this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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Whether it be Hong Kong or Iran, or well, in dictatorships. A lot of times I see a ton of people coming to the street and basically shouting stuff.

This by itself doesn't really do much, it doesn't do any work, and is solely reliant on if the entity you are protesting to listens or not.

As is often the case, they just get met with armed personnel, and beaten up, and that's that.

Which in cases like Iran went up to like 30k or more deaths.

But like, what is the exact mindset of this? If there are that many people willing to do stuff, in many cases, the majority of the population being in favor. Why don't they go rob/take over some police stations and places with weapons. Then basically force their demands one way or another? Like establishing your own gov, and beating anyone who disobeys you including the current gov?

Now I am aware, revolutions of this type also happen. But I am not exactly sure why this is just often not the case, and people just go and... shout pointlessly in streets? What is the deciding factor?

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[–] halfapage@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

Most people motivated enough to protest despite not having much still have a lot to lose.

If a potential revolution is quelled, or if it's hijacked, they most likely lose it all.

Just my opinion on why there might be a desire to revolt, but no full commitment.

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world -1 points 2 hours ago

I'm NOT for just-becoming-the-ruling-gang.

There are plenty of civil leverages which the left .. perhaps won't .. exercise, when it reaches the point of mass-butchery ( like hiring private-investigators to GET the evidence of criminality of the worst in-authority-role scum, & prosecute them, because the establishment won't, then hiring good criminal-circuit lawyers to secure their convictions ).


There's a tippingpoint .. I think it's 1/20 of the population, when that percentage of the population is protesting, then the mainstream begin adapting-to, & adopting, the protesting-position's views.


The fundamental cause of people behaving the way they do, is that they, themselves, are ruled-by-peer-pressure, & they therefore presume that applying-peer-pressure cannot be disobeyed.

The left's assertions reek of this..

The left's institutional "authorities" also reek of this "this institute asserts that such-and-such-a-country MUST obey this assertion" kind of thing..

Delusional, & narcissism, both.

Action's required, but it ought be effective, strategic, civilrights and civilaccountability centered action not just mobarchy, or your-gang-replaced-with-our-gang political "revolutions", which never EVER produce the civil benefits the raw-potential would enable.

Solving the wrong problem is Traditional, iow.

& nobody's ruthlessly-strategic-enough-in-altruism to solve the right problem, .. so, therefore nothing'll change, it looks like ..

_ /\ _

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

You already got some good writeups so I just want to point out that the 30,000 Iranians dead claim is highly dubious. The evidence genuinely boils down to, "this person said so". Think for just a second how long it took the official death toll in Gaza to reach 30,000. It took them months to accept that number in Gaza but in Iran it took just a few days. Compare the levels of devestation. Does it really make sense? Consider that the companies telling you these things are owned by people who directly benefit from US imperialism.

[–] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

I watched quite a few videos and read some articles on this.

There are multiple things at play.

  1. Protests make opinions known. This is basically what you outlined.
  2. Protests make the government and / or the police blink. If a protests picks up enough steam, it puts governments and military and police on notice that any escalation might be dangerous. It signals volatility, and this is basically a dare against a government, and it creates rifts of dissent within government.
  3. Protests signal power to a populace. Imagine you're at home, you hate the government but you feel unsure about making your opinion known. Some part of it is personal consequences, but some part is also just that you wanna know if others feel the same. Imagine a crowd of millions of people outside saying what you thought all along. Even if you're not joining, you sure as hell feel strengthened in every small thing you do against the government, even if it's just talking about it with your friends an family.

Especially if there's still such a crackdown on protests, the second and third point are valuable goals. The point of a protest is almost never immediate action but an intentional display of pressure. Everything suddenly becomes high stakes and another opinion enters the streets, disinfecting the halls of power one sun beam at a time.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

Step 1: Protest peacefully
Step 2: Wait till the government massacres you
Step 3: Use the massacre as a rallying cry for revolution¹

¹Disclaimer: Did not work for the folks at Tiananmen

[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

In a nutshell, revolution turns on information and power asymmetry. Sometimes just one of those is sufficient, having both makes the results highly likely, but not guaranteed.

Stating with information asymmetry, we start with the identifying the usual groups of people. I will be using terminology more akin to the Westminster style of governance, which does not so clearly distinguish the roles. In a governmental revolution, there are those in power (eg a president, prime minister, members of parliament, monarch), there is the state and its institutions (eg military, judiciary, civil service workers in those departments, treasure, welfare, foreign representatives), and then there's the citizenry (aka the people).

