concrete_and_light said:
Blaming someone who is advocating for the homeless while our society completely fails them (and others in precarious situations) because the cost to remove the spray paint could theoretically be applied towards shelters is ridiculous concern trolling. Things like this should be spray-painted everywhere until our society wakes up and does something about the moral crisis we've allowed to happen, IMO.
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Tell you what ... feel free to prove you are not a hypocrit.

Go outside to wherever you live right now and spray paint that same thing on the walls ... making sure to put a small UT at the bottom to prove it's you. Do it to your home, condo, or apartment to show us how this type of thing "should be spray-painted everywhere". And don't be shy about the size of the message or number of places you put it since the more attention the better ... until we all wake up right? In fact, imagine the press that doing this would get you in proving a supposed troll like myself wrong. But, of course you won't .... it's only ok if it's somebody else ... private or public ... but not you.
 
Lyphe said:
Tell you what ... feel free to prove you are not a hypocrit.

Go outside to wherever you live right now and spray paint that same thing on the walls ... making sure to put a small UT at the bottom to prove it's you. Do it to your home, condo, or apartment to show us how this type of thing "should be spray-painted everywhere". And don't be shy about the size of the message or number of places you put it since the more attention the better ... until we all wake up right? In fact, imagine the press that doing this would get you in proving a supposed troll like myself wrong. But, of course you won't .... it's only ok if it's somebody else ... private or public ... but not you.
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I'm not going to get into a long extended back and forth here, because I don't think given how it's gone so far that it would be productive and also it would start to get off topic for the thread. So I will say this and then this will be the last thing I say on the subject.

The idea that criticizing capitalism is invalid if you live within a capitalist system and partake in it in not always the best ways, or you use air conditioning and yet protest pipelines, or whatever is not a good argument. This is a defensive argument protecting the status quo that shuts down attempts at positive change. None of us live entirely consistent lives, and in many ways we cannot given the circumstances of the world. Indeed, the whole point of an anti-capitalist critique, an environmental critique is that we are all complicit, that we all need to grapple with the systemic aspects — that are hurtling our planet towards an ecological catastrophe burning on a furnace of exploitation.

When I said that "things like this should be spray-painted everywhere" I mostly meant to rhetorically convey how this is but a scratch of damage back from those who are hurt by our society. In comparison to the routine harm that is done to so many, a little bit of spray paint expressing anger about that is nothing.

Also I try to take ethical action as I see it in my life in a variety of ways and in the past that has included protests and forms of civil disobedience. Would I go out and spraypaint something in this way? No. Is it my preferred approach? No. Could I see myself one day doing it if things got bad enough, yeah of course. I'm sure we can all agree, at least I hope, that in a totalitarian society spray painting a message of protest would be fine and encouraged. Although it would likely be too late for that and could get you killed haha. Ethical action is context-dependent and doesn't always map onto the law and isn't a set of rules that applies in all situations.

And as our society becomes more more stratified between rich and poor, as unaffordability continues to increase, it's *unrealistic* to expect that this kind of thing and likely things much much worse are not going to happen. Our system can only keep kicking people for so long before they start to fight back. Are all the ways people fight back going to be "ideal" or live up to your standards of how people are supposed to act? No of course not - they're angry and people aren't perfect, even at the best of times. But I struggle to see how all of us collectively benefiting off the backs of those less fortunate and then obnoxiously pretending we're not is ideal ethical behaviour either.

Which brings me back to why I originally commented on this in the first place. People were jumping up to criticize the protest and yet I hear little to nothing on this forum critical of the injustice that the person who wrote that was protesting. Which is especially galling because that injustice is directly tied to the literal topic of this forum — the affordability crisis, homelessness, stratification and concentration of wealth in the hands of the few that is fueled by real estate, gentrification and the displacement of the most vulnerable people in society. These are all massive issues of justice *directly* relevant but rarely mentioned here. And yet people are very quick to criticize the maybe imperfect but IMO morally in-the-right protest.

It's depressing that in the middle of the crisis the city is currently in the level of discourse here is so lacking in this way and what that says about our capacity to change things. It's upsetting and I'm kind of not sure why all of you aren't upset about it either.
 
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Missing the point entirely. If people wanted to plan a giant protest and rally down the streets hooting and hollering I’d have no problem. So I’m not upset with the message I’m upset about damaging someone’s property in the process. If thry put up posters....no problem.

Time and money will be spent to clean up that paint. Find more productive way of protesting.
 
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ProjectEnd snapping (with camera) ... nice shots ----hey we need to do another project together: topple Ford gov't, build another "ignored" bridge, save Ontario Place (I know stupid), help build a new park... or have a beer together.
 
I had the chance to bike over closer to see these things in person the other day and the facets shown in the renders are indeed there. Subtle, but you can see them in the balconies. Looking forward to the white panels going in that will define the different planes more clearly.
 
TheKingEast said:
Missing the point entirely. If people wanted to plan a giant protest and rally down the streets hooting and hollering I’d have no problem. So I’m not upset with the message I’m upset about damaging someone’s property in the process. If thry put up posters....no problem.

Time and money will be spent to clean up that paint. Find more productive way of protesting.
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Totally agree, and doing it with grace under the sunshine instead of doing it in darkness and wasting taxpayer's money
 
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