591–600 of 672 posts
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What do you mean by this?
Not the gp, but "pointless" killing would be more like someone killing people because they were bored and had nothing better to do. Extremism is all about ideals inspiring action. The hate and retorhic IS the point for them, even if flawed. I think "senseless" killing/violence is a better descriptor.
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You forgot to include the recent intervention in Mali by French troops. This incident definitely upset the Al Qaeda in the Maghreb people and this terrorist attack was probably a retaliatory attack for the intervention.
The attackers mentioned Syria. The most likely candidate is ISIS, and they wouldn't give a damn to what happens to AQ or their affiliates.
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Yes, and they should be kept to Facebook and news article comment sections where they belong, not brought preemptively here.
Fair enough. But it doesn't change the fact that general population will say these things, and it's them, not HN crowd, that shapes policy. I am seriously, true to God, afraid of what's going to happen now - afraid of overreaction of people and governments.
What about thought leadership? I know its a cliche beaten to death perhaps, but still I think people are able to see a raised level of discourse, than theirs, while they may not always leave their hard positions and immediately agree.
But there's also this balancing act, that we need to do, of not wanting to get into an argument of certain kinds.
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Since the end of the war in former Yugoslavia and the fall of the former USSR Europe is awash with arms of all shapes and sizes. Automatic weapons caches are uncovered with scary regularity and it is not hard to imagine at all that groups with sufficient money can gain access to assault weapons in relatively large numbers.
I have never heard of this, which is scary in itself. Or maybe it isn't, I don't really know. Do you know of any further reading for me?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/europes-small-arms-plague/ (1998)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/getting-a-gun-le...
And many many others, unfortunately. It's a very nasty thing and it will take an extraordinary effort to put this genie back into the bottle.
Open borders has been a blessing in many ways but at the same time it has caused a whole bunch of un-intended side effects and this one and cross border heavy crime are two of the not so nice ones, to put it very mildly. We now have actual gangs with heavy arms in Amsterdam which was a fairly peaceful city not all that long ago.
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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.
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Fair enough. But it doesn't change the fact that general population will say these things, and it's them, not HN crowd, that shapes policy. I am seriously, true to God, afraid of what's going to happen now - afraid of overreaction of people and governments.
> But it doesn't change the fact that general population will say these things, and it's them, not HN crowd What about thought leadership ? I know its a cliche beaten to death perhaps, but still I think people are able to see a raised level of discourse, than theirs, while they may not always leave their hard positions and immediately agree. But there's also this balancing act, that we need to do, of not wanting to g…
Well, ok. It took me a while after I posted my responses to (sort-of) understand where 'mikeash was going. I initially thought he was disputing the existence or possibility of those comments, so me and others were providing proofs and arguments that they in fact exist.
I think now that 'mikeash wanted us to not accidentally fall from quoting some arguments to actually using and discussing them, but I also still think the meta-level issue is something worth thinking about. We all know general population will say stupid things, because GenPop always says stupid things in situations like that, and those calls will drown reasonable public discussion and they will shape public policy - so it is worth asking, what to do about it? How to prevent this situation from spiralling out of control?
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We had a suicide bomber in Sweden who blew himself up because he was angry that the government didn't arrest Lars Vilks, an artist who had made some drawings of Muhammed which he thought was offensive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_c... ). Swedish Muslim terrorists also tried to create a massacre at Jyllandsposten because of their drawings ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_…
Sweden hasn't been as affected as other countries. Instability will always spill over from conflicts, there's nothing special about this era. RAF occupied the West German embassy in Stockholm in 1975 and planned to kidnap a Swedish politician. To some extent it's the same for France, they didn't invade Iraq, created Guantanamo or other things to escalate the conflict yet they are targeted. Maybe because they have a l…
I live in Paris and was spending the night in the middle of the hot zone. I was a few hundred meters from the Bataclan but fortunately the area I was in was spared. I tried to get a Uber but they were unavailable, "State of emergency, please stay home", the app said. I took a city bike home, rode about 10kms and barely saw anyone in the streets all the way home. It was really, really weird. I'm awfully sad that peopl…
If we didn't need to secure their oil by supporting/deposing despots in the region, and didn't want to provide the Israelis with military/political/financial support then we would not be dealing with any of this carnage. Their attempts to fight back will only escalate the situation, and the carnage will continue. Edit: I'm not advocating that we not support Israel. I'm simply stating a hard truth regarding "why they…
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So far Israel hasn't featured high on Isis' agenda, and there have been no significant isis attacks on Israeli targets. This is despite the fact that they almost share a border. Neither are Palestinians' rights a top priority for isis. What's left of the the residents of Yarmouk refugee camp will testify to that. In short, Isis is not about israel vs palestine, it's about a deeper social/religious clash of ideas. So…
Exactly right. The plight of the Palestinians is a significant recruiting tool but that's all it is. ISIS has no plans to liberate them. The purpose of ISIS is exactly what they say it is. To establish their own state governed by hard-right Islamic ideals. And the reason they have so much support is largely driven from the perceived persecution of Muslims worldwide e.g. xenophobia in Western countries, drone strikes…
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.
If the western world starts feeling it is at war with Islam, Muslims will unite under those terrorist's banner and we're in for a very long, shitty haul.
The worse we treat Muslims in our own countries, the easier simple individuals will be to turn to the terrorist course.
If we attack a Muslim country, hordes of Muslims will travel there to fight for the Prophet.
These attacks are all desperate attempts at starting an avalanche. Don't let them play you, talk with your friends, stay calm.