Of these, the citizenry are the absolute largest group but the least organized. In a monarchy or autocracy where power is concentrated in the very few, the citizenry are often denied the means of communication or it is strictly censored or controlled. In a republic, the state is created as the organization which is meant to serve the people, and I'm not aware of any republic that has ever created two duplicate organizations to guard against usurpation. To that end, the citizenry are the most dependent on the state and the government for information. Even when it's now technically possible to exchange information using mesh networks, online forums, ham radio, and even plain ol letters, the fact is that convenience means that the majority just aren't dialed into the situation, or that the official mouthpieces have enough sway to quell the public.

But it need not only be the citizenry that are kept in the dark. The government itself can end up being split apart by those who know versus those who don't. As an example, look to the former South Korean president that attempted to impose martial law. In the chaos that ensued, members of the legislature needed to understand what was going on first, in order to combat the situation. It eventually emerged that the legislatute was being blockaded and that a vote would be held to nullify the imposition of martial law. Photos of some legislators scaling the outside wall of the assembly made international headlines. That was only possible because enough representatives got word that a vote was going to happen, and that it wasn't a trap.

The South Korean example also shows what happens when the state is not on the president's side. The military was doubtful that the president could lawfully declare the legislature as acting against the interests of the country, and so they did not substantially mobilize. Likewise, the citizenry were not having it either and protested in public. Perhaps it would have been different if the president was able to sever communications lines, an often-used tactic in the hours prior to a coup.

As for power asymmetry, that's much easier to explain. The same groups as before each wield separate powers, some of which are more effective at times and some less. For example, the military has all sorts of hardware that could be used against the citizenry or against the state institutions. Shopping mall, tax offices, and city halls aren't exactly built to repel RPGs and mortar fire. The government also benefits from having authoritative power, meaning they can claim a mandate (eg from heaven, from the monarch, or from the people) that legitimizes their attacks on the state institutions or the people. See the Stalinist era of the USSR.

Meanwhile, the people have the power of populism, where the influence of social mores can and does have tangible impact. Look to the UK where MPs and cabinet members have been forced to resign "due to scandal", where their position "becomes untenable". From an American perspective, this would seem unusual since a corrupt politician would still end up serving their term. Yet in the UK, they recognize that they cannot continue in their job if nobody will ever look at them with a straight face. No committee would keep them on, they could never hold a cabinet portfolio, they can't effectively represent their constituency, and can't represent the country in good terms overseas. They could just sit there and collect the paycheque, but ultimately, they know their days are numbered or the government will have the police service investigate them. So they resign, simply because of the crushing weight of public opinion. That is power.

Finally, there's the institutions themselves that have power. With the presumption of regularity, institutions hold tremendous soft power. That is, without firing a gun, an IRS tax agent or DMV worker can make someone's day, or make it their worst day. A judge can grant search warrants that authorizes someone's house to be turned upside down. Or a department of transport can start eminent domain proceedings to acquire someone's home. Meanwhile, the central bank can change the value of money, even the banknotes in your wallet, overnight. So powerful are institutions that in at least two places in California law, one of which is the open government act, the law opens with a declaration that "The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them". This is a warning against the institutions to not abuse the power they are entrusted with.

So, what does this mean for revolution? For both information and power, it's not about how much is possessed but how it is used. Sometimes information can coerce power to be used. The Zimmerman telegram was a large part of how the USA joined WWI, because the British intercepted it and realized it would spur Americans to support the war against Germany. Domestically, small power can be used to test a larger power, basically to try calling a bluff. If the police declare a curfew due to false allegations of rioting, protesting is a response to the dare: will the police actually try to pepper spray and arrest thousands of people that show up anyway? If they don't, they've folded. If they do, there is now information (eg video, photos, TV) that can be leveraged to encourage more power (eg more protests, or state intervention against local police). In the most extreme case, the police could respond with overwhelming force (see Kent State Massacre). But in that situation, it was so uncalled for that other powers responded: the USA's involvement in Vietnam and Nixon's presidency became more unpopular than ever, causing mandatory conscription to end in 1973. It has not come back since, because people will still remember that event. Even as the shooters in question escaped legal culpability, it has cost the nation the effective power to call the citizenry into military service. Such power would be tough to regain, because the citizenry would fight it. Hence why all such attempts since in the USA have failed to reintroduce conscription.

TL;DR: the balance of information and power ebbs and flows over time, sometimes yielding unique opportunities or colossal failure.

[–] disregardable@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago

Idk man, you seem to believe the people in power are immune to consequences. They're not. They get killed and/or ousted all of the time. If you don't play politics and keep people happy, you tend to get Louis XVI'd.