‘A new phase’: why climate activists are turning to sabotage instead of protest

[RE]

I would rebrand this as the "Let's get SERIOUS" moment in the effort to disrupt the inexorable destruction of the planet by the fossil fuels-capitalist economy.  The only question is how many people are committed enough to take the risks involved in doing any kind of worthwhile sabotage?  Probably a decent number in France, not sure about anywhere else.

Definitely a wise idea not to stick around and martyr yourself with an arrest, and also wise to use encrypted communications.  Still, any large groups like Extinction Rebellion are likely to already be thoroughly infiltrated by Deep Cover operatives and even just going to meetings will get you on a watch list.

Definitely though protest isn't working, so some change in tactics is called for.

'A new phase': why climate activists are turning to sabotage instead of protest

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/08/a-new-phase-why-climate-activists-are-turning-to-sabotage-instead-of-protest

RE

[K-Dog]

Sabotage would not be necessary if more people were active.   As things are now, both Trump and Musk would be fools to travel anywhere in America alone.  But what does this have to do with sabotage?  Actions should be proportional to the number of people willing to take them.  That is the connection.

If I am pissed enough to go postal should I meet either Trump or Musk with at a 1% chance, meaning there is a 1% chance I would use my bare hands or any close sharp object to make a strong political statement should I met them.  Then what is the chance from a million people feeling exactly like I do of a single person actually taking an action?

It turns out there is a 88.62 chance from a million people feeling as I do, a chance that 950 to 1050 people would go carpe diem given the opportunity.

The situation for Musk and Trump is the exact reverse of the situation Spock and Kirk are in here.

I like it, the video is terrible so you have to pay attention to the dialog.  How does it relate?

     * In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time if these events occur with a known constant mean rate, and occur independently of the time since the last event.  Spock was more accurate and used the full binomial calculation which is harder to do.

Here 'occur independently of the time since the last event' would not apply, but as in the case of school shootings, the lack of independence means a greater frequency.
     Get some popcorn.  But not for the video, it is only a minute long.  Get popcorn is for the Trump / Musk show.  I think it is a matter of time before this show has another cliffhanger moment.  If normal people are walking around muttering 'Sic semper tyrannis.' under their breath, I'll guess the probability of action is high.

[RE]

You also have to factor in the differences in skills of the 1% of Sic semper tyrranis people.  If one of the pissed off people happens to be a recently fired former FBI Sharpshooter, odds are different than for a recently fired USAID food distributor.

RE

[K-Dog]

You also have to factor in the differences in skills of the 1% of Sic semper tyrranis people.  If one of the pissed off people happens to be a recently fired former FBI Sharpshooter, odds are different than for a recently fired USAID food distributor.

RE

True that,  and age could be a factor.  This woman says things are up to gen Z.

Luigi Mangione Might Be the "FIRST SHOT", Trump-Musk Protester VOWS

She makes a lot of sense.

I don't think we can, I think anyone that says oh we're going to look to the next election, they're delusional.  Honestly we're done with that old system gen Z is the first generation to kind of look at this like decorum, and everything we call it, and be like why are we doing this.  It is not working, so unless the Democrats want to seriously look at themselves and uproot and become a real left party.  Not a like moderate right, and shill for corporate donors.  Listen to the people.  We don't want you shilling for corporate donors.  We want you putting in policies that are going to make us safe, that are going to make us healthy, that are going to give us healthy food.  Like it's not hard!

Hey Hey Ho Ho Elon Musk has got to go

[jupiviv]

"why climate activists are turning to sabotage instead of protest"

...is the wrong and irrelevant question because any such sabotage is bound to be ineffective and perceived as antagonistic by the masses, and correctly so. Why do they see themselves existing apart from the fossil fuel based economy? Why do they believe hydrocarbons and the corporations producing them are the problem to be "solved", in and of themselves, in isolation from the rest of society and the economy and of course, climate "activists"? Why are such sabotages most common in countries that are historically Protestant, a religion that individualizes sin and compartmentalizes guilt i.e, the individual decides what he is guilty of and determines his own penance? One thing I've noticed about climate activism is that (esp young) people who really commit to it tend to get used up and discarded by the people who really matter, i.e those who are able and willing to build careers out of it.

E- just to clarify, the term "the individual" as used in my brief comment on Protestantism refers to individuals who really matter, i.e not peasants, proles, slaves or servants.

[RE]

E- just to clarify, the term "the individual" as used in my brief comment on Protestantism refers to individuals who really matter, i.e not peasants, proles, slaves or servants.

Why don't peasants et al matter?

RE

[jupiviv]

E- just to clarify, the term "the individual" as used in my brief comment on Protestantism refers to individuals who really matter, i.e not peasants, proles, slaves or servants.

Why don't peasants et al matter?

RE

The master has a right to correct his servant moderately, and if he should die under his correction it is not murther, unless it was done with an offensive weapon or with forethought and without provocation.
-Adam Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence

The great philosopher also bitterly denounced slavery in America, especially after they foolishly revolted against the wise and just rule of George III.

