Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow • Hacker News Board

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#211

Post by toss1 » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:37 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #56

toss1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, yes, this is a nominally capitalist nation. In a socialized or communist nation, you would expect all national infrastructure, if not all means of production, to be nationalized, i.e., owned & run by the govt. In a capitalist society, not only the means of production but many critical national infrastructure structures and services can be owned and run privately. E.g., power & telecom companies are regulated mono…

> In a socialized or communist nation, you would expect all national infrastructure, if not all means of production, to be nationalized, i.e., owned & run by the govt. While the gist of your point is correct, I feel I should mention that socialism or communism doesn't necessitate that the means of production is nationalized and government owned. The means of production could just as well be owned by the workers, not…

Ya, good point. Probably should have said "owned & run by govt or worker collective". OTOH, depending on how it is run, the worker collective could be just effectively local govt. Seems we're getting down to splitting hairs...

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#212

Post by travisoneill1 » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #144

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe some of those extraordinary ways cross the line. But who decides what the line is anyway? Probably the people you inconvenience. A bunch of vegans disrupted traffic in Melbourne, Australia recently. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-08/melbourne-vegan-prote... I don't think they made many friends. It's really hard getting someone to change their mind or their thinking about an issue. But I firmly believe ac…

The interesting thing to me is since the long Easter weekend of XR protests in the UK, opinion polls have shown them rising in popularity and environment polling higher too. XR are not interested in making friends, but causing enough disruption to get government to treat the issue seriously, in the manner of civil rights and universal suffrage actions. They've certainly increased awareness and discussion. That they a…

It doesn't matter which party is in control, no action will be taken. Any action that takes a significant bite out of CO2 emissions will either cause a major decline in standard of living, or have an enormous financial cost. The people who answer that poll don't understand that. When they find out it will not be pleasant for whatever party is in power. The politicians from all parties know this. That's why they make lots of declarations and promises to do things by 2050 but take insignificant actions like banning plastic straws.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#213

Post by samcday » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

jfk13 wrote: post #206

samcday wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I asked if you were a lawyer, I was genuinely curious. I figured if you were linking legislation without actually pointing out specifics, then it might be because your point was so blatantly obvious that only a dummy would not see it as self evident ;) I disagree with your assessment. I myself am certainly not a lawyer, but the way I interpret that language is for something to be considered an act of terrorism i…

> I disagree with your assessment. I myself am certainly not a lawyer, but the way I interpret that language is for something to be considered an act of terrorism it has to meet a criteria from section [1] AND section [2]. I agree that the planned drone demonstration meets 1c, but I don't think it meets any of the criteria from section 2. Also not a lawyer, but it seems pretty clear to me that flying drones around an…

This is actually the best rebuttal I’ve seen so far, thank you.

I still think it’s unfair to compare a drone inside restricted airspace (and notified well ahead of time) to an explosive device in the terminal.

But I can certainly see how the two things can be put in the same category by many people.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#214

Post by tolien » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

samcday wrote: post #160

tomjen3 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they are going about it the wrong way. It is know at this point that the way to change people is to befriend them, listen to them and make sure that they see you as human, despite the differences. It worked on the Klan, it worked on the babist church. Of course it is not satisfying and you get no virtue points.

Reminds me of the proverb "Honey attracts more flies than vinegar" I wholeheartedly agree with you that taking the time to really connect with an individual so that you can then grapple with their beliefs from a place of deep, shared understanding is more ideal. The problem is most of the scientific community is telling us that we're heading towards dire circumstances in the next few decades. I don't think we really…

> I wholeheartedly agree with you that taking the time to really connect with an individual so that you can then grapple with their beliefs from a place of deep, shared understanding is more ideal.

Ideally, yes, but in the debate about climate change, as with other issues like vaccines and whether the earth is round, there are bad actors who aren’t interested in having a rational debate no matter how many indisputable facts are put in their way.

There’s no point trying to engage with them; it’s just a waste of everyone’s time and energy. At least flat earthers can largely be ignored and we’re finally seeing community-preserving action against anti-vaxxers [1]. I don’t know what an equivalent action would be for bad-faith climate “debaters” because it’s not like we can leave them on this planet and go somewhere else.

1: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/anti-vaxxers-defeate...

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#215

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:49 PM UTC

samcday wrote: post #109

The level of negativity and hostility in the comments here is really disappointing to me. I agree that XR are definitely pushing the envelope on what we consider to be reasonable activism and protest. However, I also think that the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" applies here. Yes, there are plenty of actions being taken to combat the damage we're inflicting to this little wet rock we all call…

As a drone enthusiast, I'm not super excited about the impending outlawing of drones because some people are idiots. I want to be able to enjoy my hobby, but I won't be able to if these people get drones outlawed.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#216

Post by wtdata » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 12:55 PM UTC

rhblake wrote: post #209

wtdata wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, I also think that the old adage "desperate times call for desperate measures" applies here. If they were really into desperate measures, their actions would be targeting China (you know, that country that now produces more CO2 than all the Western countries combined and that is set to keep greatly increasing it during the next decade), not the only set of developed countries that actually did something and…

Per capita , which seems like a more fair comparison, plenty of Western countries produce more CO2 than China; the US and Canada each produce about twice as much.

