Now, I am not the biggest fan of those kinds of actions, because they are indeed exploited heavily by the burgeois press, but let’s talk about attention. I remember there being at least two paint defacings and damaging of private jets here in Germany in 2023 by similar groups. There was next to no press about it - and if you search for it today, it is genuinely hard to find the articles that even mention them, one I found even focusing on the legal questions of insurance, instead of writing about the broader issues at all:
So, you would be surprised - actions that target more “deserving” targets often just… aren’t talked about at all, or very little, small footnotes. This at least starts debates, which cannot be denied.
In the same way, give this a year. Do you think it would be referred to as a “great point in addressing climate change,” or “those kids that defaced Stonehenge?”
It might just also be talked about as “that event everyone got angry about because of false reporting”, or “that event where I argued with some people online, and I realised they made better points than I thought”, or “that event that made me think about what actions would have been better”. There is more than the main narrative, and more than just a single engagement with it if there’s discussion happening.
So, yeah, it will create a lot of hostility, but maybe even a possibility to recontextualise that hostility for some people.
But not to say you don’t have any point at all - it’s true that it can make some things harder to properly talk about, makes it all the more important to oppose the main narrative whenever possible and not feed into it.
Now, I am not the biggest fan of those kinds of actions, because they are indeed exploited heavily by the burgeois press, but let’s talk about attention. I remember there being at least two paint defacings and damaging of private jets here in Germany in 2023 by similar groups. There was next to no press about it - and if you search for it today, it is genuinely hard to find the articles that even mention them, one I found even focusing on the legal questions of insurance, instead of writing about the broader issues at all:
https://www.t-online.de/region/hamburg/id_100188204/letzte-generation-farbattacke-auf-sylter-privatjet-so-hoch-ist-der-schaden.html https://www.aerotelegraph.com/wer-zahlt-bei-einem-farbanschlag-auf-ein-privatflugzeug
So, you would be surprised - actions that target more “deserving” targets often just… aren’t talked about at all, or very little, small footnotes. This at least starts debates, which cannot be denied.
In the same way, give this a year. Do you think it would be referred to as a “great point in addressing climate change,” or “those kids that defaced Stonehenge?”
It might just also be talked about as “that event everyone got angry about because of false reporting”, or “that event where I argued with some people online, and I realised they made better points than I thought”, or “that event that made me think about what actions would have been better”. There is more than the main narrative, and more than just a single engagement with it if there’s discussion happening.
So, yeah, it will create a lot of hostility, but maybe even a possibility to recontextualise that hostility for some people.
But not to say you don’t have any point at all - it’s true that it can make some things harder to properly talk about, makes it all the more important to oppose the main narrative whenever possible and not feed into it.