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Terrorism is about finding an "in" group. How do you combat this? My favorite quote about how the internet impacts terrorism: "If we see terrorism as more of
by Artistry121 11y ago
Terrorism is about finding an "in" group. How do you combat this?
My favorite quote about how the internet impacts terrorism:
"If we see terrorism as more of a tribal or gang activity than political activism or warfare, then online connections become especially important to our analysis, otherwise we will be fooled by so-called lone wolves. Earlier ‘lone wolves’ like bombers Timothy McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph turn out on closer inspection to have ties, social & otherwise, to like-minded people; McVeigh lived with several other extremists and was taught his bomb-making skills by the Nichols, who also built the final bomb with him, while Rudolph remained on the run for several years in a community that wrote songs and sold t-shirts to praise him and was ultimately caught clean-shaven & wearing new sneakers. Lone wolves who genuinely had no contact with their confreres, such as Ted Kaczynski, are vanishingly rare exceptions among the dozens of thousands of terrorist attacks in the 20th century, and as rare exceptions, otherwise implausible explanations like mental disease account for them without trouble."
- jacquesm 11y agoThere's also Breivik. Terrorism is as much about media as it is about anything else and by giving these suckers as much airtime as they get the media are more than just a little bit complicit in providing them with a platform for their idiocy.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoSo stop doing it. That name turns up much more often in English language media that it does here in Norway. Here he was to a quite large extent treated as a common criminal, a murderer.
- j_camarena 11y agoTerrorism is an American (English word) your barely hear the word in Spanish.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoOstensibly, it's actually a loan word from French, if Wikipedia's etymology is to be believed. That said, I can certainly attest to the word being commonly used in a host of other languages besides English, including Slavic ones. Perhaps it is the case that it is not frequent in Spanish-speaking societies.
- ctchocula 11y agoThe Online Etymology Dictionary agrees. It dates back to the French Revolution, it seems. [0] [0] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=terrorism&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...
- semi-extrinsic 11y agoTrue. But the typical Norwegian words for he-who-shall-not-be-named may not carry the same connotations in an international context: "the terrorist", "the perpetrator", "the murderer", etc. So it may not be that simple to translate it. Plus, journalists in general aren't the most eloquent and precise of wordsmiths.
- kwhitefoot 11y agoNo, that's not how it works here. When the event is mentioned in the media it is usually in neutral terms that do not mention the perpetrator. The emphasis is almost always on how we support those who were injured and the families of those who were injured or killed and on how to move on. When the camp at Utøya was formally reopened in the summer the opening speech was about the future not the past.
- larrys 11y agoWhat is interesting is that in the US you have freedom of speech but that doesn't mean you can yell "fire" in a movie theater (as the example often goes). Otoh you have freedom of the press but there are little restrictions on the press to print anything (obvious exclusions include libel) under the premise that people have a right to know certain things even if that right to know ends up creating more danger. Which is what you mean by "giving these suckers as much airtime". The truth is, why do I need to know that a school in another state in the US had a shooting? Does the information value of that outweigh the obvious effect of having copycat crimes and more damage? To me, it doesn't. And I don't think the issue is really not allowing information like that to be put out. I think the issue is simply playing so long and so hard that it creates the impact that you are referring to. And creates "more suckers".