Canadian Oil Company Facing Backlash Over Disturbing Greta Thunberg Poster

Kwak

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tstorm823 said:
but nobody likes the person who tries to solve their problems by making everyone else miserable on purpose.
See - Martin Luther King.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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I'm confused, I saw the sticker, how is it rape? It's doggystyle sex, maybe rough cause it has hair-pulling (though we don't know how hard it's being pulled, the image is not detailed) but I don't get where people got the rape from.

I'm all for her policies and the green new deal and all that, and I like her individually, but that sticker is not rape.
 

tstorm823

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Kwak said:
tstorm823 said:
but nobody likes the person who tries to solve their problems by making everyone else miserable on purpose.
See - Martin Luther King.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

I have a dream...

MLK did not make a mission of filling the world with fear and anxiety, he inspired people with his hope and dreams for the future. You can do that with climate change. The geological cycles of the earth's temperature don't sit still. Without man-made climate change, humanity was pretty much destined to see the glaciers come back: we're 12,000 years into an interglacial period, which last approximately 10,000 years. Man-made climate change is baby's first step toward people stewarding the climate. And I know people rightly treat a walking toddler as a suicide machine that needs constant supervision to not die, but walking is a good thing. People just need a little more optimism and a few fewer calls to tear down all of society in a panic.
 

Terminal Blue

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tstorm823 said:
MLK did not make a mission of filling the world with fear and anxiety, he inspired people with his hope and dreams for the future. You can do that with climate change. The geological cycles of the earth's temperature don't sit still. Without man-made climate change, humanity was pretty much destined to see the glaciers come back: we're 12,000 years into an interglacial period, which last approximately 10,000 years. Man-made climate change is baby's first step toward people stewarding the climate. And I know people rightly treat a walking toddler as a suicide machine that needs constant supervision to not die, but walking is a good thing. People just need a little more optimism and a few fewer calls to tear down all of society in a panic.
The next ice age wasn't due for thousands of years (interestingly, that number is now estimated to have increased significantly because of man made climate change).

Thousands of years into the future is such a stupidly long time it may as well be forever. Trying to imgine what humanity or human life would be like at that point is literally impossible.

But the human society we live in is, at this point, very, very unlikely to survive the next 200 years, which is a very comprehensible timespan. The nation states in which we live will either cease to exist or be radically changed. Many of the cities we have built to house millions of humans each will cease to be habitable. Most of the arable land which provides those millions of humans with food will cease to be as productive, or even become impossible to cultivate.

We are not dealing with this with whatever magical technology might exist thousands of years in the future, we are dealing with this now, and it has actually already begun. 8 billion dollars are currently being spent on a giant ecological project trying to halt the expansion of the Sahara desert, which has already caused 60 million people to have to leave their homes, and in real terms climate change is just warming up (pun intended). If all carbon emissions were reduced to zero tomorrow, the climate would still continue to deteriorate for centuries because of environmental feedback loops which are, at this point, unavoidable.

Human society is going to be torn down. That is a given. We are currently passing the point at which the truly apocalyptic outcomes were avertable. There will be mass starvation. There will be wars over resources or cultivable land. There will be natural disasters and mass migrations as areas become increasingly hostile to human life.

This is not a teachable moment, this is not a part of humanity's great journey to environmental mastery. This is an enormous and impending disaster which will change the nature of our planet for such a long time that it may as well be permanent. Elon Musk isn't going to save the day. Right now, our technology is still at the point of reducing the carbon footprint of industrial processes through capture and storage. If we ever do get to the point of being able to sink large ammounts of atmospheric carbon artificially, it's going to be far too late to "steward the climate", because at that point a lot of natural carbon sinks will be gone. The amazon rainforest will be dead. The oceans will be dying. Biospheres worldwide will be in full collapse. Future generations with their amazing climate stewarding technologies will merely be fighting the processes which have already been set in motion, and even in the best case scenario they will do so for centuries before experiencing any significant recovery.

Grief and misery is the appropriate response. It is the only response that reflects the severity of the real situation. A terrible, terrible crime is happening, and none of those responsible will ever be punished. If you want real hopes and real dreams, then hope that future generations learn from this, and that the world they rebuild is better. If you're hoping for the sake of hoping, then your hope is false, and it's worth nothing.

MLK dared to imagine a world without racism. He didn't pretend racism wasn't real or wasn't that bad, and he certainly had a few things to say about inaction and meaningless "hope".
 

Agema

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tstorm823 said:
Man-made climate change is baby's first step toward people stewarding the climate.
No, our response to climate change may be baby's first step towards stewardship of the climate.

