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Comment by losteverything | Hacker News Reader

"If a protest falls outside of the media, does it make an impact?"

No. But in my lifetime these protests changed life

Womens rights. NOW. riggs vs billy Jean king. Women took a job away from a man. Now you cant afford to own a house without a woman's income.

Vietnam war. War is bad. Draft is evil. How america treated returning soldiers means today it is taboo to say anything negative about a veteran. (yet 20 years earlier there was family shame if you didn't enlist for wwii)

Civil rights. Who even met a negro back in 1966??. Now who cares.

Gay rights. So.. Its not about inability to procreate... Before gays were oddities. Now.. Who cares. Marriage even.

Animal rights. Yeah, out of sight... Lets protest. Cleveland amory. Aspca.. Now we turned the word "rescue" into a washed out version of saving.

Nukes. We forget that one nuke will wipe out life with years of darkness... Remember iran in 1979??? "Nuke Iran"

YES. PROTESTS MATTER

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This all seems to be an expression of the zeitgeist. Popular perceptions shift. Things get accomplished democratically (or through court fiat without too much blow-back) and protesters protest, because, you know, man, that's what they do. Other than creating some photo fodder for the National Geographic 2100 edition of the natives, I'm not sure that protests do anything more than pound the dirt on things that are already top-of-soul to the public.

In other words: Maybe minds are not changed. It seems to me, as I observe it, the after effect is that they are hardened and protests are actively harmful in that regard.

I'd like to hear your counter-x on that.

I'm confused why you think protests aren't a huge part of all those zeitgeist shifts. Even today, look at BlackLivesMatter: people are talking about police brutality and prison reform now - that was not even close to being a mainstream topic 10 years ago. People didn't just magically change their mind overnight.

My counter-example is me.

I was pretty ignorant about the US's long history of structural racism before Ferguson. But when that blew up, I was surprised. Clearly, there was something I didn't understand going on.

I started following a lot more African-American voices on Twitter (and do to this day). I ended up reading more about the history, both distant and recent. I dug into the economics of it. [1] But mainly, I listened to non-white reactions to current events.

My initial reaction was often denial. "It can't be that bad!" And that's easy to say when you have a small n. But as the n gets larger, I had to give that denial up. What I wanted to believe about America was contradicted by the facts.

I'm sure some people do bunker down in their denial rather than taking time to hear out the protesters. But I suspect those are the people who wouldn't have changed their minds regardless.

[1] E.g., https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/7/7/15929196/police-fine... or http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873 or https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...

I tend to be more convinced by good writing and reporting than by the protests themselves, but why do those reporters get assigned and why are all those essays getting written and published and read? Making the national news matters.

But are those changes due to a shift in people's perception and values, inherent to evolution of newspapers and universities (or anything that changes culture, including the job market), or were these changes actually triggered by the demonstrations?

I mean, it's all interconnected, so yes.

- Activists who lead protests often work with writers, journalists, and professors

- Protests also draw attention to otherwise less mainstream issues - just look at how we talk about income inequality today vs before Occupy, or prison reform and police brutality before BlackLivesMatter

- There are feedback loops. Successful protests draw more protesters in the future by drawing attention to and legitimizing grievances.

- yes, changes in technology or the economy also matter

>Nukes. We forget that one nuke will wipe out life with years of darkness

Whut?

And what have protests ever done for nuclear disarmament?

Well...im not really sure why a nuke hasn't been deployed yet. But for me the protests allowed me to learn the significant difference between an atomic bomb and a nuke. I always thought it was just a larger bomb.

Protests helped me realize what people dont say anymore: one nuke will cancel the species.

A "nuke" is simply slang for "nuclear weapon", and the US deployed two in WW2. It sounds like you might be talking about fusion weapons, which have certainly been tested but never used in anger; these are, in effect, just bigger bombs. No one bomb that humans possess can wipe out the species, or even make a dent. Nor is it a given that a single nuclear attack will lead to nuclear war.

As to why no one's used nuclear weapons since WW2, it turns out they're not hugely useful weapons outside of a "total war" context. Too blunt an instrument; rarely do you wish to simply wipe out a few square miles and everything in it.

I predict the first use, if it happens, will be naval.

Omg. What i learned would not allow the comparison and analysis you used.

I wish it was 1979 again and i could have recorded my physics prof...

If you can't remember the evidence how can you be so certain?

Doesn't the fact that hundreds of nuclear bombs have been tested without destroying the species hold any weight?

Perhaps the argument is the retaliation would be world ending but even that is not clear.

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