I hope not. Republicans have been working post-pandemic to ban the government’s ability to force mask requirements and social distancing. If a new one comes around, it is going to be much, much worse.
Agreed. Look at Florida. Got f*cked during Covid because of opening early and making masks and social distancing optional. Ranks 23/50 by Death Rate (deaths per 100,000 people), according to CDC.
No kink shaming intended but this is not a thread to discuss your personal sexual preferences in. There are several other communities for those kind of topics.
Setting aside the general disdain these communities have for people who drive large vehicles…
I don’t think vandalization of personal property is going to win anyone over to support your cause. Protests need to be disruptive to be effective, yes, but I would wager this either alienates people trying to do better, or further radicalizes people actively working against green energy measures.
For example I’d love to buy an electric car but they’re just far too expensive for me to be able to afford. I need something, so I get a cheap and 2nd hand car. Inevitably that is an ICE because even second-hand electrics are hugely expensive. Yet somehow I’m the one targeted?
Why are they not targeting the people who are actually the problem rather than irritating the general public who broadly agree with them in principle who but lack the ability to really do anything effective.
For example I’d love to buy an electric car but they’re just far too expensive for me to be able to afford. I need something, so I get a cheap and 2nd hand car. Inevitably that is an ICE because even second-hand electrics are hugely expensive. Yet somehow I’m the one targeted?
I think the goal is to target people with huge, luxury cars. Anything else doesn’t make sense at all.
My problem with that is if you go and look up SUVs online you’ll find that everything from actual suvs right down to estate cars are considered to be SUVs these days.
Protests need to be disruptive to be effective, yes, but I would wager this either alienates people
What kind of disruptive protest that doesn’t alienate people would you suggest instead?
When they blocked roads, people were pissed.
When they blocked an airport, people were pissed.
When they planted trees on a golf course, people were pissed.
I’m not totally sure to be honest. I don’t have a good solution. People need to be pissed for protests to work. But let’s say you convince someone to sell their SUV and get a smaller car That SUV already exists. Probably will sell it to afford the next thing, right? Someone is still driving the thing. There’s a carbon cost to The replacement car. My understanding is it’s usually best to drive your vehicle for as long as possible (buying an electric car when your current car is fine is worse than just waiting until your current car breaks down, then eventually replacing it). Targeting your protests or energy toward policy change for future vehicle production might be more effective? Again, I don’t know.
The golf course one is interrupting a leisure activity, rather than stopping someone’s ability to go to work and provide for their family.
But if people came out to go to work and their car has the air let out of the tires, it’s going to feel more personally malicious I think, which seems like it could alienate people. Being stuck in traffic because of a protest, well, at least you’re stuck as a group?
It is a fine line, to be sure, I’m just not sure where to draw it.
The only more reasonable position than this is to participate in efforts to eliminate by any means necessary the mongers and wielders of anti-democratic power in this country.
This isn’t really a news article, and it’s by a US source about a US topic. Please try to post things like this to Politics or maybe US News in the future. Thanks!
I don’t think it’s a problem that trump can run for office, there are supposed to be sufficient safeguards to ensure someone like that can not be elected.
The trouble is with those safeguards, called voters, not working as intended.
There’s sides to this. On one hand, targeting poor workers isn’t a good look. On the other hand, if you can afford a massive new and clean SUV/pickup in Hamburg of all places, you’re probably not a poor worker.
I say go for it. It’s better than blocking traffic.
Yeah, I know, it's just not really worth the time, as it's gonna be a completely unscientific poll anyway. Plus, looks like they're tying your vote to the email address via the submission form - I'm guessing that's a single post to the database, so not terribly convinced they have privacy in mind. That they've got a checkmark to confirm that you're not an EU citizen means the submission form doesn't meet GDPR privacy standards.
You mean, the SUV which sits in my driveway? The one that drives less than 500 miles a year?
The one that is parked in front of the house powered by solar energy?
Why don’t you think of who the real problem is. Cargo ships running on bunker oil (This is the nastiest fuel you can imagine). Did- you know, they will typically switch to low sulfur fuels before entering most countries, because burning bunker oil is illegal nearly everywhere.
