Need a form of protest like a general strike? Need to resist an authoritarian regime? Do you yearn to throw your body against the gears of the machine and cause the whole system to grind to a screeching halt?
Labor strikes are great, but they lead to retaliation. Physical protests are fine, but police generally try to shut down any left of center protests. Police will also seek to instigate violence at such protests, and seek to use the violence they commit as justification to arrest scores of protesters. Physical protests inevitably produce the risk of arrest and physical harm against protesters. Protests on the highway produce the risk of being run over.
But what if a protest movement could drive a city, a region, or a nation to a standstill, without anyone having to leave their house? Such a thing is possible.
If enough people in an area, at a coordinated time, simply used a great deal of electricity, the power grid in that area would be unable to keep up and would collapse, grinding the economy to a halt in the area. And there’s no protesters for police to bash the skulls of, and no striking workers to fire or murder. It’s a wonderful lazy form of protest - simply turn on a bunch of electrical appliances up to the limit of your home or apartment’s breaker. Get enough people to do so at the same time (ideally on days of mild weather), and the whole economy will grind to a halt. Ideally this could be coordinated to cause grid collapse in areas that cause the most disruption to influential employers or industries.
What about people whose lives depends on power for home medical machines or refrigerated medicine? Too bad?
Well, this is !crazyideas@lemmy.world, after all.
Generally, it’s a good idea for protests to target those in power as those in power are more likely to be able enact the desired change. Overwhelming the power grid would disproportionately impact the poor. They are more likely to be on medications that require refrigeration, more likely to live in densely populated heat islands (the 1st places to lose power), more likely to be reliant on public services that might shut down during such an event (like public transportation), and are less likely to have access to alternative power sources like generators or residential renewable generation (like geothermal or solar). This reasoning applies to any attempt to make society collapse under its own weight. The people a strike/protest is supposed to hurt are (some would argue, by design) also the most insulated from society. If they relied on the same systems the rest ofbus do, they wouldn’t be so willing to destroy those systems.
There are so many things wrong with this idea. I can barely afford my bills as it is. Now you want me to increase my power bill so can then I can be without power? Not to mention the climate impact, food spoilage, medical devices, lost wages. This would fuck over the public more than industry or the economy.
There are so many things wrong with this idea
Hence why we are on !crazyideas@lemmy.world.
Federal Prison speedrun Any%
Right wingers have been doing this for a while. Even leftist groups back in the 70s. Its not new and it would harm us just as much as it would the Trump Admin.
Sure, but that’s an overt act of violence. Shooting guns at power transfer stations, etc. This is just people using the power they’re already allowed to use. There’s nothing illegal about using power, as much as your home circuit will allow. This is just a bunch of people doing it at the same time.
I mean I wouldnt recommend attacking your own power grids, ever. Unless the government was us8ng them to power oppression drones or something. Thats an extreme fantasy for now but not impossible. I have no ides what this sub is about. But it looks like watch list central coming up on All
This could be framed as improving the society up to the Mad Max level, which probably would at least be more adventurous and quite a bit of fun.
