I just discovered this, and I’m quite conflicted about it:
I sympathise with the sentiment, but:
- Hybrids and electrics too? Sure, they still pollute. But what doesn’t!? Your bicycle pollutes. Electric cars pollute significantly less than equivalent dinosaur-juice-based ones. Electric cars are still quite expensive and some (many?) people make that effort out of concern for the environment. Do they (we) deserve to be punished, too?
- Isn’t this going too far? It’s bordering on vandalism. One thing is to put a leaflet on the windscreen, or approach the a driver to start a conversation — a very different thing is to completely disable a vehicle. BTW, doesn’t the recovery vehicle that will have to be summoned to tow the SUV pollute a ton, too?
- This kind of actions across the board are always tricky: you just don’t know the owners of that car, nor their circumstances. I can think of a few scenarios where an SUV parked on a city street at a given point in time makes sense and is justified.
@tripu "Bordering on vandalism"? It's straight-on vandalism! If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?
“If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?”
Yup. That’s the conundrum of civil disobedience and other forms of strictly illegal activism. It’s not particular to this case, though — rather a generic philosophical question.
I’ll go out on a limb and bet that you disobey some law(s) that some people (even most people) are just 😉
@tripu I think the concept of "victimless crime" is key here. You may break a law you consider unjust, but you shouldn't be causing harm to somebody else or their property, as is the case here.
Yes, I like that and use that rule most of the time 👍
Again, I just suspect that sometimes it’s justified to damage some kinds of property a little bit for a greater good, depending on many circumstances… 🤷
@tripu I dread when someone justifies actions because of the "greater good". Terrible disasters have been justified as been necessary "for the greater good".
Again, I totally get that, and sympathise with the idea. (You and I aren’t that far apart in these matters, really!)
Worthy ideas are abused by demagogues and mass murderers. Peace, prosperity, security, freedom, children. They claim to care about all that. As Bryan Caplan says, we aren’t cynical enough about politicians.
And yet.
Obviously worthy ideas are worthy per se.
Think of any indictment or policy that would actually improve public health, make children safer, raise living standards, or decrease violence. That’s a proposal that would work towards the greater good, by definition. By simply stating that fact out loud, does that proposal become less good? does it switch from beneficial to evil? Obviously not.