It has been the principal cause of the rapid progress of our American colonies towards wealth and greatness that almost their whole capitals have been employed in agriculture... Were the Americans, either by combination or by any other sort of violence, to stop the importation of European manufactures, and, by thus giving a monopoly to such of their own countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, divert any considerable part of their capital into this employment, they would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness.
- The Wealth of Nations

Protestantism whether religious or secular mirrors the innate contradiction between universal and particular characteristic of capitalist modernity, because it developed in tandem with capitalism. In the case of climate "action" the universality of net zero in theory becomes in practice: selective denunciation of "fossil fuels" combined with the usual greentopian mythology... in short, NIMBYism.

[K-Dog]

Protestantism developed in tandem with capitalism?

500 years ago, German peasants revolted – but their faith that the Protestant Reformation stood for freedom was dashed by Martin Luther and the nobility.

Five hundred years ago, in the winter of 1524-1525, bands of peasants roamed the German countryside seeking recruits. It was the start of the German Peasants' War, the largest uprising in Europe before the French Revolution. The peasants' goal was to overturn serfdom and create a fairer society grounded on the Christian Bible. Conflating Protestantism with capitalism is hard to sell.  You could just as easily tie Protestantism up with socialism.

Rejection of abstraction is a key component of a personal relationship with god, but capitalism requires abstraction to function.  If you are confused, abstraction is when you do not care how sausages are made, you just like to eat them.   It is when you make your own fucking rules without regard for anyone else. The commodity fetish depends on abstraction.

The religious element of the peasants' war was central to it. The German peasants were among the first to try to unlock the revolutionary potential of Reformation teachings to fight social and economic injustice.

"Considering that Christ has delivered and redeemed us all, without exception ... it is consistent with Scripture that we should be free." this scream's equality based on Christ's redemption of all without qualification.  It is from the third of the twelve articles that were never actually nailed to a church door.

Concerning The Peasants War, Martin Luther pussied out.  He did not want to die in Rome.

Hard core Christians are very anti-capitalist.  Christians who say otherwise are posers who do not have personal faith.  Same thing with war.  You can be a phony Christian and claim whatever, but if you are a real follower of Christ, thou shall not kill is serious business.  If you say otherwise, all you have it the t-shirt.

Protestantism whether religious or secular.   And a dog who is really a cat. Are you taking speech lessons from Trump?  The art of obfuscation?   Secular Christianity is faith without regard to gaudy mystification, life after death and such.  That I get.  But you are going to have to explain how Protestantism can possibly be secular.  That is ridiculous.

[jupiviv]

500 years ago, German peasants revolted – but their faith that the Protestant Reformation stood for freedom was dashed by Martin Luther and the nobility.

Yes because like I said Protestantism is a product of capitalist modernity, which used the erstwhile Catholic religion/ideology to establish absolute monarchies whose power derived from an emerging capitalist/mercantile class rather than the old feudal networks of kinship and fealty. The peasants' revolts rejected both feudal Catholicism and modern Protestantism, instead using Christian ideological categories to justify their goal of establishing a primitive form of agrarian socialism. Both Protestantism and revolutionary peasant christianity were early forms of atheism because they created god out of the earthly interests of man. And today all so-called "religious" people of all persuasions are atheists because religion was the ideological expression of pre-capitalist systems of exploitation and cannot exist in the current, globalized social order.

Hard core Christians are very anti-capitalist.  Christians who say otherwise are posers who do not have personal faith.  Same thing with war.  You can be a phony Christian and claim whatever, but if you are a real follower of Christ, thou shall not kill is serious business.  If you say otherwise, all you have it the t-shirt.

That's just left-liberal atheism with frills and I myself prefer communism. However Kierkegaard spits hot facts and is definitely worth a read, especially Either/Or and Practice in Christianity.

Protestantism whether religious or secular.   And a dog who is really a cat. Are you taking speech lessons from Trump?  The art of obfuscation?   Secular Christianity is faith without regard to gaudy mystification, life after death and such.  That I get.  But you are going to have to explain how Protestantism can possibly be secular.  That is ridiculous.

The term "secular" when describing any religion means primarily cultural/political rather than theological. Like I said, all religions today are primarily cultural/political by definition.

[K-Dog]

The peasants' revolts rejected both feudal Catholicism and modern Protestantism,

How something that happened five hundred years ago can reject anything modern
is a dimension of thought which with I am unfamiliar.

[jupiviv]

The peasants' revolts rejected both feudal Catholicism and modern Protestantism,

How something that happened five hundred years ago can reject anything modern
is a dimension of thought which with I am unfamiliar.

Not my fault you apparently can't google.

[Fantasy Girl]

I think we have a new troll !

[RE]

How something that happened five hundred years ago can reject anything modern
is a dimension of thought which with I am unfamiliar.

Perhaps he has a philosophical Einstein-Rosen bridge?

