Because Random People Must Be Punished
Update:
In the comments, Rafi notes that “The difference between leftwing ‘activism’ and the zombie apocalypse gets smaller by the day.” While Randian adds, “If your cause requires bullying to get the message across perhaps it, and your defence of it, isn’t as righteous as you think it is.” Well, indeed. But I suppose it depends on whether you’re amused by making people miss flights and hospital appointments, or job interviews, or thwarting parents’ attempts to collect their children from school. That kind of thing.
And regardless of the pretext offered on any given day, you do have to marvel at the moral vacancy of it all, as illustrated by Mr Gothman in the tweet above. Apparently, it “isn’t hard to understand” that the way to make people sympathetic with your cause, whatever it may be this week, is to screw them over – because you can – and then applaud yourself for doing so. Somewhat harder to understand, at least for Mr Gothman, is that his go-to solution, of which he’s so proud – i.e., the gratuitous trapping of motorists – is a moral non sequitur and rather like saying, “I’m troubled by the plight of the Javan rhinoceros, so I’m going to start spitting at the elderly and keying random cars, and then boast about it.”
The Obstructing-Traffic-And-Frustrating-Random-People-While-Feeling-Immensely-Self-Satisfied Thing™ first came to my attention during the Occupy fad-cum-gap-year, and it rapidly degenerated into opportunist thuggery and self-indulgent farce. A high point being when a Mao-ling mother placed her four-year-old daughter on active train tracks.
Since then, in the name of “teaching others to care,” we’ve seen self-righteous mobs deliberately blocking the paths of ambulances and giving paramedics the finger, while exulting in their power to alarm, frustrate and coerce. And to endanger lives with collective impunity. And we’ve seen fearless, selfless anti-Trump protestors surrounding and terrorising a lone female driver by trying to smash her car’s windscreen into her face, and videoing her distress for their own amusement and peer-group cred.
And at which point, what you’re seeing isn’t politics or protest. It’s sociopathy.
We’ve also seen Mao-lings at UC San Diego running into traffic – on a motorway, in the middle of the night. Because terrorising random motorists is the woke thing to do, apparently. And then, when one of them got hurt – which will tend to happen if you swarm onto a motorway in the dark – the Mao-lings immediately started blaming someone else – anyone but the people who actually chose to run into the path of oncoming traffic. And of course we’ve seen things like these items here and many others in the archives. All done in the name of forcing others to be compassionate. And comply.
WTP: I had the good fortune to take my Earth & Atmospheric Sciences course at Georgia Tech under a man widely known as a “denier” (though I didn’t know that when I signed up). I was already something of an aggressive AGW skeptic, but I could see others in that class absolutely blindsided when he brought in detailed information on the rock cycle. It was simply not something that was expected – not only a seed of doubt, but from an avenue they had not even been taught to consider.
Geologist Unperson: “Hey, kids – did you know that erosion patterns, tectonic upheaval, and sequestration of carbonates have a larger effect on levels of CO2 than any human activity? And that CO2 release accelerates with increases in temperature? I’m not suggesting anything by this (like that CO2 levels track temperature changes instead of causing them), *wink*.”
I’m greatly paraphrasing of course, but it was a treat. He went into the chemical processes in detail, to a captive audience.
Sporkatus,
Yes, well yesterday I was getting bombarded with the different “markers” or some such of CO2 that can be seen in ice core samples starting in 1855 which are different than natural CO2 or some such. I tried to point out that the amount of industrial pollution going on in 1855 was so infinitesimally small that the margins of error on such sampling would be highly suspect. Which is mostly my issue with AGW in general, these things are not as measurable, at least with the parameters of confidence factors being spouted, to come to the conclusions that are being arrived at with such a significant degree of confidence. I’m not even disputing AGW or warming in general, just that the level of confidence that it is happening, to the degree it is being advertised as happening, is way out of proportion to what is humanly measurable. That and that I’ve seen this pattern before when we were “headed to a new ice age” 30 years ago. That’s all I’m willing to get into on the subject. Yet even this little bit of disagreement casts me into the lump of deniers of all science. Because They’re Blinding Me With Science. And note, I have to work with these guys so…and one is my lead. Actually all three are in one way or another people I report to.
Heh…so hearing over the wall today…”Fear is an illusion my friend. It was created by people in power to control the masses”
It’s easy to get dragged down into the weeds of confusing detail when talking about things this complicated, and you can torture the data to say just about anything. When dealing with people who lack a basic understanding of the scientific method, I find it more useful to ignore all the research malfeasance and just go straight to the basic theoretical model:
It’s easy to get dragged down into the weeds of confusing detail when talking about things this complicated, and you can torture the data to say just about anything. When dealing with people who lack a basic understanding of the scientific method, I find it more useful to ignore all the research malfeasance and just go straight to the basic theoretical model:
“The thing about science is you don’t need to know all the details to evaluate it. What the theory says either matches reality, or it doesn’t. Now, we’ve been at this for twenty years. Have any – any – of the claims made about global warming catastrophe actually happened? More hurricanes? California underwater? No more snow? Anything?