And if the likes of these yahoos get their way, there's not going to be a response.
 

Silvanus

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Vendor-Lazarus said:
"She is not a climatologist, or even a scientist.
I've seen this one, as well.

Of course, climatologists have been warning us for decades, and have been roundly ignored, insulted and dismissed. So, those who criticise Thunberg for her lack of qualifications also have no intention of listening to those who actually are qualified.

tstorm823 said:
People just need a little more optimism and a few fewer calls to tear down all of society in a panic.
You're certainly right that optimism and hope are more effective communicative tools.

But reducing emissions to manageable levels is not tearing down society. Prioritising greed over sustainability is not an integral characteristic of society, and it wouldn't be traumatic to move away from that.
 

tstorm823

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evilthecat said:
Human society is going to be torn down. That is a given. We are currently passing the point at which the truly apocalyptic outcomes were avertable. There will be mass starvation. There will be wars over resources or cultivable land. There will be natural disasters and mass migrations as areas become increasingly hostile to human life.
No, there won't. I'm not going to pretend I can prove what will happen in the future, but betting on global societal collapse is a terrible bet.

You do know that in much of the world, climate change is forecast to increase rain and extend growing seasons, right?

Agema said:
No, our response to climate change may be baby's first step towards stewardship of the climate.

And if the likes of these yahoos get their way, there's not going to be a response.
There's already a ton of response. Many places are dropping carbon emissions, trillions of dollars are being invested in clean energy, the times they are a-changin'.

Silvanus said:
You're certainly right that optimism and hope are more effective communicative tools.

But reducing emissions to manageable levels is not tearing down society. Prioritising greed over sustainability is not an integral characteristic of society, and it wouldn't be traumatic to move away from that.
Turning off the electricity would be tearing down society. Like, you know that "fact" that gets spread around about 100 companies being responsible for 71% of carbon emissions, and then everyone goes "doesn't matter what I do, those companies are doing all the damage"? It's a list of 100 oil and gas companies. It's literally the list of business that keep cars running, homes heated, and power turned on. So like, if you see someone on the internet complaining about the hundred companies making climate change happen, what they're really complaining about is that nobody is turning off their power. They may not realize that's what they're asking for, but that's what they're asking for. And if we start turning off the electricity, it's going to become difficult to keep people alive and functioning, more or less develop permanent solutions to climate change.

Like, renewables are getting stronger and cheaper, public opinion of nuclear is softening, electronics are getting more efficient, batteries are holding more power with less... we're getting there. There's a brain teaser I heard once along the lines of "The first group of people to leave Earth to travel another solar system get there and are greeted by the second group of people to leave Earth and travel to another solar system", and the explanation is that it took so long to travel the distance that in the meantime, they invented faster ships and got there first. The lesson being that patient preparation can reach a goal faster than hurrying out ASAP. That's where we're at with combating climate change. It looks very much like we're sitting still, but a lot of preparation is happening, so when change really comes, it's going to come fast, and we'll reach a more sustainable future faster than if we had aggressively limited carbon usage a decade ago.
 

CaitSeith

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tstorm823 said:
Like, you know that "fact" that gets spread around about 100 companies being responsible for 71% of carbon emissions, and then everyone goes "doesn't matter what I do, those companies are doing all the damage"? It's a list of 100 oil and gas companies. It's literally the list of business that keep cars running, homes heated, and power turned on. So like, if you see someone on the internet complaining about the hundred companies making climate change happen, what they're really complaining about is that nobody is turning off their power.
Only if you assume that there are no other means to make electricity than oil and gas. But there are, and what we are asking for is for those companies to use those alternatives. Where is the "stop using electricity" here?
 

tstorm823

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CaitSeith said:
Only if you assume that there are no other means to make electricity than oil and gas. But there are, and what we are asking for is for those companies to use those alternatives. Where is the "stop using electricity" here?
If they could use those alternatives and manage demand, they would. If you stop using oil and gas, you immediately cut the energy available to shreds. And then people lose power.
 

CaitSeith

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tstorm823 said:
CaitSeith said:
Only if you assume that there are no other means to make electricity than oil and gas. But there are, and what we are asking for is for those companies to use those alternatives. Where is the "stop using electricity" here?
If you stop using oil and gas, you immediately cut the energy available to shreds. And then people lose power.
Hence why transition periods exist (to systematically and slowly replace the infrastructure, so the negative impact gets minimized or even negated); but the companies haven't even started and they show no intention of wanting to. And the longer they wait, the harder it will to restructure.
 