How, about you target the rich people, who fly private jets everywhere. Let’s not even mention the mega yachts which are basically floating cities.
Instead, of the fellow who happens to own a large vehicle, in order to haul things, and move children between events, while being able to support the proper luggage/equipment.
Also, lastly, Would you prefer me drive around in my big SUV which gets pretty decent gas mileage (in the 20s, excellent for a large vehicle), has modern pollution systems, catalytic converters, etc…
Or… would you prefer I drive around in my tiny racecars, with a 1,000hp turbocharged LS, absolutely no emissions equipment, not even a muffler.
Your talking to one of the extremely few people in my county who have managed to offset the majority of their carbon emissions via renewable resources.
Despite my utility and local government making that process a complete pain in my ass.
And Despite my utility and local government essentially ruining any hopes of an ROI by exorting me with extra fees. (To offset me not buying their energy)
My suv which has practical purposes here is not the problem.
Willing to be your average lawnmower pollutes more…
Don’t get me wrong: I seriously applaud your efforts. Like you say, we all need to do more like you.
But push comes to shove, you also need to change your SUV for an EV. All SUVs need to go. Especially since station wagons have the same utility, and are generally safer on the road.
Don’t get me wrong. But, for a EV with the room I need for the activities we perform, it’s extremely cost prohibitive.
Just now, the wife hauled two dog kennels with dogs. German Shepards. Those aren’t going to fit in a car… unless wagons make a comeback.
Also, Lithium batteries (process of obtaining Lithium) is pretty bad for the environment, and generally involves slave labor. As well, size, capacity, and cycle durability aren’t the best.
Lots of alternatives and prototypes are being worked on, and when that problem is solved by replacing Lithium with a cheap, affordable, durable replacement with enough energy density- EVs will be everywhere.
As is though, replacing the 30,000$ battery pack every decade or so is no Bueno.
Until then though, our daily driver is a small car. Suv is used to haul stuff and kids.
Don’t get me wrong: I seriously applaud your efforts. Like you say, we all need to do more like you.
But push comes to shove, you also need to change your SUV for an EV. All SUVs need to go. Especially since station wagons have the same utility, and are generally safer on the road.
Lots of people use specific types of vehicles for specific types of work.
There’s no one vehicle that will work for everyone.
I’m not the guy you were conversing with but in my line of work I need to haul lots of items often, and sometimes for long distances. That means I need cargo space, so either an SUV or a Truck.
I need to deliver those items or transfer those items across long distances, If I need to stop and recharge an electric vehicle 2-3 times that means my one day trip all of a sudden turns into an overnight stay in a hotel. I can’t get my work done if all of a sudden a one day job turns into a two day job.
I can’t afford to buy a new car. Public transportation in the US basically doesn’t exist, and riding a bike is a death sentence here. Buy me an EV and I’ll gladly drive it though :)
Edit: Also, I’d have nowhere to plug in the vehicle charger since I don’t have a garage where I live :/
This is not what this article is about though. They targeted huge cars in one of the most affluent areas in one of the biggest cities in Germany. We have very reliable public transport and about two days of snow per year. It is totally unnecessary to drive an SUV here. I do understand some people needing a big car for work but ferrying your kids around is easily managed using public transport here.
You’re right that this post is not about the US and is specifically about Hamburg, but many of the comments here seem to imply that this is a wider reaching sentiment. The reality is that many people can’t afford to change their vehicle, either due to financial reasons (their SUV or other vehicle is old and not going to get much from an exchange) or due to their lack of time. Going after random people in one city in Germany is not going to have the effect that they’re hoping for. It will cause outrage, which might be the goal, but the target will be the activists, not the car manufacturers.
What is generating the power for that EV. What about the materials mined to make that EV? What happens to the battery once it can no longer hold a sufficient charge?
EVs are not green until the at the very least the energy being produced to power them is green. Which in almost all cases it is not. IMO it’s much more productive to focus on transforming our energy grid to renewables than to worry about SUVs.
