Comment by bigbadfeline
2 days ago
> What about going out in front of your city hall with a poster saying no-chat-control?
Unorganized, individual acts cannot change anything in the EU.
> You risk nothing, do you?
Given the legislative maze the EU has become, you can't be sure of that, but you surely gain nothing.
The conditions in Europe are quite specific, and in that environment, pan-EU legislation (except the customs union) should be optional for individual members, anything else can and will be used against the people.
>you surely gain nothing
one of the main reasons chat control keeps failing is because of protests all over Europe. without it, chat control may already be a thing
On one hand you have politicians whose job is to implement policy, on the other you have people who have to go out of their way to protest.
In the end politicians win, simply because regular people have other jobs.
You get initial push from protests, but in the end time works against them.
So no, protest are not the solution, just a delay.
and yet there are countless examples of the causes of protestors winning long-term victories
usually the people who choose not to protest for/against issues they care about do so for fear of police, fear of embarrassment, and/or laziness, not because they don't believe the countless sociological studies which have shown protest to be an effective form of political action
Individual acts can actually have more resonance, if carried out with conviction and commitment (and if the cause is just).
See Greta Thunberg; she might not have managed to save the planet yet, but she sure got the attention of the world (of course, however big a problem chat control is, climate change is a much bigger issue)
Greta Thunberg achieved nothing useful in practice and if the best mascot for a movement is an autistic teenager it bodes poorly for that movement's chances.
She personally is perfectly successful, but in terms of political effectiveness people should model themselves off movements that achieved something.
> of course, however big a problem chat control is, climate change is a much bigger issue
Not quite "of course" in my opinion. An even bigger problem than (and a major cause of) climate change is how information flows to people. Or how it does not flow. Private conversations are part of that flow, I wouldn’t take that lightly.