Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 672 posts

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

#561

Post by rquantz »

cm2187 wrote: post #190
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.

I think it is actually the opposite. They are trying to provoke a christian involvement in Syria so that they can claim it is a cruisade and recruit more fighters in the muslim world. It is usually how terrorism work. IRA or ETA were doing exactly the same.

I actually think you're probably right as well – my original post was done before I'd had much time to reflect. Terrorism is usually done to provoke some kind of hardening response, and today in practice that seems to mean trying to further embroil western countries in military conflict in the Middle East.

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

#562

Post by [deleted] »

warsheep wrote: post #547
threeseed wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lightly" blame the Israelis, the US, basically anyone except those responsible. This argument is so stupid. Everyone is blaming the people responsible. That's a given. The reason people are blaming Israel and the US is because they are indirectly responsible since their actions are used as recruitment tools.

The US, France, and other European countries I can actually understand, since these countries performed military operations in Iraq and/or Syria, but I'll be very surprised if Israel is used as a recruiting tool. If you have some sources implying this I'm interested in reading them!

[deleted]

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

#563

Post by 0mbre »

threeseed wrote: post #539
0mbre wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing innocent, helpless people IS irrational. Period

It's not irrational at all. If your goal is to terrify a nation in order to pressure it to change its foreign policy then it is quite rational. And there are quite a few examples of this approach actually working.

Well obvioysly to someone irrational every of his action seem rational.

The point is that for a phycologicaly healthy and balanced human being these actions can not be called rational by any stretch of logic

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

#564

Post by warsheep »

threeseed wrote: post #558
warsheep wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US, France, and other European countries I can actually understand, since these countries performed military operations in Iraq and/or Syria, but I'll be very surprised if Israel is used as a recruiting tool. If you have some sources implying this I'm interested in reading them!

Why would you be surprised Israel's persecution of the Palestinians would be a recruiting tool ? It's a major issue for almost every Muslim worldwide. ISIS have absolutely been recruiting on the back of this and I've seen recruits from Australia even mention it when interviewed. There are plenty of examples: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-manual-al-qaeda-and-no... http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/king-of-jordan-i…

Interesting articles, thanks!

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

#565

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #375
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.

"Howdy, lefties? Still arguing for disarming the citizens and letting in imigrants without control?" -- a (translation of a) friend's post on Facebook I just saw. Yes, they will make those comments. They always do, even if nothing is happening.

[deleted]

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

#566

Post by 0mbre »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #538
solipsism wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rational.. irrational.. I hope you can see that it's a pointless argument. The word "rational" is highly subjective so we shouldn't pretend there's some objective measure of rationality. * Kill an innocent civilian * Have or perform an abortion * Eat meat * Fight in a war * Drop an atomic bomb on a city * Commit suicide That's all shit that some people call rational and others call irrational. The truth is that "rati…

It's important because to start to solve these problems you have to be able to see things from their point of view, you can't really do that if you think they are irrational.

Well you can wonder why did these people act irrationaly? Could these behaviour have been detected? Could they have been helped out of this narrowed point of view of thinking that killing innocent is the right thing to do ? I don't think anyone today hasn't in mind those questions.

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

#567

Post by DrScump »

mrswag wrote: post #71
zxcvcxz wrote: post #40

I've seen a lot of HNers suggesting that we must over react and ramp up the war on terrorism. I'm all for cutting off immigration, but how will ramping up the wars do us any good? I don't see how another ten years "fixing" things is going to work.

The terrorists were most likely not immigrants, but french citizen/permanent resident.

Those are not mutually exclusive conditions . One does not need to be native-born to be a citizen or legal resident.

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

#568

Post by sampo »

littletimmy wrote: post #480
eva1984 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just give up and offer your good will???

To be clear, "giving up" here means stop screwing with other countries. Yes, that's an outstanding strategy. While you're at it, also stop supporting terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia.

> stop supporting terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia.

In your earlier comment you wrote:

> Stop destabilizing Arab countries

Isn't supporting the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia pretty much supporting stability? How can you stop supporting a dictator without a big risk of causing destabilization (as happened in Libya)?

Seems like you want two logical opposities simultaneously?

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

#569

Post by Asbostos »

leothekim wrote: post #353
Asbostos wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You answered your question without even realizing it. It is always ok to care about your loved one, and it is always ok to reach back out to let them know you're ok, no matter the medium, no matter the circumstance. It is not irrational, it is human. A college classmate on 9/11 died in the Windows of the World restaurant. Her death may be a statistic to you, but it is not to me. I remember trying to call friends in N…

Several of my friends, neighbors and family members have died. In none of those cases did I hear about it on the news and call to make sure it wasn't them. If I did that, I'd be doing it daily, because there are always car accidents, murders, suicides, organ failures and cancers in any city every day.

So what I mean is that for a small incident like this, it's usually not reasonable to check on your friends. If they worked in the WTC on 9/11 then their risk is higher so it certainly can be reasonable. Similarly for a tsunami or other disaster with a high death toll.

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

#570

Post by littletimmy »

sampo wrote: post #568
littletimmy wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, "giving up" here means stop screwing with other countries. Yes, that's an outstanding strategy. While you're at it, also stop supporting terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia.

> stop supporting terrorist regimes like Saudi Arabia. In your earlier comment you wrote: > Stop destabilizing Arab countries Isn't supporting the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia pretty much supporting stability? How can you stop supporting a dictator without a big risk of causing destabilization (as happened in Libya)? Seems like you want two logical opposities simultaneously?

Or it means that the US has a double-standard approach where it stabilizes favorable dictatorships (Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait) and destabilizes unfavorable dictatorships (Libya, Iraq) and democracies (Egypt 60s, Iran 50s).

How about getting out of other people's countries?

Post reply on HN