Is news really activism? Will this place be the change u wanna cause?
Is news really activism? Will this place be the change u wanna cause?
Yeah I get it, everything fucking sucks and sometimes we get a win. I've been here for 30 minutes tops and I can't remember half of the headlines I've read, can you? There's like no engagement on any of the posts here and there's probably a dozen aggregators that post the same shit you're looking at.
Shit that was written to nickel and dime you somehow, or lower down the food chain in an academic format for people actually paid to solve problems.
Leave the articles to the climate scientists and policy makers: This instance needs a place for people who get shit done, people who wanna change themselves and their immediate communities. We don't have enough of that, anywhere.
You're complaining that a tiny website designed for anonymously sharing news articles and memes is mostly sharing news articles and memes anonymously.
What you want is not found online.
If that's really what's up then I'm out, that sounds pathetic. Also I'm going to pretend you can't read and thought I was looking for change online. I said we need a place for ppl who are ready to change, or are changing.
There are many more communities on this instance that need active participants. If you think this one has too many mainstream news articles (which is a fair point) don't subscribe to it, or even block it from your feed.
However, looking at the subscriber count of this community it seems to work well as an entry point for people from other Lemmy instances to get to know ours, and I think that is a good thing overall.
Currently @silence7 is basicly filling this instance with some life. Thanks for that btw. I would like to read stuff like that and if you see some please post it here. I might like to read it. The issue is that this is a small community and it is kind of hard to find the good stuff. Thats just how it is.
What you're looking for is to get organized. You won't find that on an online forum. Join a local anarchist or vegan organization, or hell even a labor union. Read books to help decolonize your mind and support your local indigenous action groups. Bring the fight to the politicians and the robber barons that are destroying the planet in the name of exponential and unending growth. There's a lot one can do to help fight, but none of that happens here on an (honestly) obscure internet forum.
a place for people who get shit done, people who wanna change themselves and their immediate communities.
Sounds like what you're looking for is people to meet with, organize and do actions. Locally, offline.
I think that's generally the way to go.
I think you're right. Posting on social media has become a distraction from activism. All the news also lead/contribute to activism burnout. I think twitter and co are the best thing that could ever have happened to the big corporations and governments who want to keep their power. People post there and think that that's activism, while it achieves next to nothing.
But on the other hand, it also might be the only thing burned-out people CAN do if they don't feel like street activism. Also it gives motivation to some.
The term for what you're looking for is "organizing," which is much harder and involved than "activism" (as defined when contasted to each other). It's also much more durable, and packs a hell of a punch.
I walked away from an Occupy rally once when all I could get from anyone, as to what the plan of action was, "TAKE IT TO THE STREETS."
Exhausting.
What do you want that to look like?
I agree that what you propose in abstract would be a good thing! How do we do it?
Would you like to see people posting pictures and stories of ways that they have mitigated the climate impacts of their own lives? Kind of like /r/zerowaste? This would be cool and good! But real change comes not at the individual level, it comes from organizing communities at the local level.
Maybe you’d like to see more of that local-level organizing happening here? Well, this isn’t a local community. Where and how could such a disparate group of individuals make meaningful change?
Perhaps you’d like to see a meeting space where local groups communicate and coordinate larger-scale action? Cool! However, we kind of need local groups to get organized before that’s really possible. Don’t forget that organizing in a public and easily-scrapable space makes it easy for those we are organizing against to know our plans and work to counter them. However, having an easily accessible public face for people to get started and involved is also important!
Lemmy is a website for sharing and discussing news and memes. If there are ideas you want to spread or need you want to share, do it here. If you think that people are approaching a problem wrong, make a meme pointing it out. If you want to spread an interesting perspective, share it here for discussion. If you are looking for political action or to make meaningful change, find allies in your local community.
Lemmy is a place for ideas, not action. If you want action, find some comrades.
Once you have a local group taking action and making changes, share it here to inspire and support others doing the same.
What do you mean with your last paragraph? Leave the articles to them?
the majority of those articles aren't paired with an actionable thesis statement to the avg reader, it's just a bundle of anxiety and despair. they're not worth your time or mine
The news here is not just negative, people have posted articles showing how things are NOT hopeless, like about how surprisingly effective the Inflation Reduction Act is, or how states and countries are scaling up solar power, how cheap alternative energies are continually becoming, etc.
I don't go to traditional news sites, watch TV, or use any other social media, Lemmy has become how I stay slightly abreast of what's happing, and it works well as a Reddit replacement in that regard.
