It garners attention and has people talking about climate change, like in this comment thread, like in the attached article. It has in fact already achieved its goal.

Many other tactics have not so far. It's for example why people block traffic, it's an effective manner to gain attention.

>and has people talking about climate change

Not in this thread so far.

Neither in this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33309661

There's a few comments in this one discussing the climate, but mostly they are puzzled by the activists' method: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33268174

Hacker news is not target audience of that action.

Seems a bold claim to make. Who is, and why?

People who don't know or don't care about global warming. I still think that such action is stupid.

I would suggest that Hacker News is considerably more likely to turn the debate to solving climate change than how weird those people are, how much they hate vandalism or what the punishment should be than the average group of people...

Why would you suggest that?

This is a site of primarily rich tech guys who aren’t really affected by climate change and who get off on feeling superior to people who aren’t rich tech guys.

This is a very misguided take. From my interactions here over the years most HNers exhibit more than average levels of empathy and engage in high quality discourse.

Sounds a lot like the protestors, but with more interest in talking about science!

> with more interest in talking about science!

Read any HN discussion about fitness, nutrition, health, etc. It’s always the same nonsense.

It is a form of hacking.

It is some sort of social engineering.

The target is the media cycle and the hack is bring your name out there.

Did it work? I know they are orange and have a name ala « just say no to oil » or something.

And I really don’t care. So it worked on me.

The same results with classic ad campaign might have touched a fraction of the people hearing about that now.

For a different cost. ( in money as opposed to legal consequence and being in the awkward ass position )

I retain judgement until it became more clear is it’s a endgame, or a first step needed for something else.

I think you really need to explain who the target audience is, if not a site that routinely discusses climate change and climate targeting technologies/solutions.

Target is people who don't know already or are not interested. We on hacker news are interested, I am working on solving climate change problem, this is almost daily topic. Such actions only work to raise awareness. Are such actions successfull or have proper good impact? I think not, but that's different topic than "who is target audience".

> has people talking about climate change, like in this comment thread

Who in this thread is talking about climate change? Everyone is focused on the crazy behavior of the vandals.

They are playing the attention game now and are beholden to the rules of the game and the organisations that control the playing field.

In terms of climate change the media organisations support these activists. However where the media do not support the cause the attention game is the wrong thing to play.

It's all spectacle now. No actual change of a person's heart just ideology mediated through images. It does indeed get people thinking about it but only until the next news item is shown.

OK, what are the alternatives?

- Bribing the politicians to do something (with what money)?

- Having someone run on the political platform of building a greener future, while competing with turbocharged, lobby-backed candidates that want the exact opposite?

- Having those companies clean up their conduct (with what effective regulators)?

- Having better coverage in the media of matters related to climate change, to raise awareness and convince people that this is an emergency (with what media that's not owned by old pro-fossil billionaires)?

Raising awareness in this way may be stupid, but it's an avenue to at least get people talking for a few seconds.

An alternative is for people to blame themselves, the consumer. Oil companies won't produce oil if no one is using it. Everyone is blaming and pointing fingers at other people to do something.

Try buying food and having a social life without acquiring plastic or burning coal or gas, directly or indirectly.

They can control the supply side, and have. Putting the blame on the consumer is what happened in the 90s. The consumer can do nothing but hoard soda bottles to keep them from landfills at this point.

Or we can drink a lot less soda and other bottle drinks. Tap water is better for your body, bank account, and world.

Agreed — my example was intended to be mildly hyperbolic.

Tap water is not safe to drink everywhere, but even if I don’t drink bottled water - that’s still a drop in the bucket next to huge corporations that churn out plastic products by the ton.

Protesting in a way that governments can't ignore? Like imagine if instead of doing this to a random painting or sitting in a road, they blocked the door into congress, the white house, the house of commons, etc? That would get far more attention and press than vandalising a statue or painting or sitting in a road.

You cannot “block the door” into congress or the white house. You cannot get close enough to do it. Even if you did, you would not accomplish anything as the buildings are resilient to spofs at this point.

They have done these things and it hasn't gotten more attention, hence why you've not heard of it. And hence art galleries :

https://news.sky.com/story/extinction-rebellion-protesters-s...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11306813/Now-Just-S...

Have you heard the joke about the drunk man looking for his keys under the streetlight? A cop comes along and starts helping him, but they don't find the keys. The cop asks "Are you sure you lost them here?" The drunk says, "no I lost them over there, but the light's better here."

