Spanish climate activists sprayed red paint across a superyacht owned by billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie in Barcelona on Friday, the second time the yacht has been the target of protests in the past two months.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Everyone’s complaining that this doesn’t do anything and is counter productive, but you know what this looks like to me?

    Propaganda of the deed. Someone will look at this and think “I know better things to spray her superyacht with than paint…”

        • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          They should put the billionaire on the bottom of the ocean, not the boat. The boat might be useful for something.

          • another_lemming@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Billionaire’s yacht? Hardly. But it may be scrapped. Expensive furniture and tech sold, high quality engine and parts repurposed.

        • DoctorTYVM@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, then her servants would have to start filing paperwork and have another yacht pulled out of storage while they design the new one.

        • LongbottomLeaf@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          ADMIRALTY ORDERS

          To Cpt. S. Technique

          ‘Intercept Walmart billionaire’s megayacht KAOS en route to extinction, INTENT ON CARRYING US ALL TO THOSE WATERS…Sink, Burn, or take her a Prize’

      • andrewta@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As an added bonus lots of chemicals and crap will be put into the environment.

        Yup this sounds productive to vandalize someone’s boat.

        • flow_off_a_cliff@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Tell us you didn’t read the article without saying that. Plus even if they had used normal paint, that’s literally nothing compared to what this yacht does on a regular basis.

  • markr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Good. Symbolic protests are a way to surface issues suppressed by the dominant ideology. If it gets any media coverage it is a success.

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Yes, really. There are no ethically sound reasons for a person to have all this money when there is so much inequality. Moreover, there is no ethical ways to accumulate all this money. If you are billionaire either you or your daddy had to do a lot of explicitly unethical shit, and in order to retain it, you have to do unethical shit, actively, right now.

        • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Capitalism, no matter how benign, and well intended, is literally exploiting labor from those who are lesss fortunate. And thanks to that malignant leprechaun Milton Friedman, every MBA since thinks that they’re legally bound to maximize dividends for investors instead of compensating the people who do the actual production. It’s obscene, sociopathic, and literally evil. But if Jeebus didn’t want them to rich, they wouldn’t be, right?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Governments should stop billionaires. Tax them 100% income tax after a certain amount of income, tax them 50%% of their networth yearly after a certain amount of value.

      • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think there ever was a time where not the richest were in power. From warlords to kings and now politicians in the pockets of CEO’s or shareholders by extension, people in power amass riches and with it more power.

  • ActionHank@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    100% agreed, billionaires should not exist. It’s absolutely disgusting that they do. They’ll take and take and take and take some more. If you haven’t seen it yet, please check out this site visualizing Jeff Bezos’ wealth. These people believe that they owe nothing to a society that gave them the tools, infra, security, and workforce for their companies to succeed. The level of excess is really unfathomable, and this chart is like Power of Ten for helping you understand the difference in a few zeros.

    https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

  • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    More mandatory overtime for her staff. She’ll never know it happened unless one of her social media managers sees it on Twitter and mentions it to her.

    • Kerred@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And then they buy more red spray paint on Amazon because Walmart was out .

      Side note, didn’t the movie company make bank from people buying those V for Vendetta masks to protest against corporations or something? Vague memory of it

      • tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, between Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street those masks were very profitable for the people being protested against.

        I’m sure their brief and ultimately pointless unpopularity was well compensated for by those extra revenues.

    • Mamertine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s what I don’t get.

      The owner of the yacht doesn’t give a shit. It’s beneath them.

      Those activists just made a headache for the working class crew who run the yacht.

      Good work sticking it to the man’s working class employees! /S

      • flow_off_a_cliff@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They got their message on international news, and they did it targeting the super wealthy instead of blocking traffic or otherwise hindering innocent people. Frankly I don’t care if the crew has a ‘headache’ being paid to clean up some biodegradable paint, they’re just being paid for one task instead of another. What actual harm of any kind has this done? The benefit might be small but it’s nonzero unlike what most of us are doing.

        • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          they did it targeting the super wealthy instead of blocking traffic or otherwise hindering innocent people

          Reminds me that the point of protest is to be disruptive. Oh, you’re blocked on your way to do your job? Your job is to do your job, not to fight other workers on behalf of your employer

          I don’t get the whole ‘protest should not ever inconvenience anyone, ever’ line of thinking- if I’m travelling for work and I get stuck in traffic behind a protest, I bill my time and that’s how I pass the disruption signal along to where it needs to land

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        They’re creating jobs by fucking up the yacht aren’t they?

        Or is it only billionaires that “create jobs” when they fuck up the entire world?

      • the_stormcrow@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Because targeted vandalism is easier and more satisfying to animalistic urges than the long work of organizing political backing, running for office, enacting societal change

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    How dare these activists do anything other than overthrowing the government and instituting a socialist utopia. I just can’t support this.

  • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It would be super easy to get away with sinking known billionaire yachts worldwide if you do it right.

    • nomecks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      ITT: People who don’t think $100m+ yachts have countermeasures for attacks like this.

      • PickTheStick@ttrpg.network
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        Yeah, one of the big countermeasures being the people who live on board, as in, the crew. I hope they can sleep at night knowing they killed a working class schmuck. Fire, or these more outlandish ideas of explosives and scuba shit, will almost certainly get the crew members if it’s enough to actually sink a yacht like this.

        • andrewta@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Hey look part of the crew died. Part has serious ptsd. And all that are left alive just lost their jobs. Meanwhile the billionaire has the boat insured so he gets his money back.

      • icedterminal@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Super yachts are built similar to cruise liners. Compartmentalised below the water line. You breach one, it gets detected and will seal it off. They are obviously gonna be connected to several alert systems and will notify the owner or whomever is in charge of maintenance. If anyone does manage to damage the hull, gonna have to do it more than once.

    • Nora@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      How do you sink a boat that big? Get a drill that can work under water? Explosives are too hard to make. Maybe burn it with a Molotov?

      • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        For a boat that big, you can get into the idea of an economic loss. For example, flooding the engine room for long enough can ruin the engines, and make the cost and time of repair high enough that you can practically rebuy the boat with the price.

        Obviously it is insured, but insurance goes up when you’re the target of economic terror attacks (To think I live in world where I get to type that sentence). Also there would be the wait for a new vessel. And maybe… just maybe, the Waltons might think, “hey, maybe some people are upset we have a $110 million boat while our employees are on food stamps.”

        • CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world
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          1 year ago

          I suppose if your goal is mere spite, making it no longer an enjoyable benefit for her to have a personal yacht would be a win.

      • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Underwater cutting torch. Edit: now I’m bullshitting. No idea whether somebody would get sucked into the hole or whether there are underwater cutting rigs that don’t rely on surface support.

        • Nora@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yeah you wouldn’t even have to make a circle, just hold it there for a little bit.

          Maybe make a few in different places.

        • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’d go with a thermite fire started by a drone. Much easier to do and harder to stop. Enough thermite will burn all the way through the boat, burning it and sinking it all at once.

            • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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              It wouldn’t work for Ukraine because their Drones are being shot at. For a super yacht sitting on a private marina? Totally would work. A couple pounds of thermite and a flair that can be remotely ignited. Land it on the deck press the button, it’ll burn to the haul before they even get the hoses.

              • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Hmmm. I guess for this mental exercise i was thinking of the way to do it that would def land your ass in jail if caught but would avoid bonus penalty charges for things that spectacularly go kaboom for political reasons.

      • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Obviously the classics are still known for a reason. Everyone is saying fire but I think if we put our heads together we could summon the kraken.