RE: Do you protest? Armchair or street and does any of it matter?
April 4, 2025 at 10:12 am
(This post was last modified: April 4, 2025 at 10:16 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Weird position for me. Professionally, I'm all activist all the time. Personally, it's an on again off again relationship with multiple waves of disillusionment and nihilism. Very often, at least in my little ao....the things we would need to do to satisfy my fellow activists moral sensibilities are exactly the things they won't do. So they'll protest, or volunteer, or sign petitions - but they won't do the actual thing...and premising your business...even if its a thing based business, on just the thing, is a recipe for failure.
A concrete example. Waaaaay back in ye olden times in florida, we structured our business around and explicitly marketed to the activist demo. We tanked. It was when we realized we were getting their proto-trumpist parents...partly, I think, as an olive branch to those kids, that it started to work. "See honey, I am doing something, I'm doing that thing you were always talking about, bring the grandkids over and I'll babysit this weekend, they do kids movies and free u-pick berries on fridays so you guys can go out. It's ratatoulle this weekend!".
The armchair stuff, don't even get me started. When someone tells me that antinatalism is the only way, and that so many of our problems would be solved if there were fewer of us, my eyes roll all the way up in the back of my head. I'll add another dimension. Regulation activism. Wherein we make it legally impossible to do the thing we say we must if we're to save the earth. May as well light the fire myself, at that point. It's often a combo position. "We have to do x to fix y, but since I've just made it legally impossible to do x, you need to pack or die instead...only ethical option!"
A concrete example. Waaaaay back in ye olden times in florida, we structured our business around and explicitly marketed to the activist demo. We tanked. It was when we realized we were getting their proto-trumpist parents...partly, I think, as an olive branch to those kids, that it started to work. "See honey, I am doing something, I'm doing that thing you were always talking about, bring the grandkids over and I'll babysit this weekend, they do kids movies and free u-pick berries on fridays so you guys can go out. It's ratatoulle this weekend!".
The armchair stuff, don't even get me started. When someone tells me that antinatalism is the only way, and that so many of our problems would be solved if there were fewer of us, my eyes roll all the way up in the back of my head. I'll add another dimension. Regulation activism. Wherein we make it legally impossible to do the thing we say we must if we're to save the earth. May as well light the fire myself, at that point. It's often a combo position. "We have to do x to fix y, but since I've just made it legally impossible to do x, you need to pack or die instead...only ethical option!"
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