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Discendo Vox posted:It's not a shock- I appreciate that the goal wasn't direct twitter intervention- it's that the goal of consciousness-raising isn't particularly meaningful or effective when conducted by way of hashtag. While it's true that countries ("western" and otherwise) have a tragically shot memory for these sort of events, internet activism doesn't tend to produce results that effect the situation they raise, and of course they have a knack for producing ill-informed swells of public opinion, producing similarly ill-conceived political responses. It's not clear that #saveourgirls has produced any difference in actions on the part of the US government- and more to the point, if it had, there would be no guarantee that the change produced would be a good one. Your examples of "direct techno-democracy [being] frequently counterproductive" is stuff that never happened? Are you a political cartoonist?
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May 13, 2014 18:31
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Bors posted this today:
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May 13, 2014 18:34
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Now in cartoon form! e: goddamnit 
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May 13, 2014 18:34
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zoux posted:Short of destroying neo-colonialism which thrives on the exploitation of the labor and resources of the developing world that causes the lion's share of problems there, there's not much they can do. The issue I have here is that the Boko Haram kidnappings are ostensibly a solvable problem. It's a local, small time African problem that Western democracies can easily leverage their diplomatic influence to reach an outcome. It's not going to take any real sacrifice from anyone outside of Nigeria, and so when this problem is fixed, the women are found and freed, then the Western world will pat itself on the back and say "good job us" while all of the deeply systemic problems affecting Africa will remain and be cheerfully ignored by the rest of the world, because actually fixing Africa's problems would require massive sacrifice on the part of the rest of the world. That's actually a pretty reasonable response. I can't say I'm happy that, yes, when this is over, it will result in back-patting and continued ignorance and all that, but I definitely agree with your conclusion---and the fact that there's basically no out for people not in (political or economic) power already (as usual)...well, that's just depressing. (also as usual)
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May 13, 2014 18:34
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angelfisher posted:Bors posted this today: You know, I'm just a smidge older than Bors, but both of us were coming of political age when let's bomb the absolute piss out of Iraq and then invade it was the attitude du jour among Joe Americans. Snark all you want about dim bulbs learning stuff for the first time on Wikipedia, or ignorance of neo-colonial capitalist systems, but this is a better thing. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, I'll allow. quote:then the Western world will pat itself on the back and say "good job us" Which is different than Twitter Justice Warriors patting themselves on the back over not being Dumb White People because
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May 13, 2014 18:41
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angelfisher posted:Bors posted this today: Pictured: a bunch of strawmen.
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May 13, 2014 18:43
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Red Minjo posted:Obviously what we're supposed to do is follow the example of Rambo by going to another nation and shooting bad guys. yes excellent idea
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May 13, 2014 18:45
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Hahaha oh my god I just got bait-and-switched by a Mother's Day cartoon. Pretty good Beeler, pretty good!
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May 13, 2014 18:46
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There's no hashtags on the second  e: I swear it god it wasn't on the third panel at one point. 
Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 18:49 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 18:47
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Um, excuse me, techincally none of those are hashtags because each hashtag is space-delimited.
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May 13, 2014 18:48
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That poor bull looks so humiliated. It's like the Jerry Gergich of bovines. "Aw jeez, I'm... I'm sorry guys, it just slipped out. I had no idea it'd be that bad."
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May 13, 2014 18:50
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Kurtofan posted:Pictured: a bunch of strawmen. Well, panels three and four are, sure. They're also the main funny jokes of the comic. Panel one is literally what's happening, panel six is figuratively "what's happening", and panel five is bors explaining what the problem with that is. I have no idea what panel two is. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 18:55 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 18:51
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I guess I'm ignorant, but this whole "Heh, are you really even doing anything? #slacktivism" smacks of just being a dick. What's that? You're raising knowledge about an issue you just heard about? Pfft gently caress off you loving POSER.
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May 13, 2014 18:56
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I especially like the criticism "Why do you care about THIS issue next to all the others" when the point was to raise awareness of this and those other, related issues in the first place.
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May 13, 2014 18:59
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OldTennisCourt posted:I guess I'm ignorant, but this whole "Heh, are you really even doing anything? #slacktivism" smacks of just being a dick. What's that? You're raising knowledge about an issue you just heard about? Pfft gently caress off you loving POSER. When all that awareness-raising leads to nothing I think you can make a case that it was all a feel-good waste of time.
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May 13, 2014 19:00
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zoux posted:#Kony2012 At least this new one isn't raising funds for a crazy Christian cult. I hope anyways.
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May 13, 2014 19:02
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:When all that awareness-raising leads to nothing I think you can make a case that it was all a feel-good waste of time. How can we be sure this is leading to nothing though? If it raises awareness, makes people look into the inherent problems and call for things to change, puts the Nigerian government under the microscope then it is doing something. I'm not saying this is going to ~change the world~ but a lot of these comments just come off as being people who watched the Kony episode of South Park 20 times and parrot that commentary.
