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Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

piketty.blog.lemonde.fr

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Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#101

Post by krapp »

fleitz wrote: post #81

I'm going to have to go with Mohammed on this one, look him up, he's the picture of ISIS, child rapist, murderer, enslaver, and all around shitty guy. Most Muslims realize he's not someone to be emulated, ever. Also, it takes a lot of citizens producing surpluses in support of these ideals to field an effective army of any size, so not all Muslims can be members of the ISIS Army most have to settle for paying taxes,…

I'm starting to suspect that as any thread on Hacker News involving the Middle East, Islam or Islamic terrorism grows longer, the probability of someone calling Mohammed a pedophile approaches 1.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#102

Post by coffeevradar »

nateberkopec wrote: post #29

I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth. ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia. They say this every time they attack us. Yet (mostly on the left) we keep coming up with reasons why this isn't the case. "No, actually, you're not attacking us for that reason, really it's our fault because we gave the oil to…

Here's Le Monde's English translation:

http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/11/24/clamping-down-with...

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#103

Post by fleitz »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #16
Albright wrote: post #2

Wow. Talk about "when all you have is a hammer."

While I agree, there is one point that must be considered: the Arab Spring directly sprang, if you will pardon the pun, from an extreme rise in the prices of basic staples, and the population of the Middle East didn't have the income buffer to compensate. Not being able to afford bread tends to lead to a lot of revolutions, or at least the breakdown of society. Just ask France.

I think that's the key there, it's not income inequality per se, but whether what meager income they have is enough to buy food.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#104

Post by coffeevradar »

mikeash wrote: post #92

There is a lot of extremely opinionated and pointed discussion going on in these comments. How many of you read the article? How many of you read the original article, the one published in Le Monde, in French? I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the people here criticizing what Piketty is saying don't even know what he is saying.

Here's an English translation:

http://piketty.blog.lemonde.fr/2015/11/24/clamping-down-with...

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#105

Post by jules »

fleitz wrote: post #81

I'm going to have to go with Mohammed on this one, look him up, he's the picture of ISIS, child rapist, murderer, enslaver, and all around shitty guy. Most Muslims realize he's not someone to be emulated, ever. Also, it takes a lot of citizens producing surpluses in support of these ideals to field an effective army of any size, so not all Muslims can be members of the ISIS Army most have to settle for paying taxes,…

Actually, most Muslims do not realize that Muhammad is not somebody to be emulated. They are simply unaware of who he really was, or use creative interpretation similar to how Christians interpret the Old Testament.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#106

Post by CM30 »

kohanz wrote: post #76
nateberkopec wrote: post #29

I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth. ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia. They say this every time they attack us. Yet (mostly on the left) we keep coming up with reasons why this isn't the case. "No, actually, you're not attacking us for that reason, really it's our fault because we gave the oil to…

There's a difference between the stated motive of ISIS and what enables them to exist and grow. I have a hard time believing that they can be so effective in their recruitment efforts with a message based entirely on an interpretation of an old book. It is more plausible to me that they prey on desperate, mentally unwell, and disaffected people to join their cause.

Wait, you have a hard time believing they can be so recruitment with a message based on an interpretation of an old book?

More than 2000 years of human history and religion shows that an awful lot of things (both positive and negative for the world) have come from religion, based almost entirely on old books and interpretations. The supposed word of a supposedly all knowing/powerful deity is enough inspiration for an awful lot of people.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#107

Post by pille »

nateberkopec wrote: post #29

I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth. ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia. They say this every time they attack us. Yet (mostly on the left) we keep coming up with reasons why this isn't the case. "No, actually, you're not attacking us for that reason, really it's our fault because we gave the oil to…

Since you kind of elided it, their stated reason for killing is more or less "because you're not Muslim". We could take it at face value, but there's nothing useful you can do with that information.

What would be useful is to know how so many people get to that place. What are the conditions that radicalized thousands to the point where they are willing to kill others just for being less Muslim than they see themselves?

I think the Post's use of the word 'blame' is meant to be provocative. Western powers obviously aren't scheming to create ISIS with wealth inequality, and improved wealth distribution obviously won't inspire ISIS to lay down their weapons. But if that inequality really is a cause, it's worth trying to fix it if you want to head off the next manifestation of ISIS.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#108

Post by fleitz »

krapp wrote: post #101
fleitz wrote: post #81

I'm going to have to go with Mohammed on this one, look him up, he's the picture of ISIS, child rapist, murderer, enslaver, and all around shitty guy. Most Muslims realize he's not someone to be emulated, ever. Also, it takes a lot of citizens producing surpluses in support of these ideals to field an effective army of any size, so not all Muslims can be members of the ISIS Army most have to settle for paying taxes,…

I'm starting to suspect that as any thread on Hacker News involving the Middle East, Islam or Islamic terrorism grows longer, the probability of someone calling Mohammed a pedophile approaches 1.

Calling? It's a pretty well established 'fact' covered by Islamic sacred text, Its an assertion held by 1.8 billion Muslims. The books could well be works of fiction, the vast majority of people who assert the truth of the books are Muslim. I'm perfectly willing to accept that Mohammed was neither a prophet, nor a child rapist, but Muslims believe these things bring glory to him. However, to be respectful of their faith we must take their assertions at face value.

It's about as controversial as Jesus being a bastard, or God being intolerant of homosexuals.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#109

Post by bko »

ramason wrote: post #90
bko wrote: post #63

On the surface this explanation doesn't make sense. Is there a correlation between extremists and countries with high income inequality? If so, provide some evidence apart from cherry picking countries which happen to have high inequality and other problems. Why aren't free democratic regimes which also have high inequality equally plagued by these problems? Also, energy prices have fallen dramatically, affecting the…

He is not positing a general theory of income inequality and extremism merely offering a hypothesis for recent extremism in the middle east. Saying "I think X is the cause of Y in country Z" is not the same thing as saying X is always the cause of Y in all countries all the time.

If you can make causes conditional to one particular location, how is that a good explanation? Are extremists more likely to be the poorest of society? From what I read, this is not the case.

Re: Thomas Piketty: Clamping down with law and order will not be enough

#110

Post by iofj »

rgbrgb wrote: post #80
nateberkopec wrote: post #29

I don't understand why we shouldn't believe what's coming straight out of ISIS' mouth. ISIS has said they're killing us because of their interpretation of a book written in the first millennia. They say this every time they attack us. Yet (mostly on the left) we keep coming up with reasons why this isn't the case. "No, actually, you're not attacking us for that reason, really it's our fault because we gave the oil to…

I won't pretend to know why everything is so fucked right now but I will make 2 points: 1) In general, the people actually doing the killings are far removed from the organization's leadership. Here's an interesting piece on individual Isis fighters: http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-inte... 2) Usually when someone is upset, they're very bad at articulating the actual thing that is upsetting the…

2) is not true. Violence committed because of islam has been pretty steady since the end of WW1 and was much higher before that.
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