I thought I'd been clear about this - peaceful protests are effective when they are backed by a threat of force. It may be different in the modern US, but in most times and places this threat is already implicit without anyone using violence to make them afraid beforehand. I think you're too caught up in the current context and trying to apply that universally. Here in the US it's understood that people will march just for the fuck of it or to get a selfie and that they aren't necessarily committed to more than that. Marches here are accepted and normal, which makes them less compelling as a form of protest, but in a society where they aren't accepted and normal, it shows that a large number of people are willing to defy social customs for the sake of a cause, which implies that they may be committed enough to fight, should the situation escalate.

I want to establish clearly what I'm arguing for vs what you're arguing against. The position you're arguing against is that of absolute pacifism. The idea that you should only ever use peaceful means to achieve your goals, no matter the situation. The idea that I'm arguing for is that peaceful methods can have a place in one's tactics, in the right situation. I have no interest in defending the position of absolute pacifism that you're criticising. However, just because pacifists may use certain methods in ineffective ways does not mean that some of those methods cannot be used effectively by others who are willing to escalate to violence.

for peaceful protest to work, for your ‘look how many of us there are! listen to our voices!’ thing to mean shit, the people you’re protesting need to see you are more than cattle. they will never see you as human, but you can make them see you as a threat to be mitigated via negotiation and compromise.

And this is exactly what I meant when I said you've been fed some drivel about how peaceful protest is about "appealing to the opposition's better nature or some shit." This is completely divorced from anything I was saying. Peaceful protest is not supposed to be about getting the opposition to "listen to our voices." That's a strawman of my position, and as long as you're thinking in those terms I won't be able to explain my point. Peaceful protest is meant to achieve the tactical goals that I mentioned, not to "appeal to the opposition's better nature," which is a completely ridiculous goal. I cannot stress enough how much this is not goal. The goal is to achieve a tactical objective like the ones I listed previously. If all you're doing is hoping the opposition decides to give you what you want because they're secretly nice, then yeah you're correct that it's useless and childish. That has nothing to do with what effective peaceful protesting is actually about, though.