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Spanish activists vandalize superyacht in Ibiza believed to belong to billionaire Walmart heiress | CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/europe/activists-vandalize-yacht-ibiza-climate-intl/index.html

Spanish environmental activists spray-painted a superyacht moored in Ibiza on Sunday.

Spanish activists vandalize superyacht in Ibiza believed to belong to billionaire Walmart heiress | CNN

Activists from the environmental group Futuro Vegetal posted a video showing them standing in front of the superyacht named Kaos, holding a banner that says: “You Consume Others Suffer.” The activists then sprayed the vessel with red and black paint.

“The richest 1% of the world population pollutes more than the poorest 50%,” the activists said in the video.”They are condemning us to a future of pain, misery and desolation.”

19 comments

prole

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To me, this is far more effective than pouring paint on priceless works of art. At least this is a direct message to a billionaire.

lysy

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AFAIK nobody poured paint directly on art works, they've been protected by plastic covers etc. so the works haven't been harmed.

prole

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Yeah, making it even less effective.

The_Terrible_Humbaba

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The whole point of protests like that is to gather attention in order to spread the message, and it worked. I would guess that this will not become as big of a story. Just using this post as an example: it was posted 2 days ago, but it only has 54 upvotes, 8 comments, and I'm only hearing about i now. Meanwhile, the protest with the works of art spread like wildfire.

You seem to be happy about maybe getting the attention of 1 billionaire, but will this really achieve? She can afford to get it cleaned pretty easy and quick, and it will barely register as a blip on her radar. It has no real effect on her, and no one else will care or even hear about it. How will this change or save the world?

You need the masses on your side to actually change things, but to do that you first need to get their attention and make them aware of the scale and reality of the problem. As "pretty" and "clean" as this might be, it will most likely achieve absolutely nothing.

prole

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I would say it had the opposite effect. They got attention, but it was 100% negative. At best, people were ambivalent toward it. At worst, it hurt their cause because people rightfully recognized how fucking stupid it was.

Attempting to deface valuable art (that has absolutely nothing to do with climate change) in order to try to change policy surrounding climate change, does not win anyone to your side.

The_Terrible_Humbaba

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But if you can't get anyone's attention in the first place, then it's impossible to bring them to your side at all. Besides, as was already said, they never actually attempted to deface art.

You're essentially buying into propaganda designed to discredit climate activists and making them out to be terrorists.

Can I ask what you typically think about protesters, and things like the pride parade? Your thought process and the narrative you are using reminds me a lot of the people who complain about protesters occupying roads and blocking traffic, and who say they should go somewhere else and that they are actually harming their cause (I used to think like that). In reality, your narrative is what is actually damaging and is designed to make them look bad, and your advice would result in their message never being seen or heard by anyone. The whole point is to be disruptive and making it so that people hear the message.

"""Defacing""" valuable art is just a means to get eyes on you so that you can deliver the message. Spray-painting the back of a billionaires yacht is not going to get any eyes on you.

prole

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I've bought into no propaganda, I saw the story about the protests before I ever saw anyone's reaction to them. And if I, an environmental engineer who cares very much about climate change, had that negative a view of those protests, I can't imagine how their target audience must feel.

As seen with the story we're commenting on, you can get attention while also doing something that's actually pertinent to your cause, and that actually targets people with at least some responsibility for our current climate situation.

It's like saying that you're going to deface a supermarket in order to protest AI. People just want to grocery shop, dude, nobody here is responsible for AI. Go away.

lysy

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So the media you read missed the key point of protests. You may consider chaing your news sources, because you don't seem to know what was the purpose of these acts. The key point was that the humanity and the art will eventually cease to exist and nobody will be able to look at anything anymore. It was a metaphor to make people realize how important art is for them and the reason they should start caring about climate crisis.

lysy

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They got attention, but it was 100% negative.

You need data to support this claim. I've seen positive comments to this situation, including myself.

prole

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It was slight hyperbole to make a point. Every person I spoke to about it felt very negatively about it.

I'm not the only one:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/vermeer-glue-soup-climate-protest-outrage/671904/

https://time.com/6233983/van-gogh-art-climate-protest-survey/

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28/1131912007/climate-activists-have-been-attacking-artworks-recently-but-how-effective-is-thi

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/soup-vs-art-climate-change-protesters-lose-1.6655497

TheOtherJake

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They should do more than paint the thing. Give it a tour of the seabed.

loops

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Would have to remove all the oils and fuel and stuff before doing that.

LimitedWard

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I'd expect a boat like this to be staffed 24/7, in which case attempting to sink it would risk human lives.

pizzaiolo

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Based

ellabella

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Now THIS I can support compared to those paint and milk fiasco from many months ago.