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May 13, 2014 19:03
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Rulebook Heavily posted:I especially like the criticism "Why do you care about THIS issue next to all the others" when the point was to raise awareness of this and those other, related issues in the first place. This happens with almost every issue and across a wide spectrum of awareness problems, it's very similar to things like "how can you be pro-prison reform AND tough on crime EH?  " shitlord rhetoric.Because adults can (at least, theoretically) entertain multiple thoughts at once! Amazing! Now let's go cut school funding more to make sure that particular problem doesn't spread...
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May 13, 2014 19:08
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OldTennisCourt posted:How can we be sure this is leading to nothing though? If it raises awareness, makes people look into the inherent problems and call for things to change, puts the Nigerian government under the microscope then it is doing something. I'm not saying this is going to ~change the world~ but a lot of these comments just come off as being people who watched the Kony episode of South Park 20 times and parrot that commentary. I've never seen that episode 
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May 13, 2014 19:10
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Given the Nigerian response to the Boko Haram kidnappings the growth of Western pressure has actually been a notable factor in making them take it much more seriously and trying to do something about it so yeah actually all those #BringBackOurGirls tweets and selfies and stuff have added up to something. Now I'm not going to say a bunch of Westerners have made a real huge difference and saved the ignorant heathens or anything but at least some effect has been had by making it a major headline issue. Most of us are actually powerless to do much about most events in the world beyond registering our reaction to and feelings about them. What, are we all supposed to hop on a plane, grab a gun, and crusade to free the girls? It grinds my gears when human expressions of outrage and/or solidarity are sniped at. Of course it's not much, everyone knows that, ging about how ineffective people are is just a dick move.
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May 13, 2014 19:18
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zoux is right and everyone else is pretty much wrong. I'm sorry to have to confront you guys with this harsh reality. Raising awareness is only useful when you raise awareness and then do something, anything, about it. This can go from sending a letter to your congressman, rethinking your political stances, donating to an NGO, whatever, anything. What's happening now - which has been dubbed slacktivism - is nothing new. Instead of gushing about how bad Africa is in coffee shops, you now have people doing the same thing on Twitter. As zoux said, the way it's playing out is that this minor (relatively) problem will get solved and everyone will pat themselves on the back for a job well done. But imagine actually knowing what goes on in Africa (not that it's limited to Africa) and knowing what should actually be done and then seeing a bunch of people do... this. They're finally paying attention to something in Africa, but they're doing it in a way that just refuses to tackle any actual underlying problems. It's like there's a forest fire and people start a twitter campaign to save a single tree. After they saved the tree, they cheer, turn around and don't even look back to see it catching fire again. Also their governments set the forest on fire in the first place. So yeah, these anti-slacktivists obviously think it's better than nothing, but it's extremely frustrating for them nonetheless. Add to this the fact that campaigns like this usually bring with them a massive wave of racism with them and the picture's complete. So, to sum up, you're all upset that your useless theatrics are exposed for what they are and it's stupid as heck.
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May 13, 2014 19:18
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Thank you
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May 13, 2014 19:21
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I'm with zoux here: The key part of being an activist is "active". gently caress off with your feel good 5 seconds tweeting/reposting/liking/avatar change bullshit. Give money to those doing work or even better go volunteer yourself. Otherwise it is masturbation - makes you feel good, but accomplishes nothing
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May 13, 2014 19:22
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Why not raise awareness about what should be done instead of bitching about "Ugh White people are so stupid"
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May 13, 2014 19:22
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Fried Chicken posted:Otherwise it is masturbation - makes you feel good, but accomplishes nothing Well then I got what I wanted out of it.
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May 13, 2014 19:23
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So then what should--or can--be done?
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May 13, 2014 19:25
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Fried Chicken posted:I'm with zoux here: The key part of being an activist is "active". I'd argue that there's a difference between the average person avatar changing and retweeting something they don't really know about and the First Lady of the United States exerting political influence. Kurtofan posted:Why not raise awareness about what should be done instead of bitching about "Ugh White people are so stupid" Everyone needs to decide which one makes you feel more smug and then do it.
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May 13, 2014 19:26
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Shugojin posted:Hahaha oh my god I just got bait-and-switched by a Mother's Day cartoon. Pretty good Beeler, pretty good! It was adorable. 
