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Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

nytimes.com

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Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#241

Post by dang »

imaginenore wrote: post #217
cryptica wrote: post #137

This soils the reputation of islam. I know some good people (muslims) who suffer from prejudice on a daily basis because of attacks like these. Being a muslim in a foreign country is an increasingly difficult and isolating experience.

Islam soils the reputation of islam. It has a massive problem of large percentages of Muslims supporting (or being okay with) violence and terrorism. 42% of young Muslims in France believe suicide bombings are justified (35% overall). http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-ameri...

> Islam soils the reputation of islam.

No slurs, please. We've already banned one account for turning this thread into a religious flamewar. Comments here need to stay factual.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#243

Post by jamhan »

usaphp wrote: post #208

I don't understand how can you talk about ISIS, Nazis and Communists in the same sentence? Communism has nothing to do with violence compared to ISIS and Nazis... Edit: Why downvotes? Idea of communism does not propose violence, Nazis and ISIS on the other hand do.

Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung - just to name a couple of famous exponents of communism. Perhaps you are mistaking the ideal of communism with the actual practice of it, which has proven to be just as genocidal as anything else in history.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#244

Post by VMG »

rquantz wrote: post #134
bedhead wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to rationalize with people who are irrational. They don't reconcile. It sucks. It's depressing.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

It has had a 0% success rate of achieving political goals

http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#245

Post by VMG »

rquantz wrote: post #134
bedhead wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to rationalize with people who are irrational. They don't reconcile. It sucks. It's depressing.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

It has had a 0% success rate of achieving political goals

http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#246

Post by orthoganol »

rquantz wrote: post #134
bedhead wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to rationalize with people who are irrational. They don't reconcile. It sucks. It's depressing.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

Having a logic is not the same as being rational.

All madness has its own logic.

I want a raise so I terrorize my boss until he gives me one is a logic, but it is not a rational approach.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#247

Post by e12e »

vonnik wrote: post #176
tonfa wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: 1995 attacks killed 8 and injured 100 (Puts the current attack in perspective, I don't think anything similar ever happened)

I stand corrected. Thank you. A terrorist attack killing more than 100 happened in 1961, during the Algerian war for independence.

And not to detract from your points above, there's been terror attacks on "both" sides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#248

Post by dang »

RogtamBar wrote: post #84
dragonwriter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can a country possibly prevent these things while still maintaining a free society? You can't even prevent them when not being a free society. Its not like terrorism only occurs in free societies.

This is bullshit and you know this. There is very little chance of anyone successfully getting up to terrorism if society is a) riddled with informers b) detaining people without charges is legal c) totalitarian ideology and political supremacy makes the establishment of parallel societies impossible. Border controls make importing terrorists next to impossible. The former eastern Bloc had no terrorist incidents. Pul…

> This is bullshit and you know this.

Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#249

Post by asasasasasas »

clock_tower wrote: post #189
rquantz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism is usually a rational act. It is terrible, but it has political goals. This, for instance, may be aimed at ending the European involvement in Syria and their taking in refugees.

It used to be rational, rather. The classic terrorists of the '70s wanted "a lot of people talking but not a lot of people dead" -- and also wanted to survive the experience. The new breed of terrorism in the '80s and '90s was different from those; the IRA, the PLO, and various state-sponsored terrorists in that period had/have more in common with each other, despite their obvious differences, than any have with al-Q…

> ISIS is specifically out for either world empire or apocalyptic defeat

Which is why (in my understanding) ISIS does not do attacks on foreign soil. Their idea is to re-establish a caliphate (ei Islamic empire, which existed from around the time of Mohamed for centuries). ISIS would probably be okay with those that cannot join the jihad in Syria conducting a terrorist attack on their home turf, but would not actively plan one.

All I'm saying is I would not be surprised if this isn't specifically ISIS.

Re: Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

#250

Post by Asbostos »

jacquesm wrote: post #210
eveningcoffee wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this?

A way to let others know you're safe even if you can't get through to them personally.

Does that have any value beyond reinforcing people's irrational fear of mass deaths? What if you let your family know you're not one of the 100 killed in this attack then die as one of the 600 murdered in France each year by common crime?

I saw this happen with the London bombings. A colleague was almost in tears because her son lived in London and she couldn't contact him on the phone. It turned out he was fine, as approximately everybody else in the city was too.

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