Murdering executives? If you're going to be an eco terrorist be an eco terrorist. This is just useless.

Or if you don't want to go that far, maybe a protest that actually brings information to people who need it?

I think it’s reasonable to decline murdering people as a protest practice.

Who fits your second group? Who is it that needs the information that doesn’t have it already?

> I think it’s reasonable to decline murdering people as a protest practice.

If you say so.

> Who fits your second group? Who is it that needs the information that doesn’t have it already?

Climate change deniers, of course. Go engage with them. It can't be any more pointless than fucking up some painting.

Getting their opposition to engage with the brainwashed denier masses is exactly what the money wants. They can leverage money and scale to convert and you can’t.

Hitting them in the art is a bit of class-oriented warning, and if you don’t see the subtlety of what’s happening I’d argue that’s on you.

> Hitting them in the art is a bit of class-oriented warning, and if you don’t see the subtlety of what’s happening I’d argue that’s on you.

Sorry but this is just so naive. First of all this is not a "rich vs poor" issue. Lots of people who I suspect you'd consider to be "rich" are very much on the side of climate change action. Second, the very select few rich people who are making these decisions aren't taking this as a warning. Third, you are making the seemingly common mistake of thinking that art is for the rich - it is not. Art in your personal home may be for the rich, but this is in a museum that is publicly accessible.

> if you don’t see the subtlety of what’s happening I’d argue that’s on you.

I mean, it's kind of on them... It's on them to get their message across.

> Getting their opposition to engage with the brainwashed denier masses is exactly what the money wants. They can leverage money and scale to convert and you can’t.

OK so you're saying that we can't engage with the opposition and instead we should use subtle "class oriented" scare tactics?

None of this makes sense.

You don’t understand my position but you claim it is naive and no one else’s position makes sense. I am not against wealthy people but you make a strawman to simplify your attack.

You have not responded to any of the points that refuted your points. I don’t know if you’re trolling, combative, or what.

You are proposing a simplistic first-order response “engage with the opposition” that has been going on since before internet forums were a thing, while calling me naive. I’ve explained why your proposal doesn’t work but you haven’t engaged with it.

Good luck with your solution.

In for a robbery, in for a murder? Some people won’t want to cross that boundary. And that’s even before we lose support for the cause from people who oppose violence.

I'm just saying they have better options. The nice thing about murder is that "support" isn't important. Everyone can say "wow how dare you" but at the end of the day a piece is off the board.

How about taking a page from the political playbook of the U.S.'s NRA (National Rifle Association, an extremely pro-gun group in recent decades) - keep detailed records of how every politician votes (on climate laws, vs. the NRA's focus on gun laws), then zealously turn out to vote in every election? That gave the NRA political influence far beyond what their membership numbers would suggest, decades before America's current culture wars had really heated up.

Of course, that would also require some real work, and a grown-up attention span. Vs. "I scream for full gratification NOW" performative activism, which has seemed the default for kids since at least the 1960's.

Noone saw this and said, "you know what I'm going to focus on the climate now".

Everyone just sees a person wasting glue, vandalizing art, and acting like a child.

It's a selfish act to make them feel better and boast amongst their peers.

If anything it hurts the movement they claim to support.

I guess picking up trash doesn't give them a good enough high...

But does it get attention to what they want to get attention for? At the moment, most responses have been "God these guys are idiots" and "what's the point of this?", not "damn, climate change is a problem we really need to do more about now"

I've never once seen people talking about climate change directly as a response to this sort of protest. Like, it gets brought up in terms of how I just brought it up, I said the words "climate change", but we're not having a discussion.

Because of course we're not. Climate change doesn't need more attention, everyone knows about it, whether they believe it's a problem or not. This isn't bringing awareness to anyone and it isn't changing anyone's mind.

I feel like they should be gluing a poster about climate change to the glass protecting the painting instead of their hand.

> has people talking about climate change

Incorrect. None of this has spawned a single conversation about climate change.

The only thing it has spawned is debate about how much moral justification one can receive from the existence of climate change.

I think it's performative. The "activists" do something random and useless, but that lets them feel like they're doing something. So from their perspective, it's worthwhile, because it lets them feel better about themselves.

Excuse the strong language, but what the fuck else can they do about it?

Corporate polluters are by far the worst, and if the government (which is full of pro-corporate lobbying) has not set up a strong industry regulator with sharp teeth, then the private citizen can do fuck all about it, legally speaking. Which is where you get people gluing themselves to private property and historical artworks, because that's only mildly illegal and unlikely to land one in prison for as long as some other available courses of action - like assasination of the CEOs of those polluting companies.