From MIT:
The researchers found that, on average, gasoline cars emit more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile driven over their lifetimes. The hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions, meanwhile, scored at around 260 grams per mile of carbon dioxide, while the fully battery-electric vehicle created just 200 grams.
Also this says “on average gasoline cars” now I’d have to look at the data to be sure but an “average” gas powered car is generally going to be a lot bigger (SUVs, pickup trucks) and less fuel efficient than the smaller cars that most EVs are.
So we’re comparing larger vehicles most likely, to smaller ones, and still EVs producer greater than 50% of the CO2 emissions that ICE cars do.
This blame the consumer game is old. It’s been the same playbook for decades. Shift the responsibility to the consumer instead of regulating corporations.
We need to stop falling for the bait and switch and instead of demanding that people stop buying fuel inefficient vehicles, maybe we should just regulate them out? (And in many ways the world already is with the MPG and other requirements for new vehicles.)
And while internal combustion engines are getting more efficient, EVs are poised to become greener by leaps and bounds as more countries add more clean energy to their mix. MIT’s report sees gasoline cars dropping from more than 350 grams of CO2 per mile to around 225 grams by the year 2050. In that same span, however, battery EVs could drop to around 125 grams, and perhaps even down to 50 grams if the price of renewable energy were to drop significantly.
In fact, the article only really talks about Lithium Ion batteries too, and new technologies are rapidly being released (such as the CATL batteries)
In fact, many regions in other countries literally are 100% renewable now (Tasmania in Australia as an example). And, most EV owners here in Australia likely own solar panels. The MIT article is literally mainly focused on US (and if the republican’s stay out of power, things will likely only swing further in the green direction).
Same thing happened in Australia. We had an idiot as a Prime Minister, but voted him out, and things have rapidly changed now.
I don’t see any eco-pirates boarding cargo ships and confiscating their fuel, do you? Seems to me that only working-class people are targeted by these so-called “activists”, and not anyone who actually has the power to change anything.
Honestly, this smells like a false-flag operation meant to discredit environmental activism by painting activists as criminals.
Here’s an example of Greenpeace blocking a russian liquid natural gas tanker from reaching port in Finland from September of last year, and here’s an example of Greenpeace activists boarding a container ship containing paper to protest deforestation from November of last year, here’s another example of the same group boarding a heavy lift vessel to protest offshore oil drilling from January of this year, and here’s an example of some scamps vandalizing a wal-mart heiress’s yacht from earlier this month.
You’re absolutely right, that activists boarding ships or otherwise vandalizing them gets way less press and markedly less discussion than this protest has. Why do you think that is?
Yeah, it probably sounds cynical, but I agree with you there. When there are successful actions that make powerful people uncomfortable, those power people successfully repress news coverage of those actions.
Do they need to repress anything, or do people just not care? The yacht news was shared on here, I was literally in that thread. After 2 days, it had less than 60 upvotes and about 10 comments.
In one day, this post is already near 200 upvotes and has 148 comments.
But I guess let’s just keep pretending we’re all angles and that the 1% and leading class are acting in complete isolation. Let’s just keep pretending they are the only problem.
People only care when something might affect them directly, and people messing with theirs cars seems a lot closer to a possible reality to them then being affected by climate change. Which is why everyone claims to want for there to be action to stop climate change, but they are incredibly stubborn about having to change anything about their way of life.
Besides, if one does not see certain actions, those actions might as well not be happening at all. If only there was a way people who cause the greatest harm to control what gets reported in mainstream media, effectively shifting people’s attention away from the harmful practices of their businesses…
Do you realize these groups operates on places where SUVs are not required at all? no one is deflating tires in Texas. They operate in dense urban european areas which all have great public transport.
That’s not as relevant as it might seem, as producing the car is about half of its lifetime emissions. And producing big cars results in more emissions than more reasonably-sized cars.
I am quite surprised to see how many people think that is is OK to pollute, hoard public space and make cities worst just because you had money to buy a SUV
For real, these people should be ashamed of themselves. Go protest someone who actually matters. I don’t even own a car and this makes me want to buy an SUV just out of spite.
