I was really hoping to see that last photo he's talking about taken by one of his saviors.
Me too, I assumed its the electric blanket one which is right after that paragraph.
Bed that saved me from the Taliban
141–148 of 148 posts
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It had already been attacked and was full of international guests. In the capital city. 4-5 guys should not be able to take complete control of the hotel with no heavy weaponry. That means security is deficient or non-existent.
What kind of daily security setup can protect against 5 gunmen with AK47s?
Why aren't autonomous or remotely controlled rovers, or turrets ever installed?
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#143"Parts of the hotel were able to re-open two months after the attack" — what? Curious, what would be the logical explanation for that? I mean, for starters nobody would want to work there, and nobody would want to _stay_ there. Right?
The hotel still needs to make money, so getting it open as quickly as possible even after a horrific incident is important for the bottom line of the company that runs it. Fix all the damage, put up a plaque or other memorial to the victims, and then move forward. This may seem harsh, but economic interests don't permanently go away when disasters happen.
Late stage capitalism everybody
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
No
I guess the Taliban are somehow different from everyone else and evil, then. It's the most reasonable explanation.
Surely there is middle ground between "all soldiers do it" and "no soldier except Talian ever done it".
While no army is composed of highly emphatic saints, armies differ in their general level of violence toward non-combatants, cruelty, how pleasurable they perceive killing and so on and so forth. Ideology and reward system have to do a lot with how army or specific unit behaves.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the Taliban are somehow different from everyone else and evil, then. It's the most reasonable explanation.
Surely there is middle ground between "all soldiers do it" and "no soldier except Talian ever done it". While no army is composed of highly emphatic saints, armies differ in their general level of violence toward non-combatants, cruelty, how pleasurable they perceive killing and so on and so forth. Ideology and reward system have to do a lot with how army or specific unit behaves.
Sure, I just don't really subscribe to the notion that "they're brown so they must be evil". The data I have right now is "these soldiers were taking killing lightly" and, if I'm going to generalize from the data point, I'll generalize to "all soldiers take killing lightly" rather than "the Taliban specifically take killing lightly", since that makes an additional assumption that the Taliban are special.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely there is middle ground between "all soldiers do it" and "no soldier except Talian ever done it". While no army is composed of highly emphatic saints, armies differ in their general level of violence toward non-combatants, cruelty, how pleasurable they perceive killing and so on and so forth. Ideology and reward system have to do a lot with how army or specific unit behaves.
Sure, I just don't really subscribe to the notion that "they're brown so they must be evil". The data I have right now is "these soldiers were taking killing lightly" and, if I'm going to generalize from the data point, I'll generalize to "all soldiers take killing lightly" rather than "the Taliban specifically take killing lightly", since that makes an additional assumption that the Taliban are special.
Both nazi and communists took killing lightly or as manly honorable duty. They were German and Russians respectively. They believed they are doing right thing with no ambiguity. They had fun with it. They were more violent as western armies toward non combatants.
The original claim was about this particular unit. Assumption that they are representative of all brown people is wrong. Plenty of brown don't subscribe to this ideology.
Armies indoctrinate and socialize people differently. Implying racism on part of people who don't extrapolate one unit of one army behavior to all of them is not great tactic.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's an old story (that I can't find right now) about a bank employee that falls for a scam that costs the company hundreds of thousands. He goes to his boss and says "I guess you will be expecting my resignation", to which the boss replies "Resign? I just spent thousands of dollars training you!". I would apply the same line of thought here: I don't think this hotel is any more insecure that any other. In fact, I…
I think (but maybe it is only a duplicate) that you may be thinking at this story about Tom Watson (IBM): http://www.mbiconcepts.com/watson-sr-and-thoughtful-mistakes...
The one I remember was definitely about a scam, but I have no doubt that it was a rehash of similar stories in the past. Yours is probably the original, which is even better.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hotel still needs to make money, so getting it open as quickly as possible even after a horrific incident is important for the bottom line of the company that runs it. Fix all the damage, put up a plaque or other memorial to the victims, and then move forward. This may seem harsh, but economic interests don't permanently go away when disasters happen.
Late stage capitalism everybody
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything I said.
Honest question - when should any business or organization re-open after a tragedy happens on it's grounds? I doubt that the answer is "never".