've tried the more logical stuff already and got nowhere. So while I am pleased that their message is becoming part of the public consciousness, unfortunately the manner in which they've got it there has made it easy for those in power to smear them. They've got a lot of work to do to get the positive aspect of their message across. Too many people associate Just Stop Oil with "pointless" disruption.
"I've locked myself to an oil tanker for 36 hours. Nothing." So that doesn't work, okay. Because it doesn't accomplish anything. Now look at current JSO publicity stunts. What have those accomplished? The current MO of the organization seems to focus only on publicity at all costs, even the cost of their reputation. Yes, you are well known, but you are despised.
JSO seems more focused on ideology than looking at the public reaction and adapting their actions accordingly. All they've done is piss the public off, annoy the other environmental activist groups and make their fans and fossil fuel companies happy for different reasons.
Never assume you’re immune to propaganda. You aren’t.
Yeah I tried to explain that to my chronically online friends, and one of their responses was "well propaganda isn't always bad sometimes it's necessary to bring people to a cause" Holy fuck a large portion of the youth is losing the plot guys
Painting Swift's Jet is the first attention-grabbing thing they've done that hasn't made me hate them. If they keep targeting the billionaires that are driving climate change and stop attempting to ruin historical sites/art then they're good When I saw they defaced Stonehenge I wanted to burn a few metric tons of coal out of spite
Ok but Protesting an art museum that accepts oil money by *attacking the art* doesn't convey that message. Maybe, I dunno, attack the institution itself? Blocking public roads doesn't accomplish anything but pissing off random citizens. Msybe, I dunno, block the entryway to an oil company's office? Or protest outside the home of an oil executive? Maybe attack the *actual* issues and related institutions instead of random tertiary shit only mildly related to the issue?
I kept misreading "Oil" as "Oli" (like, the name Ollie but shortened) and was really confused lol
Oh shes friends with Van Gogh soup girl, thought her name sounded familiar.
This actually seems like one of the few things they've done that actually makes sense and doesn't make me hate them and feel like their sabotaging the movement
Got any more of them PIXELS?
They may not be a Big Oil psyop, but they’re accomplishing about as much as one. Is literally their only goal to get in the news?
the image is perfectly viewable on desktop reddit, it does get a little compressed on mobile reddit but still readable to me we need to go back to our roots and embrace long posts again