I’m honestly not sure how attacking the working class is going to help anything. What is the desired outcome here? Because from where I stand I see members of the working class potentially being late to work and putting their jobs at risk. Not everyone can afford to trade in for a smaller car or afford an EV. As amazing as it would be to have good enough public transit to not need a car we don’t all have the privilege.
I’m all for some direct action but not against the working class.
My wife drives a 12 year old SUV. She cleans homes and commercial properties for a living so she needs to carry around a bunch of cleaning supplies, vacuums, etc. Stuff not easily fit into a smaller car. If someone were to flatten her tires she would probably just be late to her client’s place.
If you want to say there are too many SUVs on the road then I agree with you. However right now, in this society, they can have a purpose. If we want to fight the real enemy and make some real changes to society then I’m all for it. However, by attacking the working class we are attacking ourselves.
If it’s a car that is used for it’s not supposed to be targeted, according to this website. Avoid: Cars clearly used for people with disabilities, traders’ cars (even if they’re large), minibuses and normal-sized cars.tyreextinguishers.com/how-to-deflate-an-suv-tyre
Got it, so if she happens to be using that vehicle for getting groceries and not happen to have her equipment loaded then it’s game on. Cool cool cool.
There will always be cases of collateral damage. You won’t be able to safe the climate in such a big and complex society without disadvantaging some people.
Maybe one possibility for your wife could be to measure the cleaning equipment and see if it might fit into a smaller car and potentially buy cleaning equipment that is more foldable that might fit. Usually even these small cars have a lot of space when using the back seat row. A big vacuum and mops should easily fit. If this is not possible then I completely understand your problem.
The bigger issue I see with this is that, when your wife would do everything to save gas, she would need to take some disadvantages, e.g., more uncomfortable to load the small vehicle. If there is no pressure for other people, she would be the only one doing it, making it unfair. That’s why it is so important to generate pressure on climate damaging behaviour on all fronts. And this action is one efficient and realistic way to achieve that. But of course you can make the movement more unpopular in the general population… It is really difficult to find and decide for a solution here…
I agree that there may potentially be some sort of solution to our situation. Believe me, we do talk about this sort of thing. However it also involves money we may or may not have. The best solution for her is probably to change careers (it’s very hard work and doesn’t want to do it forever anyway) but it’s going to take some time. In the meantime we are working with what we have.
None of this changes the fact that we are not the enemy. We can talk about collateral damage but this is just our situation. Many people are hurting right now, even if they drive a SUV or truck. And I do realize it is a double edged sword because we do need to move away from fossil fuels. The focus should be on those in power though. The systems involved with extraction of natural resources are more vulnerable than we think. Life for those in power can be made more difficult.
Practically noone in Germany uses an SUV as a commercial vehicle. That’s because they suck at being commercial vehicles, you want something like a VW Transporter, either as minivan or flatbed. If you need 4WD (which you generally don’t) may I interest you in an Unimog.
They’ll also have commercial markings on the side, in the sense of “Wifey’s cleaning service <website> <telephone>”. Easy to distinguish.
Now, I have to be honest, my sister drives a SUV, and even a 4WD one… though it’s small, definitely by American standards. That’s because she’s hauling horses around and doesn’t want to drive a Unimog when grocery shopping. It’s like the one instance where having a sports utility vehicle actually makes sense, most people driving them neither use them for sport or utility, only as a vehicle. And noone’s going to flatten her tires as she’s living in a village, not some posh neigbourhood where the other kind of cars are Porsches and S-Classes. If you see a Lamborghini there it’s a Tractor.
This, the intent would be a lot more clear if they eg did it to politicians who supported anti-climate bills. That sends a much more powerful message, whereas targeting random SUVs isn’t likely to get anyone talking or caring about the issues.
This post made me look into it again today. Michelin is claiming they are going to be selling to businesses in areas with rough roads by mid 2024, with business everywhere coming some time after that.
