this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Whether or not the average person will go to a protest is heavily studied in Game Theory.
Unsurprisingly, the consistent finding is that either the person needs to have no risk from attending (lol, facial recognition and Palintir), have no costs to attending, or things have to be otherwise be bad enough that they genuinely think that things can't get worse for them if they attend and change might actually happen if they attend.
See you at work on Monday I guess.
The government deals in violence and knows how to handle groups of protestors, whether they originate as peaceful or violent. Don’t play to their strengths by engaging them on that level and giving them a confrontation that they can escalate.
Non-participation, boycotts, malicious compliance, quiet quitting, anticonsumption, and birthstriking are more my style. It’s not glamorous or quick, but governments are notoriously inept at dealing with situations that they can’t just beat or shoot at. They don’t know what to do when a hammer is an ineffective tool for the job.
These sorts of actions may be inconvenient or cause you to forgo certain things that you want. However it doesn't put you in any actual risk, whether it be physical, legal, or financial. The non-risk aspect of it means that it has a much lower barrier to entry, and thus a lower threshold for how bad things need to get before people take action.
This is so insightful. All the Lemmy keyboard warriors like to jump directly to armed revolution, dismissing every other potential way to resist fascism that more folks are actually willing to join in now.
Usually, the main reason for protests and revolutions to grow immensely is if the means of livelihood is affected. No food to eat? Blame the government. No jobs? Blame the government. No housing? Blame the government. They're cutting pensions? Blame the government. Speaking of which, the planned pension reform by Putin, years ago, was the only time his leadership was seriously threatened by the public. Otherwise, Russian people don't care if Kremlin bombs the Georgians or Ukrainians, or dissidents keep flying off the window, so long as their means of living are not touched. In that sense, individuals are selfish and don't mind authoritarianism as long as they themselves are not severely affected.
Humans are complex and are not naturally predisposed to crave for democracy, contrary to what many Westerners believe. Ultimately, it is a question of liberty versus security. Some prefer security so long as standards of living is well kept by the ruling elites, and certain degree of freedom is allowed to the public. That's why, unfortunately, some authoritarian leaderships persists for so long. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy for as long as anyone can remember, and Francisco Franco's fascist regime survived long, in spite of the fall of fascism after World War 2.
“A protest” is literally nothing
Protests aren't nothing. That's why the government spends so much energy dispersing them. Riots would be more effective, but that doesn't make protesters nothing.
That reminds me of something I hear awhile ago. It went something like "if voting didn't matter, they wouldn't be trying so hard to stop you"
It’s less than nothing. The “no kings” protest had the effect of illustrating how limp the resistance is and empowering the fascists. They were racking up a body count while the rest of you were doing a parade. Great work.
It's not much, but it's certainly much more than just whining on the internet.
You've got a point. It didn't instantly fix all of our problems so it must've been worthless.
Actually 🤓, they were the ones doing a parade during the no kings protests, while I was racking up my body count with your mom.
Cool, this is a very good and useful way to use your energy. Don’t by any means go out and do something that matters.
Lol trolling you is definitely a better use of energy than whatever it is you're choosing to do on here
You win, you got me. Comfort yourself with that while your neighbors get thrown into unmarked vans by masked thugs.
Oh believe you me, I will sleep very fucking soundly knowing I've aggravated an anti-protest psyop account owner