How to "prove" the effects of a protest?

[Heloin]

What if I block a train in support of the pipeline? Will you change your opinion again?

You would be an unrepresentative sample of the big picture. I go by which side is the most prone to unethical tactics.

Sounds more like you're choice is based solely out of spite.

[Purpelia]

You would be an unrepresentative sample of the big picture. I go by which side is the most prone to unethical tactics.

Sounds more like you're choice is based solely out of spite.

Not spite but cold reason.

The means do not justify the ends. Or rather they must NOT be allowed to. If we allow means we deem to be unethical to produce results we open the door to them being used over and over and over again. If on the other hand we clamp down hard and force them to fail we do pay the price of not having those results now but save our self the trouble of having to suffer through those means in the future. Some times it simply is worth it to make that sacrifice today and accept results you personally don't want in order to save your self future trouble.

A good if extreme example of this is hostage taking. If you allow terrorists to take hostages and get their way than every crackpot with an agenda is going to start taking people hostage and making demands. If on the other hand you burst in and kill the terrorists dead yes, you might well lose some hostages. Innocents will die. But you are sending a message to all terrorists in the future that they need not bother trying.

[Ifreann]

Sounds more like you're choice is based solely out of spite.

Not spite but cold reason.

The means do not justify the ends. Or rather they must NOT be allowed to. If we allow means we deem to be unethical to produce results we open the door to them being used over and over and over again.

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

You would be an unrepresentative sample of the big picture. I go by which side is the most prone to unethical tactics.

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical. Should you not oppose the pipeline rather than tell the Canadian government that they carry out all these unethical actions in support of megarich oil and gas companies?

It helps the oil and gas companies, yes, but it only helps them cater to consumer demand.

Consumer demand established by people who use fossil fuels. You know, people who get from point A to point B by driving. Or by getting a flight.

The kind of consumer demand that would only be made WORSE by turning people off of transportation by rail.

The word "genocide" was meant to refer specifically to the kind of heinous mass murder carried out by the Nazis, not use of "land that was never ceded" to establish infrastructure to transport the kinds of resources these protesters are creating more need for. And if the land needs to be used, the UN and its false equivalencies can fuck right off. We live in Canada, not "the UN."

[Purpelia]

Not spite but cold reason.

The means do not justify the ends. Or rather they must NOT be allowed to. If we allow means we deem to be unethical to produce results we open the door to them being used over and over and over again.

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical.

I fail to see how that is relevant at all to my point. Unless you are seriously saying that just because your opponent is bad you get to be bad as well. A thought which I refuse to even entertain.

[Ifreann]

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical. Should you not oppose the pipeline rather than tell the Canadian government that they carry out all these unethical actions in support of megarich oil and gas companies?

It helps the oil and gas companies, yes, but it only helps them cater to consumer demand.

Consumer demand established by people who use fossil fuels. You know, people who get from point A to point B by driving. Or by getting a flight.

Your poor understanding of modern capitalism is beside the point. What they are doing is unethical and illegal. You are supporting that. By your own stated principles you are in the wrong and must change your opinion.

The kind of consumer demand that would only be made WORSE by turning people off of transportation by rail.

The word "genocide" was meant to refer specifically to the kind of heinous mass murder carried out by the Nazis, not use of "land that was never ceded" to establish infrastructure to transport the kinds of resources these protesters are creating more need for.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The RCMP have been authorised to maintain lethal overwatch and use as much violence as they want when assaulting barricades at the Unist'ot'en Camp. The building of this pipeline is obviously going to contaminate the area.

And if the land needs to be used, the UN and its false equivalencies can fuck right off. We live in Canada, not "the UN."

The Wet'suwet'en people do not live in Canada. Their lands are not part of Canada. Canada is invading them. Further, Canada has signed and ratified the Genocide Convention.

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I fail to see how that is relevant at all to my point. Unless you are seriously saying that just because your opponent is bad you get to be bad as well. A thought which I refuse to even entertain.

What the RCMP is doing is unethical. According to you, unethical means cannot be tolerated. Consider, therefore, that the RCMP must be stopped, according to your own stated principles, lest the door be opened to unethical means being used again and again.

[Kubra]

You would be an unrepresentative sample of the big picture. I go by which side is the most prone to unethical tactics.

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical. Should you not oppose the pipeline rather than tell the Canadian government that they carry out all these unethical actions in support of megarich oil and gas companies?

let's not be overly dramatic. Despite some complications there is significant support for the pipeline within wetsuweten.