We are way, way past the point where individual responsibility on the part of each citizen can fix the problem. For one, there are few alternatives available to live a greener lifestyle. For two, even if alternatives are available, the majority of the society (yes, even in the West) simply isn't paid well enough to implement these in the timeframes that we need to meet to not kill the planet (which is now, not "in a couple of decades").

Just because a person does not have an effective means of doing something about a problem, does not justify bizarre antics. If a person does not have anything useful they can do, ... well, don't do something crazy just because you feel stuck.

Accept your powerlessness with meekness and do not attempt to disrupt or even annoy the systems that caused it? You can't be surprised that people don't accept that bargain.

> do not attempt to disrupt or even annoy the systems that caused it?

To start, lets don't blame Van Gogh, Vermeer or Monet for the climate change.

Literally no one is. Are people really this dense. Do you think anyone will be going to art museums in a +4C world?

In Scotland, yes.

Yeah, I mean, just sit down and conform while someone steals your children’s futures. What’s the big deal? Do don’t anything crazy.

You are advocating "learned helplessness."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/learned-helplessne...

Omit the word "else" from your first paragraph. This isn't "doing something about it" either. This is just a different way of pretending to do something about it.

Ineffective and ridiculous protest is still a form of protest. In the absence of other options, it's better than doing nothing at all.

There are all kinds of people doing serious climate change research, politics, business, etc.

Other options certainly do exist.

This ridiculous and ineffective protest only serves to make people fighting climate change look ridiculous.

That only hurts the movement.

It would be better if these individuals had done nothing at all.

Better yet - if they don’t know what to do about climate change, they can do any paying job, and donate their money to someone who does.

I believe there are two camps in the eco movement. One camp believes humans need to address our impact on the ecosystem. The other believes humans are the problem.

You see this split in the movement around extinction. Folks will shame humans for causing an animal to go extinct while simultaneously coming out in opposition to re-introducing extinct animals to their ecosystem through genetic research (I.e the Wholly Mammoth project).

I’d sum up the split as: one group wants to do something about it. The other wants humans to “just stop.”

Your list of solutions only work for the former group.

> Your list of solutions only work for the former group.

I don’t see why this distinction changes anything. Gluing your head to an old painting is ridiculous and counterproductive either way.

If someone believes the solution to climate change is either fewer humans, or less human activity, there are certainly constructive actions they could take.

and the other group deserve to have no part of the conversation at all.

FWIW I’m in the “humans are awesome and need to fix this camp”

Fortunately we don’t live in a society where we get to dictate who is in the conversation. We have to have conversations with them and spread the good word of humanity.

I don’t think many of these people understand our planet is dying regardless of humans. 75% of all life on earth is behind us IIUC. Life has been here for 4Bn years, we have another 500m to 800m left in our carbon cycle before it grinds to a halt.

This planet is heading towards a complete extinction event. Unless life manages to colonize other planets, finds a way to artificially maintain the carbon cycle, or replaces the carbon cycle, all life on earth is going to die relatively soon.

Humans are our best shot at accomplishing that imo. I don’t see any other species close enough to figuring that out on these timelines. Stopping the wheel of progress for humans dooms this planet to certain death.

> There are all kinds of people doing serious climate change research, politics, business, etc.

Not everyone can be, and not everyone can afford to support, people like this. Donations are great, assuming you actually have any disposable income after paying off the soaring costs of rent, food, and energy bills.

The way I see it, we throw stuff at the wall to have a chance of acquiring critical mass for change now, or we can wait until it’s too late and we are guaranteed to hit critical mass because people will start feeling the pain and will want to do something about it.

Is it? Action for action's sake is not desirable.

Performing self-serving and self-gratifying actions which are counter productive takes time and energy away from actions which while lacking the panache of attacking our cultural heritage taliban style are much more likely to effect their stated (but not demonstrated) goals.

It's easier to glue your head to a national treasure than it is to slog through meetings and the boring drudgery of actually working on fixing the problem is what I'm saying.

So is posting on HN. It's as effective as glueing yourself to a painting (that is, not at all), but it's more environmentally friendly because none of us had to travel to do it.

> assasination of the CEOs of those polluting companies.

This sounds even more counterproductive than someone gluing their head to a glass case.

You are far too optimistic. The issue is not this or that corporation, even corporate activity is at this point meaningless. Clearly China is gambling on climate change having little effect and so are many others, especially if you are a developing nation that stance is very enticing.