Or maybe he is Q?

RE

[jupiviv]

For the google-istically challenged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_era

Now back to the subject of the self-contradictory ethics characteristic of modernity and post-modernity, specifically its expression in climate discourse. Both sides of the climate debate share the belief that "we" have practically infinite reserves of fossil fuels and minerals. Their disagreements about the threat/s posed by climate change occur within the context of that overarching belief in the viability of the current globalized society. So climate politics as a whole are completely oblivious to reality i.e both resource depletion and climate change are interdetermined existential threats springing from the same (also interdetermined) causes.

Religion and politics are both mechanisms for the denial of reality. All hierarchical and exploitative social structures require some form of religion and politics in order to function. The creation of a globalized economy based on scientific production under capitalism subordinated the religious aspect of irrationality to the political one. Religious belief can no longer function as a proxy for the denial of socio-economic contradictions, so it has to launder itself through the more advanced form of denial characteristic of politics. Thus "morality" which used to be a subset of religion is now almost exclusively the domain of politics.

Neither side of the climate debate can deny the patently obvious reality of the structural crisis of capital - not just capitalism but Das Kapital, the rule of alienated wealth over society. What they can do however is deny some aspects of the crisis while acknowledging others, and then moralize the politics that emerges from this "customised" form of denial. The purpose of doing so is to preserve the legitimacy of the overall system while attempting to mitigate its bad effects in limited contexts.

It is not enough for manmade climate catastrophe deniers to deny its, by now palpable, reality. They also have to characterize their opponents as sinister agents of the "globalist elite" who are hostile to progress and prosperity. Likewise, climate "activists" cannot simply believe that wind and solar powered electricity can replace fossil fuels, which it self-evidently can't. They also have to believe that there are plenty of fossil fuels which society has to morally abstain from, and that refusal to do so is immoral.

What do the globalist elites have to gain from disrupting fossil fuel based prosperity? Why did they need to invent green tech to do so, instead of just using their apparently godlike powers to kill the surplus human population and enslave the rest? Why would people choose to continue using fossil fuels if renewables are not only a viable but better alternative? Why are fossil fuel companies part of the same capitalist ecosystem as green tech, invest in it and promote it etc, if they are responsible for suppressing it? No one knows, no one cares. We are at a point where even the basic terms of debate about societal problems are located in cloud cuckoo land.

[K-Dog]

Yeah, AI is amazing.

Both sides of the climate debate share the belief that "we" have practically infinite reserves of fossil fuels and minerals.

Is a dead giveaway.  That is a total crock of shit.

1. Abstract and Sweeping Claims Without Evidence

    The text makes broad, unsubstantiated assertions (e.g., "both sides of the climate debate share the belief in infinite fossil fuels") without citing specific sources, studies, or real-world examples. This lack of concrete evidence is a common AI trait, as models often prioritize rhetorical coherence over empirical support.

2. Unusual Terminology and Phrases

    "Interdetermined": This non-standard term (likely intended as "intertwined" or "interconnected") suggests either a typographical error or an AI-generated neologism.

    Mixed Register: The juxtaposition of academic jargon (e.g., "structural crisis of capital") with colloquialisms like "cloud cuckoo land" is stylistically inconsistent, a pattern seen in AI outputs trained on diverse datasets.

3. Rhetorical Questions Without Resolution

    The series of rhetorical questions (e.g., "What do the globalist elites have to gain...") are posed but dismissed with "No one knows, no one cares," avoiding deeper analysis. AI often uses such devices to mimic critical thinking without engaging substantively.

4. Awkward Phrasing and Punctuation

    Grammatical quirks, such as the clunky comma placement in "deny its, by now palpable, reality," reflect AI's occasional struggle with natural syntactic flow. A human writer might streamline this to "deny its now-palpable reality."

5. Overly Cohesive Yet Simplistic Argumentation

    While the text transitions smoothly between topics (climate discourse → capitalism → religion/politics), its argument reduces complex issues to binary critiques (e.g., "both sides are oblivious to reality"). This flattening of nuance is typical of AI, which often synthesizes ideas superficially.

6. Ideological Consistency and Repetition

    The text relentlessly frames all issues through a singular critical lens (e.g., "capitalism subordinated religious irrationality to political denial"), a hallmark of AI mirroring the tone of its training data (e.g., critical theory texts) without introducing original perspectives or counterarguments.

7. Dismissive Tone and Hyperbole

    Phrases like "cloud cuckoo land" and accusations of systemic denial ("hierarchical structures require religion/politics to function") employ hyperbolic language common in polemical writing, which AI can replicate but often without the depth of human experiential nuance.

Conclusion

While a knowledgeable human could theoretically produce this text, the combination of abstract reasoning, terminological inconsistencies, unresolved rhetorical questions, and stylistic unevenness strongly points to AI generation. The text reflects a model trained on critical theory and political philosophy, synthesizing ideas coherently but lacking the specificity, evidence, and nuanced engagement typical of expert human analysis.