I also think it's a good place to share ideas, some of the articles posted from Lowtech Magazine were absolutely wonderful.
Is it a good place to organize? No. But it's a nice place to discuss things, find cool stuff, and be informed of global happenings.
I also like my news with a bit of a call to action
Gotcha, makes sense. Complex topic. Needs to stay in people's mind but too much and they get used to it.
I agree, OP. There ought to be rather than news boards, more boards on Activism, Direct Action. I don't actually know what activism can do for climate change in the U.S. right now. But if there was a community that non-stop posted Laws, Bills, and really substantial changes, and also activist news like stories about Greta that would be a start?
There's an organization called Strong Towns that talks about how to organize bike lane and other urbanist proposals for American towns. I wonder if that is our way in to activism on climate change.
There are also orgs. that check the receipts on companies that are polluting and those that aren't, companies that are greenwashing with carbon credits and carbon offsets. We could get a real climate boycott list made, and make demands about what those other companies need to do.
The Green Infrastructure act or whatever in America is written in such a way that it makes sense for every new factory or tower building to take advantage of totally renewable energy. They will if communities make them, otherwise fossil fuel lobbyists will slow down this progress.
I have heard very strong dogma saying asking people to be vegan for climate reasons is gatekeeping, but I wonder if this is a way in. If good rhetoric can be made, good cookbooks sent their way - perhaps this would activate liberals.
Overall Solarpunk as a movement is super dreamy and makes persuasive art and design for climate-robust city and town design. Seeing solarpunk art really helped click it into place in my brain that the way we design the world is exacerbating the problem.
I guess what I'm saying is community boards are better suited to collaborative content creation than news. We can do activism by making persuasive art and rhetoric on and offline, and we can highlight rallies and marches just as quickly as we can highlight news.
The big challenge with direct action and online is that systems like lemmy record a lot of what you do. When you're planning direct action, it tends to be illegal, and creating a record of your plans like this is a really bad idea.
If you're going to do that, set up a group chat on Signal with disappearing messages enabled and keep the number of people involved to no more than seven or eight to limit the risk of infiltration.
Fair enough. I would never do anything illegal! I meant more beginner friendly direvt action such as protests, phone banking, emailing reps. And telling people about worrying bills. I'm no Just Stop Oil activist. Still you have a great point, even protest planning needs to be kept out of the public eye.
I'd be happy to share more about that, but it mostly takes organizing. And that means getting people together. Some zoom maybe, but a lot of in-person activism. Showing up at city council meetings. Talking with people you know, and getting them to join you.
You can join an organized group but the reality is that most communities don't have one, and you'll need to start it up.
I pretty much agree with this - I like reading the news and knowing what's going on, but it seems like the action is the missing piece, more so than the news about how fucked everything is.
So to me, one thing I think would be very effective is just a monthly subscription which builds up a pool of money, which goes as campaign contributions (coupled with outreach / voting recommendations for voters / other activism) to people who are enacting the regulations that we need to have happen.
That's not meant to say that direct protest / communication of what's going on like you see in this sub / individual actions aren't substantial, but I think action towards changing the governments' policies is one of the most effective ways to make positive change, and sadly in the current environment that means money.
If you are a member of such an organisation, please share your activities here and you can also try to do some fund-raising (in moderation) if you think that helps.
I am not but I'm happy to set it up - maybe like a Kickstarter to see if there's enough traction behind the idea, and if there's some seed money / interest, it'd be pretty easy to set up a nonprofit and a web site where people can subscribe + view details of where the money is going in terms of campaign contributions, and why.
Like I say I honestly think it'd be a pretty good approach. I imagine a pretty simple web site: Currently we're at $x per month, and the specific regulatory bills we're supporting are A, B, and C, and these are the candidates that are getting regular donations from us totaling $y per month out of our contributions because they're doing the good stuff. Want to join our contributions list? Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to raise so much money for your campaign? (I know that's actually a really miserable part of being in congress) Here's what you need to know. Want to donate? Click here. And so on. It's not complex.
I mean I am sure the concept of a recurring monthly donation to an organization that then advocates and contributes to candidates is not new. Maybe I'm reinventing the wheel lol. I feel like overall I'm a little late to the party in terms of activism against climate change; do you happen to know of good organizations like this that are already set up / already existing?
I mean there are other communities for activism on this instance. I don't think it's crazy that this one has turned towards discussing news. I think if you're looking for direct activism you may be better off in a community like !solarpunk@slrpnk.net
Subbed. But guess what? I see a lot of news there too, sprinkled with art discussion.