Companies are not supposed to be a way by which you enforce your moral beliefs. You have laws and elections for that. How would you like if businesses turn you away because of your unethical beliefs?
But laws and elections have been singularly ineffective at stopping global warming.
Take a look at the success of the Civil Rights movement. Do you think segregation would have ended as quickly had black activists simply stuck to laws and elections, and not protested and deliberately did things that were actually illegal: like sitting in the front of a bus or disobeyed police orders to disperse while protesting?
The extra-legal actions of the protesters and the brutal response of the authorities (all documented through the mass media) made way more people aware of their cause and gained them many allies.
Or take a look at all the labor activism in the US, back when unions were strong, which brought about things like the 40-hour work week and workplace health regulations: these were not won merely through elections.
Or look at the Suffragettes, who helped win the right for women to vote not by restricting themselves to winning elections but by direct action.
Or India's successful struggle to independence under the leadership of Gandhi. Once again, it was coordinated activism which made the difference.
The list of such successful activism could grow very long.
Which isn't to say elections are useless (though with all the easily hackable electronic voting machines and vote counting machines out there, sometimes I wonder), but to reject activism in favor of elections is to give up a very powerful tool for change.
Its activism + old fashioned democratic politics. At least in the US. The suffragettes brought attention and then they mobilized a political coalition. Organized labor agitated but it was though the ballot box that the 40 hour week job safety were granted.
1) those activists,especially civil rights movement exhausted all legal means.
2) illegal does not mean violent and harmful. A peaceful protest is fine, I actually support that. Being loud so you can be heard is fine too. What is not fine is expecting companies to refuse to do business with your opposition in solidarity or any other move that is essentially harming your opponent and does not fall in line with peaceful activism. You shouldn't get someone fired, get businesses to stop offering services to them,exclude them from public events,subject them and their associates to humiliation and social isolation and of course you shouldn't cause them physical harm either.
If someone hires a person who denies climate change or if a person does business or works for big oil they are not responsible for the views and actions of the people/business they associate with and they do not owe anyone solidarity in form of terminating those relationships.
What yoy have these days is "activism" by form of isolating your opponents using anyone in a position of power to sever ties with them and if the pains of isolation are too much they might give way and let you win. To me that is cowardly and in some ways just as bad if not worse than physical violence. If you beat someone up they might heal,if you make them unhirable then they either starve or find more extreme people on their side to support them -- further solidifying their stance. I oppose cruelty as a method of bringing about positive change,ends don't justify means.
The point is to increase the marginal cost of fossil fuels to harm their competitiveness against renewable energy. Denying them access to cost-saving technology is one way to do that.
I'm a little annoyed you think I'm some kind of simpleton who hasn't considered the tradeoffs of my position and that your comment comes as some kind of shock to me. I have considered your points before, and found that on balance it's worth it.
> But laws and elections have been singularly ineffective at stopping global warming.
...in the US. I am sorry that I keep pointing that out, but global warming is being fought by most elected leaders right now. With some moderate success. The per capita emission in the world has plateaued, despite a positive economic growth. OECD countries have seen a decrease, China seems to come close to plateau as well.
US' leaders are the ones who unilaterally pulled from Kyoto and Paris treaties.
And I mean, even in the US, CO2 emissions are diminishing, in huge parts because of environmental policies.
> Companies are not supposed to be a way by which you enforce your moral beliefs.
Says who? I don't know about your ethical system, but mine certainly doesn't demand that I confine ethics to one sphere and never let it touch the others. Indeed, such an ethical system sounds completely broken to me.
Your ethical system is impractical and toxic. Your ethical system works by way of forcing your views on others. Perhaps if you were denied access to services,businesses,jobs,etc... Because of your ethical system you can appreciate the problem?
"I can treat you this way but you can't treat me the same way" sounds hypocritical does it not? You're right so you get to discriminate be intoletant and harm others,is that what you're saying? If you're so right let us use established systems of society to codify your beliefs,don't use your influence amd wallet to twist arms like a coward against those who lack your power and influence.
A system where people don't arm-twist and harm each other but use civilized discussion and peaceful discourse to patiently bring about desired change is what I support.
I do not support using your power as an employer, business owner,boss, monopoly(google) and other positions of power and influence to force others to practice your beliefs! I bet you would lose your mind if a religious person enforcef their religious beliefs the same way or if the people you disagree with did the same thing.
With your way,it is not the voice of who is right or of the majority that prevails but the strongest and most powerful win. And with your way phsyical violence and war are inevitable. Like ghandi said,be the change you wish to see. And tell others with your lowdest most peaceful voice,that's peaceful change. If that don't work for you then use violence and arm-twisting like this and let history repeat once more.
> A system where people don't arm-twist and harm each other but use civilized discussion and peaceful discourse to patiently bring about desired change is what I support.
But yet some regressive herd action always ends up carrying the current day, only to be lamented twenty years later, when a different but philosophically-similar goal will carry.
You wouldn't say that an individual choosing to not work at a specific company was "impractical" or "toxic", nor would you say that a small business avoiding a certain type of client was either. The real measure is when it becomes coercive.
Your comment is getting traction because red-flavor-thinking has been put in the position of pushing back against powerful corporations censoring individual speech. One of the justifications from the power-cheerleaders is "voluntary association", completely ignoring the power imbalance. And so the overall concept of voluntary association takes collateral damage despite being valid when applied honestly.
You wouldn't say that an individual choosing to not work at a specific company was > "impractical" or "toxic", nor would you say that a small business avoiding a certain type of client was either. The real measure is when it becomes coercive.
Voluntary association is a legal right but not associating based on political affiliation I am pretty sure is illegal and if not it should be. It is coercion when employees protest a company's business partners,they are using their high demand skills that got them employed to advance personal political ends. They are using their collective power to coerce business decisions in order to harm their political opposition.
> Perhaps if you were denied access to services,businesses,jobs,etc...
The right to refuse service to customers, and birth control to employees, on the basis of religious belief of business owners, has been confirmed by the US Supreme Court.
That is one interpretation of several pages of judicial thought. Although not disagreeable, it throws out a lot of the subtleties about why the decisions were made and what specific circumstances and conflicting rights contributed to that decision.
Looking at the cases you linked, I suspect if GCP were to deny services to gay people or abortion service providers the courts would determine that circumstances were different.
> The right to refuse service to customers, and birth control to employees, on the basis of religious belief of business owners, has been confirmed by the US Supreme Court.
> Companies are not supposed to be a way by which you enforce your moral beliefs.
Moral beliefs would be a mockery if they were so strictly confined. The whole point of morality is that it's a set of rules on how to live your life by. They always apply, in every interaction with other humans.
Right now, for example, by attacking the OP as "toxic", you are applying your own moral beliefs to them.
And of course this is not "arm-twisting". Refusal to associate with somebody generally isn't - you are not owed anybody's company, labor, or their good disposition towards you.
> How would you like if businesses turn you away because of your unethical beliefs?