Spacey had previously denied 12 charges – seven sexual assaults, three indecent assaults, one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
A further charge of indecent assault was added mid-trial, taking to 13 the total number of alleged offences listed on the indictment.
Last Wednesday, the four indecent assault charges were struck off by the judge because of a “legal technicality”.
I don’t know anything about this, and I wish the article went into a lot more detail about the accusations and why they were found not credible, especially since there were so many from separate people.
Like, did they find some evidence against the accusers, like happened with the Michael Jackson cases iirc, or did they just decide the accusers didn’t present enough evidence or witnesses to be believed?
Spacey might well be innocent, of course. I just worry because society is often disinclined to take male sexual assault victims seriously, and I feel like if the alleged victims were female the press would (since “Me Too”) at least give them a little more coverage than this? This article feels like it has a “the accused is found not guilty, and everyone knows that sexual assault cases are always decided correctly, so he is 100% innocent and we can all wash our hands of this” vibe, but meanwhile Bill Crosby walks free, so I can’t personally trust it with so little information.
Especially not when it’s about a rich, powerful man with a huge fanbase, aka exactly the type of person nobody wants to believe would be a predator (and maybe he isn’t! But I need more info here, darn it!)
Ah well. I’ll google more later I guess.
At least it doesn’t seem to have turned into a media hellscape circus like what happened to Amber Heard.
I concur. It feels like Spacey is gonna just have his name cleared now for reasons we know not, but Marilyn Manson (for example) will forever be seen as a vile monster even though Evan Rachel Wood and Illma Gore are very clearly insane and creating this situation out of thin air
(Little about me to go with my divisive comment; I’m a victim of childhood SA, I believed ERW for a full year on principle before looking into the evidence, at which time it became inescapably obvious that she’s a psychopath who’s doing the absolute most with absolutely nothing based on reality behind it)
You should probably avoid this language when talking about SA, even if you’re referring to people you believe are lying about being victims of SA. I don’t know enough about the above individuals to weigh in on whether they are trustworthy or not, and I’m betting most people running across this comment also don’t have the level of knowledge necessary to parse this message without getting tripped up by the language you’re using which may be especially triggering if they are also victims of SA.
They forged an FBI document using a real agent’s name in order to SWAT his house (the actual agent whose name they used has publicly stated that she had nothing to do with this case and never wrote that document), gave ERW’s ex the agent’s name with a fake number as the only contact to discuss custody of their son after illegally absconding to Tennessee with him under the pretense of being threatened by MM, filled said toddler child’s head with so much fear of MM that he began drawing pictures of “the evil man” who is the reason he’s not allowed to see his father anymore, gave several women a checklist of abuses to create a cohesive story and told them that a) just because they don’t remember it happening doesn’t mean it didn’t and b) they’re hurting the other women’s chance for justice if they don’t agree that it happened to them, just for a few examples. I think I’m using those words perfectly appropriately.
Claiming that someone is lying about SA without listing evidence could in and of itself be triggering, discussing SA at all could be triggering, one would assume that entering a thread about SA could be triggering. I’m not sure I agree that referring to these two as psychologically unhinged would be more triggering than any of the other content of this thread, or more specifically any of the rest of the content of my post accusing them of making it up. Incidentally, I’m using the term psychopath literally, not colloquially;
Individuals with psychopathy (Antisocial Personality Disorder) display a decrease of emotional response and lack of empathy with others. This individual might possess a superficial charm but deep down is manipulative and impulsive. A psychopath is characterized by a lack of regard for the rights and feelings of others, controlled and manipulative behavior, the absence of shame, and an inability to form emotional relationships (Morin, 2021). They are incapable of loyalty to individuals, groups or social values. They are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience
I just don’t agree with your sentiment. I understand the points you’re making are accurate reflections of history (modern and otherwise) but I don’t agree that it’s necessary to avoid labelling people when critiquing their behavior, regarding women or otherwise. Also “unable to learn from experience” is not analogous to “treatment is impossible”, which I assume is where you got the assumption that I was saying that from.