Yeah, funny you should mention that. Precisely where I tried to take it with two of them. I was shown a .gov web site with shrinking polar ice caps. Because they are shrinking. Depending on where you move the start/end points. I’ve gotten into very similar conversations about the relative values of certain stocks and/or indexes and demonstrated to people that by moving the goal posts slightly one way or the other, you can make radical changes appear. I’ve even tried to tie such complexity analysis into AGW discussions in the past. It really doesn’t matter. And like I said in my last post, “I’ve seen this pattern before when we were “headed to a new ice age” 30 years ago”. It’s like arguing religion. Or more specifically, (and to be clear I’m not an atheist) trying to get most religious persons to consider the possibility that there is no God and/or what that might mean. Poof, I’m an atheist. Heh…and don’t get me started on virgins having babies.
Rafi,
The difference between leftwing ‘activism’ and the zombie apocalypse gets smaller by the day.
For example.
Seriously, who sets themselves up as a “human piñata”?
It’s easy to get dragged down into the weeds of confusing detail when talking about things this complicated, and you can torture the data to say just about anything. …Have any – any – of the claims made about global warming catastrophe actually happened? More hurricanes? California underwater? No more snow? Anything?
Another useful thing to do: ask “do these global warming catastrophists behave like honest people, or like liars who are trying to conceal evidence and silence those who disagree?”
Right, I’m off to a niece’s 21st birthday meal. There will be lasagna, wine and, I’ve been warned, chatting about something called Love Island. Which I’m now Googling.
Oh.
It’s the media’s fault for uncritically amplifying the alarmism of the professional propagandists of the Climate Cult. People will side with whatever they hear repeated and whatever they think will result in the least amount of hassle to themselves. Then they become emotionally or “intellectually” invested and can’t back out of the position since they essentially allowed themselves to be intimidated into it.
I was shown a .gov web site with shrinking polar ice caps.
You let yourself get dragged into the weeds.
“do these global warming catastrophists behave like honest people, or like liars who are trying to conceal evidence and silence those who disagree?”
Another variant: “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”
One tactic I’ve used is bypassing all the virtue signalling and going straight to the end game. India and China are by far the largest CO2 emitters, and they’ve made it quite clear that they are not going to cripple their economy with silly international agreements about limiting emissions. If things really are as bad as they say, then India and China are engaged in what amounts to a casus belli against the rest of the world. Europe and The Americas could go zero-carbon overnight and it would make no difference, according to the doomsayers’ own arguments.
Clearly, then, the only way to save the planet is a pre-emptive invasion and conquest of India and China.
Then they become emotionally or “intellectually” invested and can’t back out of the position
It’s orders of magnitude easier to con someone than to get them to admit they’ve been conned. That’s the real problem here. Acknowledging the overwhelming evidence against CAGW is tantamount to saying “I’m stupid”.
Does the Love Boat stop at Love Island?
Speaking of things versus reality, I give you the case for a pregnant male emoji.
Riiiight.
Someone haz a sad. It never ceases to amaze me the things these idiots come up with over which to fret.
“A slightly differently sized baseball is vitally important, but I guess there just wasn’t enough time to consider transgender and non-binary people.”
=====
There are far more softballs in existence, and they are infinitely more useful.
. . . something called Love Island. Which I’m now Googling.
Oh.
Yeah, just from the title, that sounds like a futility show.
SJW? SRB is closer (self-righteous bullies).
“…but a good rule of thumb in America is that even showing, much less using, a gun will cost you AT LEAST $10,000.00.
Not in America, the blue states, maybe.”
I hate to break it to you, Farnsworth, but as a TX CHL holder, I can tell you it’s not true.
Yes, we have some of the most robust self-defense laws in creation. We’ve also had mayors and police chiefs in places like Houston, Austin, and any other blue jurisdictions openly state that they don’t care; any report of “man with a gun” will earn you an arrest with appropriate force, a confiscated gun, and a charge of “disturbing the peace”, etc. Never mind any charges that come about from any stray rounds; TX does not have a law that says those charges will be made against your assailant. If it came from your gun, it’s on you.
“Sec. 9.05. RECKLESS INJURY OF INNOCENT THIRD PERSON. Even though an actor is justified under this chapter in threatening or using force or deadly force against another, if in doing so he also recklessly injures or kills an innocent third person, the justification afforded by this chapter is unavailable in a prosecution for the reckless injury or killing of the innocent third person.”
Then there’s the civil side. There is no such thing as loser pays. While section 83 does immunize you IF you were justified, it doesn’t prevent the suit from ever being filed. While you can use that as a justification, there’s still going to be a trial.
https://www.uslawshield.com/texas-can-you-be-sued-in-civil-court-for-self-defense/
In all circumstances, you will be shelling out for lawyers, and in those aforementioned blue jurisdictions, the jury pool is “filtered” for those who aren’t gun friendly.
These left-wing idiots have thus far been content to perform the random, violent acts of stupidity in areas were much of the population is either clueless or easily cowed. Eventually, they are going to try this in the wrong area and learn that many Americans are armed and will use force to defend their lives. It is quite likely to quickly spiral downhill for left-wing idiots at that point. This is inevitable given the left’s clueless, self-righteous moral preening and utter stupidity.