Convictions, meet courage

[addedentry]

I have a terrible habit of eavesdropping. On Saturday j4 and I went to a climate change protest at Kingsnorth power station. The demonstration was good-humoured and peaceful, so The Times had to raid their picture library for a stock photo of riot police in actionWe took the hired coach back to Oxford and overheard two young men behind us, fresh from

Comments

[mooism]

I eavesdropped on a conversation happening behind me on the coach back to London from your birthday party. One of the participants claimed to be the founder of Streetcar. Much more amusing was that one of the other participants was broadcasting embarrassing salacious gossip about herself to the whole coach.

I've been turning into a terrible buyer of new shiny recently (mostly window shopping online). So very few shops say how much electricity their goods use. I may have invented the watt-year as a unit of energy.

[mooism]

A quick google reveals that no, I have not invented the watt-year. Although I worked out the cost as being about 70p, I admit the American version has a nicer ring to it.

[anonymous]

Where have you been?
I missed you like crazy, Lewis.
I was almost panic when I woke up this morning,
to find that you are not with me.

[bateleur]

I concentrated on devising excuses: it's rude to eavesdrop, I was missing the joke, choose the bigger battles.

I wouldn't have said anything. My excuse would be: I try to only intervene where I can do more good than harm. Pointing out this kind of thing to someone is approximately equivalent to tapping them on the shoulder and saying "Excuse me, you're ugly!". That is: they already know, you mentioning it changes nothing but might upset them.

Plus, you travelled to get to the protest. :-P

[j4]

Stupid analogy. Ugliness is a) completely subjective, and b) not in any way harmful to others.

might upset them

So it fvcking well should upset them, in this case. I'm amazed that you're apparently fine with the idea of cheerfully contributing to catastrophic climate change that will kill millions, but seem to think it's somehow unethical to make a middle-class idiot feel a bit uncomfortable by challenging them on their selfish behaviour (and in this case staggering hypocrisy).

you travelled

Yes. By my calculations that's the second journey by motorised road transport I've made so far in 2009. (I'd be willing to take a bet that you've driven more than that this month.) And flying is far worse than driving (I haven't flown for 3 years and don't intend to do so again).

[bateleur]

I'm amazed that you're apparently fine with the idea of cheerfully contributing to catastrophic climate change that will kill millions

Not at all. (Not that it's remotely relevant, but my carbon emissions are really quite low. And I never fly anywhere.)

The point is that I don't accept the moral validity of use of peer pressure tactics of this kind. Educating people about enivronmental damage is good. But this is clearly not a case of education.

[j4]

this is clearly not a case of education

Why? Because you have some way of knowing that they already knew how stupid and hypocritical they were being and just didn't care? Because you don't think addedentry or I would be capable of saying "I say, have you thought about what you're doing here?" rather than just ranting? Or just because you say so?

Of course, you can't be telling me that what I'm doing (or what I considered doing) is morally wrong, because that'd be "peer pressure". Maybe you're just "educating" me about, er, your opinion?

[mzdt]

your spammers above may be interested to know that they're shooting a canalside scene for Lewis in London, not Oxford. There'll be letters when it goes out

Out of interest...

[j4]

... does it count as "eavesdropping" when people are braying their braindead conversations so loudly that you can't avoid hearing them?

Re: Out of interest...

[mooism]

We could call it passive research, maybe?

Re: Out of interest...

[j4]

"passive research" - genius! :) I intend to call it that from now on.