Edit: I see that the person originally responding to me in this discussion is a mod, so if they’d like to clarify that they explicitly want me not to use the words I have in the way I have here then that’s fine, but that’s not what happened here as yet, so yea. These are my feelings on the subject. I understand yours, but I don’t agree. I think what you’re suggesting casts a far wider net over the issue than is necessary. I think she’s a genuinely dangerous person with clear patterns of harmful pathological behavior and I don’t think it’s wrong or detrimental to all women to discuss it. I’m transmasc nonbinary, autistic comorbid with ADHD and chronic treatment resistant depression, and a whole host of other stigmatized and marginalized things as well, and I don’t think it necessarily harms the entire conversation of mental illness as a whole to point out that people can do bad things in conjunction with or because of their mental illnesses, I think it’s disingenuous to act like that’s not an aspect of mental illness at all just because people can ignorantly group all neurodivergence together. I feel like your perspective is more about circling the wagons to control the attack, which I understand, but I think it limits potential discussion without providing any actual meaningful benefit to the communities involved.
We can have discussion without resorting to armchair labels and namecalling towards people we think we know because they’re celebrities. You have no idea whether or not she’s a dangerous person. You only think you do. What is objectively dangerous is trying to convince others that she’s an insane psychopath because that’s your personal opinion. I’m disappointed that a fellow SA survivor wouldn’t realize this, and I hope you genuinely reflect on your opinion.
🙄 it’s gross that you hold your view in such high objective regard that you think it’s your place to admonish me for not agreeing with you
Also I do know she’s dangerous, not least of all because she’s (as recorded in public court documents regarding custody of her child) actively discussing the details of an alleged series of assaults with her young child to the point where he’s terrified of entering LA to see his own father and spends time drawing scary pictures of him.
so if they’d like to clarify that they explicitly want me not to use the words I have in the way I have here then that’s fine
Yes that was the point of my comment being mod flagged. You’ve added additional context which helps but this probably isn’t the right venue for a conversation on the specifics of someone’s legal case and state of mind.
Oh I just assumed every post you make has that cuz you’re a mod, and I didn’t notice till later; when I did notice, I didn’t take your phrasing re: “probably” as a demand but a suggestion. Either way, point taken, thanks for letting me have a discussion anyways.
Yea sadly the UI isn’t great and there’s a bunch of different apps and everything is new. There’s badges for mod and admin, and then there’s a way to speak as a mod. So if you see all 3, that’s an admin speaking “officially”.
In general if someone’s asking for you to change your behavior- mod, admin, or even a regular user, you should probably take their suggestion if it’s reasonable to do so and not asked from a place of intolerance. It helps to demonstrate to the other person that you’re responding in good faith because you’re willing to accommodate their needs.
yeah i guess i did extrapolate that point out further than you meant it. my bad. i think that labeling people isn’t really the point that i find aggravating, though. its applying clinical labels to people who don’t necessarily have those clinical conditions. like, is psychopathy really what’s going on here? can people really know that observing from afar? i don’t think so, and i think its at least a little bit irresponsible to make those sorts of claims about people because they do bad things. there is nothing intrinsically pathological about causing harm to other people. like, the fact that you seem to think you can identify “clear patterns of harmful pathological behavior” is mostly the thrust of my resistance. it certainly is harmful behavior, and it may very well be pathological, but frankly neither you or i are well positioned to make judgements about the mental health of strangers, in the same way we aught not assume people have a specific physical illness.
i think its probably good to point out that people can do bad things because of their mental illness, but we don’t have enough information to just say she has this specific mental illness because she did bad things. its kinda like speculating on the sexuality of public figures, or at least those two ideas feel similar in my brain.