Terminal Blue

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tstorm823 said:
No, there won't. I'm not going to pretend I can prove what will happen in the future, but betting on global societal collapse is a terrible bet.
I am going to pretend I can prove what will happen in the future. Because I can, or rather, climate scientists can. They use things like mathematics and statistical modelling.

And I'm sorry, but if you think you live in a society which could accommodate billions of people being displaced or a 30% reduction in global food yields (which is extremely generous) without collapsing, in some sense, then you haven't been paying much attention to recent events.

tstorm823 said:
So like, if you see someone on the internet complaining about the hundred companies making climate change happen, what they're really complaining about is that nobody is turning off their power.
Or alternately, that noone is building the infrastructure required to keep the power on without the same carbon footprint, which at this point is entirely possible and largely doesn't happen due to the influence of those same companies and political inactivity from politicians who either don't believe in climate change at all or know that people will continue to cling to "hope" against all reasonable odds.

tstorm823 said:
The lesson being that patient preparation can reach a goal faster than hurrying out ASAP.
That's a stupid lesson.

Advances are iterative, and the people who come later build upon the advances and infrastructure of those who came before them. If you went back in time and told the Wright brothers not to bother working on the Flyer because in 25 years airplanes would be flying across the Atlantic, you'd have missed the point and probably set back aviation history.

The second group in your brain teaser didn't "win" because they were able to do something easier or more efficiently, they were able to do something easier and more efficiently because of the lessons and advances made in the first attempt. The real lesson you should probably take from that story is that doing something new is hard, but by doing something hard you make it easier for the people who follow you.

That's the problem with combating climate change. It requires us to collectively commit to doing something hard, something which we will never see the benefits of, purely to make life easier for future generations and for humanity as a whole. I don't believe we live in a society which is capable of that kind of selflessness or collective endeavour. I hope that future societies, in reflecting upon our mistakes, will build a society that is.
 

Agema

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Dreiko said:
I'm confused, I saw the sticker, how is it rape?
You have two options here to explain the picture:
a) Greta Thunberg has consented to be fucked from behind by the oil industry
b) Greta Thunberg is not being given a choice about being fucked from behind by the oil industry

Given her well-advertised stance on fossil fuel use, option (a) is irrational. Therefore it's (b).

Just in case that's not simple enough, as you yourself hint at the sexual position and handling of the woman suggests a power dynamic that is not in the woman's favour. So that's (b) as well.

I mean, if not rape, we would have to think that someone dumb and childish enough to pull off this stunt postulated a complex psychological argument that Greta Thunberg secretly wants to be loved and dominated by the fossil fuel industry, so her overt hostility to it is actually to cover some sort of feeling of, I dunno... embittered rejection? Do we really think someone went down that route and thought they could express that effectively in a simple cartoon of a woman being fucked from behind? Because that's about as tortured and absurd as you're going to have to get to claim it's not rape.
 

Seanchaidh

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It is tasteless and crass and nowhere near as bad as what oil companies do in the normal course of business.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Agema said:
Dreiko said:
I'm confused, I saw the sticker, how is it rape?
You have two options here to explain the picture:
a) Greta Thunberg has consented to be fucked from behind by the oil industry
b) Greta Thunberg is not being given a choice about being fucked from behind by the oil industry

Given her well-advertised stance on fossil fuel use, option (a) is irrational. Therefore it's (b).

Just in case that's not simple enough, as you yourself hint at the sexual position and handling of the woman suggests a power dynamic that is not in the woman's favour. So that's (b) as well.

I mean, if not rape, we would have to think that someone dumb and childish enough to pull off this stunt postulated a complex psychological argument that Greta Thunberg secretly wants to be loved and dominated by the fossil fuel industry, so her overt hostility to it is actually to cover some sort of feeling of, I dunno... embittered rejection? Do we really think someone went down that route and thought they could express that effectively in a simple cartoon of a woman being fucked from behind? Because that's about as tortured and absurd as you're going to have to get to claim it's not rape.
Ok so there's a whole lot of extra stuff that's being assumed or implied here and I'm just looking at the image here and describing it visually without all that extra baggage. I'm just saying that the image is an aspirational view of sex and and there's no indication about lack of consent. No bruises on her back, no dirt stains, no ropes, nothing.

If you wanna analyze it in the way you are doing, I can do that.

Why would Gretta have a tramp-stamp of her own name, usually tramp-stamps are of other people's names, not of the individuals, unless you're a pornstar and your porn-name is Gretta.