[Xeng He]

But ultimately, the reward for such behaviour is in the perceived effect of it, not the actual effect. I, for instance, opposed pipelines until that protest, and now support them as a warning to any would-be train-blockers that such a similar stunt is not going to work. However, how are these protesters supposed to be able to tell I (or more importantly, any significant number of people) opposed them before? I could cite previous anti-pipeline statements of mine, but I never made them using my real name.

Likewise, if a protest really DID get results, how do we know they are the results are really the results of the protest itself, and not the results of the overall shift in public opinion that preceded said protests? How do you tell an "A causes B" situation from a "C causes A and B" situation?

Me, I think the case for the efficacy of protest is unfalsifiable. Not a fatal flaw in any argument, but certainly enough to make one question the time and money spent on it.

You could always do opinion polling if you want to measure what people's opinions are. If you wanted to control for other effects you could compare the opinions of locations that were closer to the protest and similar locations further away (potentially before and after, also). You could also compare the opinions of people with similar starting opinions who watched vs didn't watch the protests.

However, the primary goal of protests is not always to change minds. Sometimes it's to force action. For instance during the Civil Rights movement there were oftentimes blockades of segregated stores, not to convince people that it was wrong, but to make it bad for business to continue segregating. These could be measured just by asking the people they were trying to push (and surrounding) why they changed or didn't.

[Ifreann]

The RCMP, in supporting the construction of the pipeline, are arguably committing genocide, as defined by the UN, against the Wetʼsuwetʼen people, and are certainly illegally invading sovereign land that was never ceded to Canada. Their actions are extraordinarily unethical. Should you not oppose the pipeline rather than tell the Canadian government that they carry out all these unethical actions in support of megarich oil and gas companies?

let's not be overly dramatic. Despite some complications there is significant support for the pipeline within wetsuweten.

I find myself sceptical of this claim.

[Kubra]

let's not be overly dramatic. Despite some complications there is significant support for the pipeline within wetsuweten.

I find myself sceptical of this claim.

despite gross overemphasis in the media, it is true that the elected chiefs lean in favour of the pipeline and have not been voted out as a result. In cases of traditional vs. Indian act leadership the latter tends to be the one to look out for when it comes to how a band might act in regards to economic interests.

This should frankly surprise no one. The poverty of Canada's indigenous relations is that they only way tribes can get so much as 2 nickels to rub together is if they've got land and someone wanting to run a pipeline through it. That state ain't got shit for you if you don't.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

You could always do opinion polling if you want to measure what people's opinions are.

Respondents can lie.

The Wet'suwet'en people do not live in Canada. Their lands are not part of Canada. Canada is invading them.

Oh really? And what do you suppose would happen if all non-indigenous people left Canada?

Further, Canada has signed and ratified the Genocide Convention.

And yet, the same government authorized the present approach. Almost as if they aren't going to fight the uphill battle against the whole thing over a few flaws.

Commuting by rail is the first step in using less fossil fuel, and creating less need for pipelines. Interfering with those who are part of the solution is indefensible.

[Chan Island]

How to prove? Difficult to say, because protests take place in a complex political picture with more moving parts than can reasonably be tracked. But generally I'd go with:

a) Measure how public opinion shifts in relation to the events of the protest. For example, does the police overreact to a protest and thus get done under wall to wall coverage of nasty pictures of them being brutal? Or does the protest perhaps block a key trainline and thus turn commuters against the cause that the protesters were supporting?
This could also be controlled for. You could track public opinion in places further away from the protest, or of those who just don't watch the news very often and see if their opinions differ from those who are closer to the action. I remember lots of Londoners last year being very angry at the extinction rebellion after they blocked that Jubilee line train, whereas the environmentalists afterwards still could count on the support of people who didn't live in the city.

b) Measure policy outcomes as compared to the goals of the protest. This is especially something doable for very ambitious, radical goals. When something very dramatic such as a head of state having to resign or the government having to rewrite the constitution in a more democratic way or some huge shift in policy happens, it is a rare instance indeed where there is no protest involved.

c) Ask people who were involved or making the decisions. Sometimes you find that politicians who resigned in disgrace or had to back down will years later directly cite the protests as a reason why they did so. I remember years ago listening to a documentary about Honecker for example, and in an interview when he was very old, he openly stated that he acted in the way that he did when East Germany ceased to exist because he was worried that those giant protests might turn more vicious and cause more destruction.

EDIT: In a similar vein to c, you can also look at the documents of said government after the fact. If all of the messages are going 'OMG there's protests everywhere we need to do something', then you can probably reasonably conclude there's a big effect. If they are ignoring or downplaying them, then the effect was probably smaller than those participating would like to find out.