It’s not just that her behavior is harmful, it’s that she’s creating a whole false reality around it and controlling multiple narratives from every possible perspective. She created/co-opted a movement to go along with the Manson allegations, she moved across the country with her son to reinforce her narrative and used that as a way to hurt her ex husband, she used her power in the role of a child’s mother to create a world in which there was a monster they must run away from at all costs to where the kid couldn’t even play outside in Tennessee because of the monster in LA… And whenever she’s confronted with the idea that what she’s done is harmful to anybody she rewrites or reinforces the narrative that she’s doing it for the right reasons and deflects any responsibility or awareness that she’s done anything wrong (for example, when it looked like she was going to lose custody she suddenly decided it was in the child’s best interest to go live with the father in LA, the very city she ran from in order to protect the very child she was taking away from LA).
I’m not saying everybody who hurts somebody is “pathological” or “psychotic”. I’m saying ERW specifically exhibits a lack of capacity for empathy, a total lack of self awareness or awareness of the effects of her behavior, and has no concern or even acceptance of those effects as reality when confronted with them, and what she does and how she is is characteristic of ASPD.
It’s sort of hard to know what happened in more detail without really good-quality reporting from in the courtroom, that might inform as to why the jury found the way they did. We know that the judge issued a majority instruction, a not very uncommon process where, if the jury deliberates for too long, the judge tells them that a ruling can now be accepted with one or two dissenters. I don’t think the jury says what the vote was, just that it was enough, so it could have been unanimous, we don’t know. In the US journalists often try to track down jury members and interview them to get those kinds of details but jurors don’t always want the media circus around them and I don’t know if that’s common practice in the UK.
The dropped charges were apparently alternative counts covering the same crime as the other charges and were probably dropped for that reason, although it’s interesting that no reporters seem to have really given a reason why. I don’t know enough about the UK legal opinion to give much of a guess as to why except that I see the crown prosecution manual does discourage using alternative counts (of a lower crime) in rape cases. Some context in, of all things, Yahoo News, suggests the judge may have been concerned that the alternative counts were making things more complicated for the jury. In the US, some states prohibit charging the same crime as multiple alternative counts for this reason, or have a special procedure for the jury to make it easier, it’s sort of a known issue that it’s hard for a jury to come to a verdict when they’re having to choose guilty/innocent for multiple counts of different exact allegations over one event.
The outcome is dissatisfying, but it’s sort of the outcome the criminal justice system is designed to produce. All the jury found is that there was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Spacey was guilty. There could still be evidence making it most likely that Spacey was guilty, but criminal prosecutions require the higher standard because of the severe impacts of criminal charges. The crown prosecution service put out a statement that they accept the ruling and were just doing their job, which in the US would look more like a prosecutor trying to save face over pursuing what wasn’t the strongest case, but I have no idea about the UK, it might be totally routine to make a statement like that.
The Spacey thing is interesting if you like to follow the legal details. The US cases against him (criminal and civil) were both dropped after the accuser stopped cooperating with the prosecution, at one point pleading the fifth when testifying. That tends to be taken as a sign that the accuser was lying about at least something substantial, thus the prosecutor dropping the charges, but that wasn’t determined by the court or anything. It’s possible, although maybe not so likely, that the accuser was acting in good faith and lost interest in pursuing the case for some other reason. That’s probably more likely when a celebrity is involved, these celebrity prosecutions are all the more complex when it comes to people’s motivations.
The whole culture around sexual harassment/assault allegations has changed a lot over recent years (since “MeToo” if you will), for the better in many ways, but I think there’s still a lot of unsettled issues. It seems like in celebrity cases it’s a lot more likely that “hangers on” will show up with claims that are maybe not untrue but at least stretch the truth. At the same time we obviously have to take accusers very seriously or we risk ignoring criminality because the accused is a popular celebrity. The justice system produces a lot of these unclear outcomes where maybe there were multiple accusers and things look really sketchy for the accused, but it’s not clear enough for a prosecution. That situation has always ended up going to the court of public opinion for a final verdict, but in the case of a big celebrity like Spacey that’s sort of a huge deal. Will studios keep working with Spacey? I suspect the answer is yes, because he’s a huge celebrity, not because of anything about the merits of the case against him. In corporate environments the company will sometimes hire a private investigator to make a decision about the accusation and fire based on that (this is in the US where there are no employment protections), which kind of has its own sketchiness, but the media industry isn’t known for caring that much.
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