Maybe the girl isn't actually Gretta but rather the one fucking her is Gretta acting through the fossil industry. Maybe the girl is an actual underpriviliged girl without Gretta's luck who is trafficked and is now in a situation where she'd be forced to get a Gretta tramp-stamp by her pimp, and not living the life going on cruises and giving speeches at the UN.


See, you can find a lot of things to say with mere imagination and they're all equally plausible. This is why I just ignore all those theories and just look at the image and see generic doggystyle sex and no rape anywhere.
 

Terminal Blue

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Dreiko said:
If you wanna analyze it in the way you are doing, I can do that.
No, you can't. You suck at it.

Dreiko said:
Why would Gretta have a tramp-stamp of her own name, usually tramp-stamps are of other people's names, not of the individuals, unless you're a pornstar and your porn-name is Gretta.
The practice of labelling objects and people to make it clear who they are or what they represent is a well established technique in political cartoons and satire, particularly when the cartoonist is bad or lazy.


Pretending you don't know the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic text isn't really interpretation, it's just pretending to be more ignorant than you really are.

Dreiko said:
Maybe the girl isn't actually Gretta but rather the one fucking her is Gretta acting through the fossil industry.
Do you actually have any reason to think that?

Dreiko said:
See, you can find a lot of things to say with mere imagination and they're all equally plausible.
No, you can't. Because not all interpretations are equally plausible. People make these images and cartoons because they function as a means of communication, and because the intent or message is generally very obvious to anyone who understands the cultural context. A person without cultural context might look at the above cartoon and claim it is a positive depiction of Elizabeth Warren as a hero who saves people from choking, but since we have the context we should be able to infer that it was actually an attack on Warren's medicare for all policy. Not everyone will get the message, but most people will, which is why someone saw fit to print a cartoon. It's not a fun postmodern puzzle to show how every interpretation is valid, it possesses a clear and determinate point which most people, who aren't being wilfully ignorant or contrary, would easily reach.

The same is true here. When a man jokes about fucking a woman he does not like, we all know what the actual subtext is. These jokes are not uncommon, they are in fact a fairly routine part of the culture we live in. I'm not entirely surprised that you cannot tell the difference between normal sexual intercourse and rape, since many straight men seem to struggle so very much with that distinction. But don't blame others for drawing a line which you, and the creators of this image, may not want to see.

If you hate someone, and your idea of punishing them involves having sex with them, particularly in a way that is degrading or humiliating, then noone needs a degree in psychoanalysis to figure out what the point of that fantasy is. Heck, as long as it is a safe and private fantasy which isn't hurting anyone, I wouldn't even say it's a problem. But when you bring it into public space, it becomes extremely threatening.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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evilthecat said:
Dreiko said:
If you wanna analyze it in the way you are doing, I can do that.
No, you can't. You suck at it.

Dreiko said:
Why would Gretta have a tramp-stamp of her own name, usually tramp-stamps are of other people's names, not of the individuals, unless you're a pornstar and your porn-name is Gretta.
The practice of labelling objects and people to make it clear who they are or what they represent is a well established technique in political cartoons and satire, particularly when the cartoonist is bad or lazy.


Pretending you don't know the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic text isn't really interpretation, it's just pretending to be more ignorant than you really are.

Dreiko said:
Maybe the girl isn't actually Gretta but rather the one fucking her is Gretta acting through the fossil industry.
Do you actually have any reason to think that?

Dreiko said:
See, you can find a lot of things to say with mere imagination and they're all equally plausible.
No, you can't. Because not all interpretations are equally plausible. People make these images and cartoons because they function as a means of communication, and because the intent or message is generally very obvious to anyone who understands the cultural context. A person without cultural context might look at the above cartoon and claim it is a positive depiction of Elizabeth Warren as a hero who saves people from choking, but since we have the context we should be able to infer that it was actually an attack on Warren's medicare for all policy. Not everyone will get the message, but most people will, which is why someone saw fit to print a cartoon. It's not a fun postmodern puzzle to show how every interpretation is valid, it possesses a clear and determinate point which most people, who aren't being wilfully ignorant or contrary, would easily reach.

The same is true here. When a man jokes about fucking a woman he does not like, we all know what the actual subtext is. These jokes are not uncommon, they are in fact a fairly routine part of the culture we live in. I'm not entirely surprised that you cannot tell the difference between normal sexual intercourse and rape, since many straight men seem to struggle so very much with that distinction. But don't blame others for drawing a line which you, and the creators of this image, may not want to see.

