last tuesday i was lucky to see and hear @
Cory Doctorow speak at an event of the fantastic berlin sf/horror bookshop
https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/. he said it was his 5th lecture in two days. obviously he had packed his stay in berln.
of course most of the things he was talking about are nothing new. it is just nice to hear about them in such a concise way. it was really refreshing to hear him insist that changing politics by participating, unionizing aso. is much more valuable than just changing your consumption.
But don't kid yourself that this is politics. No matter how indie your coffee, books and social media, your consumption choices will not have a material impact on Starbucks,
that reminded me of this ominous carbon footprint. this thing is still mentioned quite often. and it is always an attempt to deflect responsability and action towards individuals. caring about the personal carbon footprint can help feeling more empowered on a personal level. but it will not be an adequate substitute for setting the right policies against climate change. no matter how often i don't take the plane from berlin to bahia, i will not be able to compensate the co2 emissions that are caused by the lack auf a speed traffic limit on german autobahnen.
to refrain from buying at amazon is not politics. only a boycott is politics, something organized. and even voting is not really politics according to doctorow.
Well, sure, but voting is to politics as shopping is to boycotts. [...] Voting can change things, when there's something good to vote for, or something very bad to vote against, and when lots of people show up at the polls.
But to make voting effective, you have to do politics. You have to get involved
i think voting is the minimum anybody can do. and this thing about participation: find something ... i didn't ...
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CoryDoctorow -bücher -aktivismus