You are not trying to get some corporation to "go green", you are trying to influence nation state policy. Assasinating some CEO is as meaningless as vandalizing a museum. The only way to meet any "climate goal" is if most nations purposefully hinder their economies, organized boycots against offenders. But lets face it: life without "Made in China", is quite difficult. For an individual as well as a nation.

While I wouldn’t personally condone the assassination of corporate bosses, I can see them getting collectively anxious if this happens a few times. This could result in at least some changes to corporate policies.

> So from their perspective, it's worthwhile, because it lets them feel better about themselves.

In short, typical trust fund hippies. Disgusting!

This is the third such instance in the recent past. Canned tomato on van Gogh, mashed potato on Monet, and now this. I tend to think none of the multi-million paintings are displayed as originals. I don't know anyone who has worked at a museum, but I'm guessing they are all replicas behind glass.

Why would they put a replica behind glass?

anon, I...

To give people the impression they're protecting the real thing.

That's a pretty uninformed thing to say.

Fifth such instance.

It's a statement about how we are destroying our heritage, our history, and our future.

It makes people think about a world without the famous works of art which tether us to our past, to highlight how far adrift we are now.

"You're destroying our heritage!"

proceeds to destroy heritage

Idiotic hypocrites.

It's telling that some people find damaging a painting more heinous than damaging all of humanity.

(Also no works of art were actually damaged. But I still think it's important to note how much this upsets you, but general ruining of the earth doesn't seem to)

The thing is that while most people agree climate change is real, it's not clear at all what the actual damage to humanity will be. IME said hypothetical damage is hugely overblown by activists, who talk as if the end of humanity was certain.

That argument is insanely stupid and assumes that one isn't upset about this IN ADDITION TO already being upset about our impending ecological future.

Sir or madam, it is quite possible to be upset about two things at the same time; thank you.

Here's a midler analogy (sincerely) "I am mad the perp assaulted a woman, but the woman cried about it very loudly and that was annoying to me. I can be mad about two things at once." Being upset about a painting and putting it on the same scale of societal collapse is a great example of equivocation that cheapens the greater harm.

The way I think of it is that if you are already concerned about the future due to climate change etc., then you are not the target audience for this sort of action.

The whole point I take from it is that it is an attempt to raise awareness through "if you're upset about this, there's no excuse for you not to be upset about that"

If you're already in the loop on climate change and what's ahead of us - yeah, all that's left for you in this act is to be upset about the act itself.

I wish it wasn't necessary do stuff like this, but I am not at all certain anymore that it isn't.

If warning government officials does nothing, and warning the public does nothing, and scientists urging for action does nothing, and presenting reports and articles does nothing, and hanging up banners and buying ads does nothing, and protesting in front of government buildings does nothing, and protesting in front of "big oil" HQs does nothing, and protesting in the streets does nothing, and children skipping schools to protest does nothing, and throughout all this, voting does nothing because there are still not enough people that care enough about these issues, and politicians still take steps to make things worse, what's left to do?

What's the next step?

I don't know anymore. I'm sure others feel the same way, which is why I'm not surprised desperate and hard to reason about acts like this end up happening.

This difference might be another instance of conflicting moral foundations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory).

The painting is ours; it's concrete, and something beautiful threatened by chaotic, lawless vandalism. That some vague 'humanity', or a potential threat to some distant country in some distant future is more important than that will appear obvious only to the group with the reduced set of moral foundations.

I think that a world with 2d of warming AND damaged paintings is clearly worse than one with 2d of warming AND NOT damaged paintings.

I see this fundamental flaw in reasoning frequently in "Activist" culture. Desiring that The Action lead to The Greater Good doesn't change the fact that, today 27 October 2022, we have a damaged painting but no policy change.

Earth is going to be destroyed by climate change anyway, nothing we can effectively do other than drastically limit the number of people born in the world, but the only way to do that would be unconsiable.

But we don't have to destroy the art, in addition to the effects of climate change.

> nothing we can effectively do other than drastically limit the number of people born in the world, but the only way to do that would be unconsiable

The elephant in the room.

They didn't destroy any heritage. The paintings were behind glass. The whole thing was symbolic.

At some point they’re going to escalate to hammers and knives.

Okay, then at some point we can get be more concerned about the protest than about the potentially cataclysmic thing they're protesting.

There’s things they could do like not procreate and travel on planes if they wanted to have a bigger impact than what they did.