I disagree. It's certainly not a fair comparison to look at these issues per capita. I should not be morally responsible for people that have way to many childrten with no regard for sustainability (be it environmental or economical).

Each country should be responsible to make their territory carbon neutral. If they have an high or low population density should be an irrelevant point.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#217

Post by helkafen » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 1:04 PM UTC

travisoneill1 wrote: post #212

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing to me is since the long Easter weekend of XR protests in the UK, opinion polls have shown them rising in popularity and environment polling higher too. XR are not interested in making friends, but causing enough disruption to get government to treat the issue seriously, in the manner of civil rights and universal suffrage actions. They've certainly increased awareness and discussion. That they a…

It doesn't matter which party is in control, no action will be taken. Any action that takes a significant bite out of CO2 emissions will either cause a major decline in standard of living, or have an enormous financial cost. The people who answer that poll don't understand that. When they find out it will not be pleasant for whatever party is in power. The politicians from all parties know this. That's why they make…

I would rather risk a small decrease in my standard of living today than cause a worldwide genocide within a few years.

You might be interested by "The Happiness-Energy Paradox: Energy Use is Unrelated to Subjective Well-Being".

Earth’s per capita energy use continues to grow, despite technological advances and widespread calls for reduction in energy consumption. The negative environmental consequences are well known: resource depletion, pollution, and global warming. However many remain reluctant to cut energy consumption because of the widespread, although, implicit, belief that a nation’s well being depends on its energy consumption. This article systematically examines the evidential support for the relationship between energy use and subjective well-being at the societal level, by integrating data from multiple sources, collected at multiple levels of government, and spanning four decades. This analysis reveals, surprisingly, that the most common measure of subjective well-being, life satisfaction, is unrelated to energy use -- whether measured at the national, state or county level.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#218

Post by helkafen » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #168

dorfsmay wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're an activist, and you live in a democracy, why wouldn't you affect change more meaningfully by participating in the democracy you live in? Like what? We have known about environmental issues for decades, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get politicians to foerum to tackle the issue and sign treaties that the next guy voted in just decides they don't care, etc, etc, etc... Companies with more money…

And yet changes to UK environmental policy have actually helped bring the UK's carbon emissions down to 19th century levels (yes, caveats about where our stuff is made nowadays apply) and companies with more money than all citizen environmentalist groups put together plough far more money into efficiency savings and renewables than disinformation campaigns. There's a plausible argument that this isn't enough , but it…

The success of the UK's energy policy is undeniable. However they still have a long way to go in every other sector (transport, agriculture, imports..) before reaching carbon neutrality.

The practical solutions are well known in the community, see the Drawdown project for a pretty exhaustive list. Since we are very late in the fight against climate change, all of these solutions need to be implemented, so there's no point in promoting just a few of them.

For now, they prefer to focus on raising awareness and get citizens to demand change urgently. The next step will be to ask for a citizen's assembly (https://rebellion.earth/act-now/resources/citizens-assembly).

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#219

Post by llamathrowaway » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

wtdata wrote: post #216

rhblake wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per capita , which seems like a more fair comparison, plenty of Western countries produce more CO2 than China; the US and Canada each produce about twice as much.

I disagree. It's certainly not a fair comparison to look at these issues per capita. I should not be morally responsible for people that have way to many childrten with no regard for sustainability (be it environmental or economical). Each country should be responsible to make their territory carbon neutral. If they have an high or low population density should be an irrelevant point.

You should be thankful towards China then.

Who knows how many more people would have been born if they did not enforce their one child policy or whatever.

Re: Drones piloted by climate-change activists target Heathrow

#220

Post by cik2e » Sat, Jun 15, 2019, 1:25 PM UTC

samcday wrote: post #130

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe some of those extraordinary ways cross the line. But who decides what the line is anyway? Probably the people you inconvenience. A bunch of vegans disrupted traffic in Melbourne, Australia recently. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-08/melbourne-vegan-prote... I don't think they made many friends. It's really hard getting someone to change their mind or their thinking about an issue. But I firmly believe ac…

> I don't think they made many friends. I don't think they're interested in making friends. They're interested in trying to persuade more people to stop eating the flesh of sentient creatures when our diets don't even require it. > It's really hard getting someone to change their mind or their thinking about an issue. I agree. > But I firmly believe actively making enemies is probably not the way to go about things.…

> They're interested in trying to persuade more people to stop eating the flesh of sentient creatures when our diets don't even require it.

In a strict sense, you’re right, our diets don’t require meat. But most people wouldn’t consider it practical to take the 5-10 different supplements needed to replace all of the benefits of eating meat, fish, eggs and dairy. And that approach is almost certainly suboptimal to whole food sources anyway.