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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

#341

Post by andreasvc »

coldtea wrote: post #310
andreasvc wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been plenty of communist-inspired violent terrorism. Germany's RAF, Italy's Red Brigade, Japan's United Red Army, Peru's Shining Path, Columbia's FARC, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, etc. etc. Saying these are not real communists is just a No True Scotsman. As soon as people start believing in utopias there's a danger that they will cross a line.

> As soon as people start believing in utopias there's a danger that they will cross a line. More people have been killed in pragmatic endeavours, like colonialism, and land grab/turf wars, than from "utopias". This includes smaller scale utopias -- far less innocent people have been killed by ...hippies than by policemen.

You're not contradicting anything I said, I wouldn't claim utopias are the only reason for people to become violent. I do believe that true believers such as with religions or utopias are particularly dangerous. Did you reply this way because you approve of communism?

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

#342

Post by ianamartin »

livatlantis wrote: post #100

In Paris right now. We are in shock. At both the scale and the extremely coordinated nature of the attacks on civilians at multiple locations. I work near rue Bichat and Le Petit Cambodge, a warm little restaurant in the 10e that my colleagues and I frequent, where people were tonight killed. The Bataclan is a well-known concert venue for metal bands, where I've seen several bands play live. Les Halles is at the cent…

You have thoughts and good wishes coming from NYC and from Texas. I'm in New York; my dad is in Texas.

My dad is a WW2 veteran. He fought on the front lines of Normandy Beach, The Battle of France, and Liege, among other places like the Battle of the Bulge.

He was housed in France by people there who welcomed and supported him. He was assisted by the underground resistance. He has an enormous amount of love for the French people that he helped liberate and who helped liberate themselves.

There was a family that took him in somewhere in the French countryside and fed him the first meal he'd had in weeks that wasn't out of a can. They cooked food, washed his clothes, and gave him some wine and a decent bed to sleep on.

My dad is 96 now, and about 10 years ago the granddaughter of that family tracked him down and sent him a letter telling him how she had always heard about this man who came there to help them. He has treasured this person ever since and stayed in touch with her.

When I talked to him on the phone tonight, he was in tears about what has happened in that country he fought so hard to protect so many years ago and the people who are experiencing what you are going through.

Best wishes to you and yours. From Texas and New York, Vive la France.

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

#343

Post by Asbostos »

6stringmerc wrote: post #331

Of all the wonderful and dangerous developments that technology has granted our species, I'm saddened to think that we have yet to find a pathway to the human spirit that can help reduce hatred and the impulses that result in such terrible actions. From school shootings in the US to warlords in distant lands, there's so much yet to achieve in the name of progress, for human kind. Surely, we have much to do, and as tr…

Don't worry. Driverless cars are coming and the lives they save will quickly outweigh all deaths from terrorism and mass shootings. The US will be such a massively safer place without those 30,000 road deaths each year. It'll be able to sustain another 9/11 incident every year and still be safer than before. So I don't think we need to solve this problem. We're already well on the way to solving the real problems. Terrorism and mass shootings are negligible and don't need to be a priority.

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

#344

Post by mikeash »

Swizec wrote: post #106
mikeash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we at least wait until people start saying these things before we complain? I'm getting tired of seeing a bunch of comments complaining about other people supposedly making arguments of which I see no trace.

Open twitter. Every tweet on this topic has a bunch of replies complaining about muslims and migrants. Even the first comment on HackerNews contained an anti-islamic sentiment jabbing at the migrant crisis.

The whole point is to avoid all the nonsense like what you're saying is on Twitter.

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

#345

Post by tn13 »

Prayers for those who died and their family members.

A reminder than the free societies must remain and and continue to defend themselves despite such terror attacks. It is important that politicians don't cave into the political goals that these terrorists might have.

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

#346

Post by beachstartup »

TomGullen wrote: post #262
mkhpalm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlawing guns is a lot like outlawing drugs. If you want them, you can get them.

Drugs I could find. Guns? Wouldn't have a clue where to start.

uh, well, that's probably because you're not a criminal or terrorist.

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

#347

Post by jacquesm »

Asbostos wrote: post #335
jtblin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it valuable to know that my friends and family in Paris are safe, so I'm grateful to FB for doing that. OTH It saddens me and make me wonder what kind of world we live in for FB to release such a feature.

You didn't need Facebook to tell you that. You could have just assumed it was true based on the enormous population of Paris (2 million) and the small number of deaths in this incident (100-200).

It's a matter of geometry and not loading up the phone lines with un-necessary calls.

If 1,000,000 people try to figure out whether the 1 person they know in a city of 2,000,000 are ok within a very short time-frame then the phone network will stop functioning.

A place to post a simple 'I'm ok' will cut down tremendously on the number of calls that will then still need to be made. Unfortunately (1) not everybody has facebook and (2) a 'no show' will now certainly lead to a phonecall when before it would be assumed the person was ok so I'm not sure whether it helps or not but the basic idea is probably a good one. It would be even better if this functionality was available outside of having a facebook account.

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

#348

Post by mietek »

usaphp wrote: post #290
erickhill wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As horrific and scary as terrorist acts are to civil societies (and impactful to our politics), Stalin's rule was far more devastating. "In February 1989, two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, a research paper by Georgian historian Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev published in the weekly tabloid Argumenti i Fakti estimated that the death toll directly attributable to Stalin’s rule amounted to some 20 million live…

The article you mentioned has no explanation of where he got those figures, as far as I know there is no official data on this and estimates range from 3Mln to 60Mln [1], which as you can see is quite bizarre estimate. According to official documents there were 799,455 people executed in a period from 1921 to 1953 [2] and keep in mind that's a total number of execution, not only those that were executed for political…

Let’s start with the Holodomor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

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

#349

Post by Asbostos »

001sky wrote: post #340
Asbostos wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it makes up for it, but France also committed state-sponsored terrorism (by any definition of the word) in New Zealand in the 80's. Though they only killed one person with their bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

Could you clarify how this would be "terrorism"? Terrorisms is not something targeted like this. Whethor or not it was a war crime or treason or murder or whatever (they plead guilty to manslaughter)...it's not a repeatable or scalable type of situation and was never a threat to the general public.

I suppose not if terrorism has to give fear to the whole country, not just one group. But it was surely meant to intimidate by random-seeming violence. It wasn't part of a war, which distinguishes it from general war killing. Nor was it a personal grudge that distinguishes it from typical murder.

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

#350

Post by dang »

imaginenore wrote: post #278
dang wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I did stay factual, I even provided a link. If you're going to restrict speech, restrict all mentions of religion, not just the ones that contradict your preconceived notion.

The part I quoted was not factual and was a slur.
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