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May 13, 2014 19:26
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zoux posted:Short of destroying neo-colonialism which thrives on the exploitation of the labor and resources of the developing world that causes the lion's share of problems there, there's not much they can do. The issue I have here is that the Boko Haram kidnappings are ostensibly a solvable problem. It's a local, small time African problem that Western democracies can easily leverage their diplomatic influence to reach an outcome. It's not going to take any real sacrifice from anyone outside of Nigeria, and so when this problem is fixed, the women are found and freed, then the Western world will pat itself on the back and say "good job us" while all of the deeply systemic problems affecting Africa will remain and be cheerfully ignored by the rest of the world, because actually fixing Africa's problems would require massive sacrifice on the part of the rest of the world. I'm kinda confused about the point here. It seems like you are saying that westerners should care a lot more about problems in Africa that they can't really solve and are instead criticizing them for caring about a the problem they can actually do something about. If both are supposed to be good things then the whole criticism wouldn't make any sense since Westerners caring about Africa in one way doesn't seem to make it any more difficult to care about it in another way. If you genuinely think that both are good things then criticizing the time westerners care about Africa because they don't care enough just seems really self-serving and kind of insensitive to the people that are effected by the kidnappings and care about them. If this was a Kony 2012 situation I'd totally get it but your response above suggests you think that the whole campaign could actually accomplish something. If this is a case where the campaign is in fact completely and totally pointless and the only way to make a real change for the better is destroying neo-colonialism (which I absolutely have no ability or means to achieve) please let me know since that means I go back to not giving a poo poo that over a hundred human children were kidnapped and can just tweet about Final Fantasy instead. Caring about Africa is kind of a bummer cause of the rape epidemic, child soldiers, famine and disease but if caring about it is an all or nothing thing with inaccessibly lofty goals then that's an awesome excuse to not care at all while pretending I care more than everyone else. All I'd have to do is flip through a Wikipedia article and talk about colonialism or something then I can get all haughty when people bring it up until nobody talks to me about the issue anymore.
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May 13, 2014 19:26
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Also, maybe you're wondering why people keep bringing up Kony when it comes down to Twitter campaigns aimed at Africa. I mean, ignoring the whole premise of the campaign being outdated (Kony was pretty much out of the picture by the time the campaign started, with several other rebel groups being far more topical at that time) and ignoring that it basically did nothing but get more military assistance for Uganda's pseudo-dictatorship (which was coming anyway, but whatever), you only have to look at the current situation in Central Africa to see that nothing has changed. And more importantly, nobody that took part in Kony 2012 cares - or even knows it. You've got your evidence right there what campaigns like this do, but everyone keeps ignoring it.
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May 13, 2014 19:28
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Kurtofan posted:Why not raise awareness about what should be done instead of bitching about "Ugh White people are so stupid"
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May 13, 2014 19:31
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PassTheRemote posted:New Bennett: Yeah, this one seem tailor made for his biggest fan. Look! I left lots of blank space in there for your "rebuttal". I look forward to it and your continued testing of the US Postal Service's decryption skills! Your pal, Commie Clay.
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May 13, 2014 19:33
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The broken bones posted:So then what should--or can--be done?
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May 13, 2014 19:33
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R. Mute posted:forgive african debts, stop conflict resources, stop predatory practices by multinationals based out of your country, stop backing dictatorships, invest in structural aid, etc etc etc start the revolution, overthrow capitalism, Edit: not saying you are wrong, but I'm not sure how people are going to do any of the things you listed. Insulting people who gives a little little poo poo isn't going to motivate them to go further anyway. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 19:39 on May 13, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 19:34
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The broken bones posted:So then what should--or can--be done? Man, I have no idea. R. Mute posted:forgive african debts, stop conflict resources, stop predatory practices by multinationals based out of your country, stop backing dictatorships, invest in structural aid, etc etc etc I mean, that, but I don't know how any single person can effect those kinds of policy changes, especially since if we actually got serious about those things, it would lead to an increase in the price of consumer goods and that's more or less all average Americans care about.
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May 13, 2014 19:34
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Bifner McDoogle posted:I'm kinda confused about the point here. It seems like you are saying that westerners should care a lot more about problems in Africa that they can't really solve and are instead criticizing them for caring about a the problem they can actually do something about. If both are supposed to be good things then the whole criticism wouldn't make any sense since Westerners caring about Africa in one way doesn't seem to make it any more difficult to care about it in another way. If you genuinely think that both are good things then criticizing the time westerners care about Africa because they don't care enough just seems really self-serving and kind of insensitive to the people that are effected by the kidnappings and care about them. If this was a Kony 2012 situation I'd totally get it but your response above suggests you think that the whole campaign could actually accomplish something. two: those lofty goals are certainly achievable and if you think your tweets can save 200 girls in Nigeria, then you can probably reach those lofty goals as well. You just gotta believe in democracy or whatever.
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May 13, 2014 19:36
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R. Mute posted:forgive african debts, stop conflict resources, stop predatory practices by multinationals based out of your country, stop backing dictatorships, invest in structural aid, etc etc etc There are and have recently been movements in all of these areas, with varying degrees of success. Maybe you can care about structural issues and individual people at the same time?
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May 13, 2014 19:37
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Kurtofan posted:start the revolution, overthrow capitalism, But anyway, considering that we live in a democracy, there has to be some way to achieve those goals. They aren't fundamentally different from most other goals that actually do get reached, so it should be possible, right? I don't know how democracy works. Maybe we should sacrifice some goats and see where that takes us.
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May 13, 2014 19:38
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Stultus Maximus posted:There are and have recently been movements in all of these areas, with varying degrees of success. Maybe you can care about structural issues and individual people at the same time?
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May 13, 2014 19:39
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R. Mute posted:You can but you don't. Hence the criticism. I don't?
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May 13, 2014 19:39
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