If you hate someone, and your idea of punishing them involves having sex with them, particularly in a way that is degrading or humiliating, then noone needs a degree in psychoanalysis to figure out what the point of that fantasy is. Heck, as long as it is a safe and private fantasy which isn't hurting anyone, I wouldn't even say it's a problem. But when you bring it into public space, it becomes extremely threatening.

You can do all those things you describe without it being rape or without the person doing them perceiving it to be rape. Maybe not with the actual person you hate but with someone pretending to be them and consenting to having those things done to them for money, for example (also apparently someone from 4chan ordered a custom Gretta sexbot from Japan as a response to this, it cost him over 3000 bucks lol). Roleplaying or rough sex is not rape no matter what lines you draw.

You are choosing the interpretation that uses rape to explain this while I come into this open minded with no confirmation biases.

Joking about having sex with someone as something that is supposed to demean them never made sense to me btw, since having sex with someone is me bequeathing them with something as opposed to harming them in some way, so if anything it'd be something to do to reward someone I do like, as opposed to a punishment for someone I hate. I mean, think about it, who in their right mind would willingly describe someone having sex with them as punishment. How bad would their self image have to be for that to be a literal concept in their brain and not something ironic they say for fun without really meaning it.

Any reasonably self-confident person would expect someone having sex with them to be the object of envy for enjoying the privilege. Not the object of ridicule. And why would you want someone you hate to be seen as fortunate and enviable by others.
 

Terminal Blue

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Dreiko said:
You can do all those things you describe without it being rape or without the person doing them perceiving it to be rape.
I don't feel any great obligation to care.

Dreiko said:
Maybe not with the actual person you hate but with someone pretending to be them and consenting to having those things done to them for money, for example (also apparently someone from 4chan ordered a custom Gretta sexbot from Japan as a response to this, it cost him over 3000 bucks lol). Roleplaying or rough sex is not rape no matter what lines you draw.
We're not talking about roleplaying or rough sex.

If this was a photograph of a real sex act, then it would be relevant whether the person involved in that sex act had actually consented. In this case, that is utterly, utterly irrelevant. It is purely an image depicting a fantasy scenario of a person the creator of the image does not actually know, has never actually met and ultimately has no personal connection to at all other than being part of an industry which is threatened by the expressed beliefs of said person. The intention is to express some desire for that person to be humiliated or degraded.

Humiliation and degredation can be fun to play around with within the context of a private and consensual BDSM relationship, but the emphasis there is on the private. If people engage in this behaviour in public, then someone observing may well assume that it is not consensual. If there is no relationship, if there is no actual consent, then those assumptions are not wrong.

Frankly, getting another person (or robot) to roleplay the part of someone you dislike for the purpose of acting out violent or humiliating fantasies towards them is not something you should ever publicise, because by making it public you are already involving a person who did not actually consent. That person is likely to assume that you want to rape them, and may even be a physical threat to them, and again.. they are not wrong. The ability to limit your rape fantasies to a consensual contexts (at least for the time being) does not magically change their content.

Dreiko said:
You are choosing the interpretation that uses rape to explain this while I come into this open minded with no confirmation biases.
You are grasping at any remotely imaginable possibility which allows you to avoid seeing the obvious. That in itself demonstrates a level of bias I cannot even comprehend.

Dreiko said:
I mean, think about it, who in their right mind would willingly describe someone having sex with them as punishment.
Straight men.

Dreiko said:
How bad would their self image have to be for that to be a literal concept in their brain and not something ironic they say for fun without really meaning it.
Again, straight men.

Dreiko said:
Any reasonably self-confident person would expect someone having sex with them to be the object of envy for enjoying the privilege. Not the object of ridicule.
You must have met straight men, right?

Straight men will click on those websites which promise to teach them secret loopholes in female psychology before they will accept that anyone might actually want to sit on their dicks by choice.
 

bluegate

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CaitSeith said:
tstorm823 said:
CaitSeith said:
Only if you assume that there are no other means to make electricity than oil and gas. But there are, and what we are asking for is for those companies to use those alternatives. Where is the "stop using electricity" here?
If you stop using oil and gas, you immediately cut the energy available to shreds. And then people lose power.
Hence why transition periods exist (to systematically and slowly replace the infrastructure, so the negative impact gets minimized or even negated); but the companies haven't even started and they show no intention of wanting to. And the longer they wait, the harder it will to restructure.
Wonder what Stormie's reply to that is going to be.

No realistic person is asking for an overnight switch away from fossil fuels, just a gradual reduction of reliance with a goal of totally cutting them out in the future.