Maybe this will turn out to be ineffective, but not staging public protest will definitely be ineffective.

Fair point I missed. Thank you.

The symbolism's still shit though.

If you're outraged by the damage of a small part of our artistic heritage, while turning a proportionately blind eye to the wholesale destruction of our natural heritage...

There's something that may be worth a moment of introspection, and a reconsideration of where you want to devote your energies.

These events are a nothingburger, if you care enough to be outraged by them, you should probably be many, many orders of magnitude more outraged by what they are protesting.

This makes sense.

Is this point made by the activists, in your observation of these events? None of the Headline News articles mention that intention.

They can’t control what is reported about them. Part of this is education of the readership. Seems like that at least worked once or twice, here.

The idea is to keep the topic in the news cycle. Climate change is one of those issues that people are quick to forget about because the day to day effects are hard to see.

These activists certainly manage to keep themselves in the headlines. I'm not convinced that they actually get anyone incrementally interested in the underlying Global Warming issue, much less induce any change.

Only if you are willfully blind. Between crazy heat waves in Europe, the mass die off snowcrabs, unprecedented forest fires and flooding, unending droughts, various Arctic parts not fully freezing, disappearing glaciers etc. etc. it honestly feels like a week doesn't go by where something climate related isn't in the news. Gluing one's self to famous painting isn't going to convince the people who are already ignoring the real stories.

If it's so powerful a narrative in the media why isn't anything being done? And of that being done, it being so insignificant in comparison to what is the bare minimum needed?

Is there really nothing that is being done, at all? No solar + wind farms? No process optimization for energy saving at industrial sites, no highly efficient insulation for buildings etc etc? You could argue that not enough is being done, but nothing? That's ridiculous.

Instead of seeking media attention, protesters could also just learn how to install solar panels or build wind turbines. We have a tremendous shortage of skilled labor in those areas, which increases the price of installation and limits the speed of transformation.

But it's harder than gluing yourself to something and bringing a photographer, so they won't. Which suggests to me that it's not really about climate change. Climate change is the medium, the message is narcissism.

It's interesting how it exposes the hypocrisy of how millions of people feel incredibly concerned about, say, a can of tomato soup destroying a small bit of our shared cultural heritage, but many of whom don't feel anywhere near that level of concern at the wholesale destruction of our natural heritage.

People do care about the bigger issues but not everyone is able to do something about it.

It's not hypocrisy. It's just people are limited by their resources and capabilities.

You are mistaken in thinking that people in general care about the bigger issues. Most people don't, and many the ones who do only care until gas is $7/gallon.

This is exactly it. If you're serious about climate change, then you should see high fossil fuel prices as a good thing. In reality, few people do.

The reason people care about $7 gas is because often they can't afford it. People who can barely pay bills can end up losing their home, their car, getting their power shut off when expenses go way up. Poor people often have to commute long distances for work because they can't afford to live near their jobs. $7/gallon may not be asking a lot of you, but it is for them. I would submit that the people most willing to make sacrifices, the people quickest to condemn others for not being willing, are only making sacrifices they can afford, that are fun, that fit into their lifestyle, that enhance their self image.

So, you agree with me that most people don't meaningfully care about the bigger issue?

I'm not passing a value judgement on them, here. I'm just stating a fact about priorities.

Yeah, I guess I do agree with you then. My apologies for misreading your point.

What are you able to do about a painting? Heck, why should I care about some painting about a man I don't know? There are so many paintings in any given museum, aren't there enough to go around?

If that sentiment makes you upset innately but the destruction of our future does not, may be you are in fact the target of the protest and the fact it offends you proves its point.

The activism serves no purpose. The "destruction of nature" does serve a purpose, it keeps their house warm, their car rolling and their fridge filled.

Lots of activists have a hard time understanding that, because they come from very privileged families that have never had to worry about anything, and thus never made the connection between the factory, the jobs it brings, and the goods that are consumed. They only see the factory and declare it evil, which is easy to say if you have some bullshit-job with the government, and didn't have a working-class ancestor in the last three generations.

People can be worried by both cases also, or by none of them. Two wrongs don't made a right.

People is fully justified to feel angry about such stupid way to waste the scarce resources (in terms of both, money and credibility) that we should be using instead to support people really fighting climate change or to lobby politicians to accelerate the process.

This kind of action seems totally like a scene extracted from the don't look up movie.

Primarily to make themselves feel important.

Result: Increasing the cost of insurance that museums will have to bear.