Record number of environmental activists murdered • Hacker News Board

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#131

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:15 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #104

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the number of police rise does the ratio of police being killed on the job stay the same? what if 5% of the workers at big corporations are willing to kill activists for activism, those 5% are busy killing activists, if the activists increase unless the corporations increase the number of people they have willing to kill activists it follows that there are not going to be a significant increase in the number of mu…

All you wrote is exactly why you want to know the base rate (or several, against different possible hypothesis). Otherwise, it's not possible to even speculate about these things productively.

as you'll notice in my first reply to you I never said I did not want to know the base rate - what I said was - first quoting you

>whereas usually the denominator - which they neglect to mention - has rose proportionally, meaning there's nothing newsworthy there.

then in my reply to you

>there is not necessarily a reason to assume that the percentage of murder of activists is going to stay the same if you increase the number of activists, although it may be the case.

again, nothing about not needing to know the base rate, just noting that there might reasons for the rate of murders to not rise proportionally.

After writing something so straightforward that it might as well be observing that water is wet I've gotten a number of responses from people whom, just as straightforward, seem to want to inform me that the sun is out today and are intent on hammering it into my thick skull despite my never having said otherwise.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#132

Post by redleader55 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:19 AM UTC

drran wrote: post #98

kleiba wrote: post #4

I know we're not drawing from a random distribution here, but presumably, the number of environmentalists has also risen dramatically in recent years.

How number of activists is linked to number of killers? In case of rabbits and wolves, more rabbits -> more food for wolves -> more wolves. I fail to see the link in the case of activists and killers.

It's actually not like that. More rabbits means just a bit fatter wolves and not for long. Check Google for "r/K selection".

Wolves prefer to raise better quality of offspring, not more. Rabbits on the other hand just raise more offspring and don't care much for them since food is plenty.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#133

Post by spuz » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:20 AM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #55

spuz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect the murder rate to be constant? It's plausible the opposite is true that the more murders there are, the more publicity they get overall and the more cautious would-be murderers become.

> Why would you expect the murder rate to be constant? they didn't expect it to be, they said if it remains constant. You seem to be the one making the assumption -- that it wouldn't remain constant -- otherwise why would you have made that comment?

The commenter I replied to said "It (the number of activists) has everything to do with it". That is pretty strong language to me. I infer from that the commenter wanted to suggest that the number of activists is the only factor that matters because we can assume that murder-rate would remain constant.

If I am making the wrong inference here then I put it down to the strong and yet imprecise language of "it has everything to do with it".

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#134

Post by anshumankmr » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #120

anshumankmr wrote: post #105

So I was a little curious about some of the names from my country. I checked out the name of Isravel Moses. According to The Wire.in, an online publication, whose credentials one would not doubt when it comes to criticizing the government or corporations had this to say > On the night of November 8, Moses was hacked to death by alleged drug dealers, as a fallout of his reportage on the distribution and sale of ganja…

The list is of murdered environmental activists, not just global warming activists. And while yes, this has been happening for decades, it seems important to note that this is the second year in a row that the counted murders have reached new records. So I'm really not sure what your point is; it reads like a vague call to complacency.

Well, I don't really have the power to make societal level change, hell, I can't even change my father's mind when it comes to lapping up propaganda...

Only thing I am working towards is leaving here as soon as possible.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#135

Post by Robin_Message » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:23 AM UTC

anshumankmr wrote: post #105

So I was a little curious about some of the names from my country. I checked out the name of Isravel Moses. According to The Wire.in, an online publication, whose credentials one would not doubt when it comes to criticizing the government or corporations had this to say > On the night of November 8, Moses was hacked to death by alleged drug dealers, as a fallout of his reportage on the distribution and sale of ganja…

> > illegal encroachment of poramboke lands

That sounds like an environmental issue; we are facing a biodiversity crisis as well as a climate crisis.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#136

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #91

IMTDb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, seriously. The real question is : "Is environmental activism today more dangerous than it was yesterday". The typical way of computing "dangerosity" is through a ratio. Eg: number of death / kilometer for transportation systems, number of injury / game for sports, ... Why should the dangerosity of the "environmental activism" activity be computed differently, by only taking into consideration a numerator, and di…

> The real question is : "Is environmental activism today more dangerous than it was yesterday". Why would that be a real question? The activism itself should not be life threatening activity. If the amount of killed activists is proportionally the same every year ... then there is still have real issue.

[deleted]

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#137

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

andriesm wrote: post #50

yunohn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite this weird sub-thread, the article isn’t talking about “dangerosity”. They’re reporting on the increase in evil activities by anti-environmental mega corps, who are also murdering opposing activists.

What indication do we have that environmentalally unfriendly companies are murdering activists? I cannot imagine that being their best PR strategy, not to mention the fact that murdering your opposition attracts a lot of scrutiny, investigation, and which corp exec would want to risk going to jail for ordering a hit on an activist. Far more practical to lobby or spread counter marketing spin.

Arguably, if journalists and activists get a credible understanding that investigating this activity is likely to just get you hurt or killed without achieving anything, that "a good deed won't go unpunished", then this reputation would decrease scrutiny and investigation.

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#138

Post by anshumankmr » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

Robin_Message wrote: post #135

anshumankmr wrote: post #105

So I was a little curious about some of the names from my country. I checked out the name of Isravel Moses. According to The Wire.in, an online publication, whose credentials one would not doubt when it comes to criticizing the government or corporations had this to say > On the night of November 8, Moses was hacked to death by alleged drug dealers, as a fallout of his reportage on the distribution and sale of ganja…

> > illegal encroachment of poramboke lands That sounds like an environmental issue; we are facing a biodiversity crisis as well as a climate crisis.

https://www.casemine.com/search/in/poramboke%2Bmeans

According to this it means, land that is reserved for government use. (Not sure myself, as I am not from TN)

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#139

Post by goto11 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

IMTDb wrote: post #28

cenophor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is murder, not people falling off the cliff because of some accidents. There is probably nothing logically wrong with that question, and you are probably right that there is a correlation. But... seriously?

Yes, seriously. The real question is : "Is environmental activism today more dangerous than it was yesterday". The typical way of computing "dangerosity" is through a ratio. Eg: number of death / kilometer for transportation systems, number of injury / game for sports, ... Why should the dangerosity of the "environmental activism" activity be computed differently, by only taking into consideration a numerator, and di…

So if bands of luddites stated murdering software developers, this would not be a problem if the overall growth of the industry was larger than the rate of murders?

Re: Record number of environmental activists murdered

#140

Post by zohch » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #89

pastage wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US seems to be very trigger happy wrt foreign companies giving bribes on forgein soil, if they have a presence in the US. I think FCAP has been modified to be more efficient in this respect.

I’d like to believe that laws solve things, but clearly this article proves otherwise.

As someone who comes from a third world country, my view on this is that the solution starts with people voting for better governments. Governments that are willing to actually enforce the law. If most murder cases remain unsolved in a country then that seems like then that is a bigger problem that who gets murdered, and I can promise you that most murder victims in these countries are not climate activists.

Laws without rule of law won't work. We can then devolve into might makes right, which is the current situation, and in that situation most people lose out.