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I'm not entirely sure how I would define my guiding motivation in life, but I swear "do no harm" would be part of it. I despair at those who believe otherwise.

by iMark 11y ago

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
I'm not sure if I could keep a motivation like that if, for example, my family was killed by a drone strike.
- slantedview 11y ago
  Point taken, though many of those who are inspired to take up arms against innocent people have no such legitimate grievance.
  - lmz 11y ago
    What if your ideology believes that you should treat those killed by drones as your own family because you share the same ideology?
    - noobermin 11y ago
      Did the people who they bombed operate drones? AFAIK, france doesn't conduct drone warfare. It could be, I suppose, that someone could simply hate western culture due to the acts of one nation, but that doesn't make it right. If you hate all Muslims because of the acts of few, you're most likely in the wrong. The same morality should apply to the people on the other side.
- jules 11y ago
  I would like to believe that even if my family was killed in a drone strike I would not go to a random country and kill civilians. Furthermore, I would like to see data on how many terrorists had families that were killed in drone strikes. My understanding is that the vast majority have other grievances, many of them theological.
- iMark 11y ago
  I'd try - seriously. I don't know who came up with "an eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless" but I believe it. I'm sure it's something I'd struggle with when the hard choice arises, but I honestly believe I'd try to keep to it.
  - aplummer 11y ago
    Yea but you weren't born with these ideas, you can't know how you'd be if you grew up in a different context.
    - iMark 11y ago
      Nobody is born with these ideas.
      - chinhodado 11y ago
        I think by "born" he meant "growing up with".
    - Ygg2 11y ago
      I'm was not born with idea of harming people, but if my family ended up as "collateral" damage during a wedding I'd be in a pretty dark place. Lots of dark ideas would come to me.
  - ngneer 11y ago
    Ghandi "came up with it"
user_0001 11y ago
What about those who do harm in your name?
- iMark 11y ago
  That's their choice not mine. As much as I'm able to claim, I'd never advocate such.
  - scrollaway 11y ago
    And there stems the entire problem with islam from. A lot of people killing "in its name"; more often than not, where that is just abused as an ideology to rally more marginalized people to the cause. We'll never be able to stop those that abuse religions and causes for political gain, but we can starve their number of "soldiers" by not giving impressionable people more reasons to hate a country.
    - iMark 11y ago
      I don't believe Islam is fundamentally different than Christianity. Present day interpretations aside, I believe both share a similar DNA. I believe the solution is to look inward (as I've already, "do no harm"), rather than to condemn outwards. And yes, I'm willing to concede the naiveté of my viewpoint.
      - scrollaway 11y ago
        I agree, I hope my comment was not misinterpreted. Most muslims believe in "do no harm", and every single one I've talked to thinks those terrorists are the exact opposite of true muslims. Those attacks done "in the name of islam" create islamophobic reactions from people. Media spreads this islamophobia further, to people who just trust whatever they see on TV. The climate grows to marginalize muslims further. The ones closest to the edge, who were surrounded by violence in the past (war climates) and are now surrounded by hatred from the country they live in, end up knowing only violence and seeking to be understood by their own violence. The cycle of terrorism. We enable it. What can you do once you understand it? Tell other people? You'll be silenced. You'd get shit on on facebook. Attacked on twitter. Downvoted on reddit. HN is still a sane place but what % of the population does that really represent? Can it even make a change? And it's not like you wouldn't ever get downvoted here. There's a lot of people who believe in the direct "more immigrants = more terrorists" idiocy. Today is such a fucking depressing day. Having to worry about my sister, my brother, my guild mates and on top of that seeing the attackers get exactly what they want: more fear. More knee-jerk reactions. Let it fucking end...
andrepd 11y ago
That's precisely the point. Bar psychopaths, nearly everyone thinks they are doing the right thing, even as they do horrors. These people are so deeply indoctrinated that they think they are ultimately doing good in the eyes of god.
- iMark 11y ago
  That's equating "do no harm" with "do the right thing". I don't believe the comparison stands.
  - j42 11y ago
    It does if you play devil's advocate and follow the chain of reasoning. If god is great and non-believers are bad and "god" says it's righteous and just to punish the non-believers, then naturally doing "god's work" is doing no harm? Actually the truth is even messier... most of these young men committing atrocities are merely indoctrinated pawns who know very little of their own religion and instead defer to their "emir." This ideological poison is being propagated by those individuals, with power/financial interests back in the middle east. I think the individual committing the act believes they are doing good, and the individual who convinced them to do it is too morally corrupted & detached to care about ideals such as "civilian life." There are far more atrocities that occur in this world than there are psychopaths in the general population. If we hope to make any progress toward peace, I think we need to truly understand the reasons why and how weak, impressionable minds with poor cultural integration can be manipulated to commit such atrocities. It's easy to label these individuals as determined, unreachable psychopaths (particularly out of fear) but the sad truth is, most extremism is borne not of evil but of weakness. A select few manipulate this weakness to convince otherwise insignificant people, often with desires of grandeur to commit unthinkable acts. This power of perspective becomes increasingly obvious as you realize most problems with immigrants in European countries occur in the 2nd and 3rd generations -- those who have seen the true horrors of war first hand are not so easily fooled. The hard truth is: if society doesn't provide susceptible minds with alternatives first, a small but steady % will be at the mercy of whomever comes along promising "answers."
neuro_imager 11y ago
Unfortunately, the reality of the world is that many people do not adhere to this. Thus the need for strong leadership to bring those who will not co-operate kicking and screaming to the discussion table (or to eradicate them if no such discussion is possible). My first thought about Paris is not to pray for it. It is to bring harm to those who brought the attack on the Parisians. "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell

I'm not entirely sure how I would define my guiding motivation in life, but I swear "do no harm" would be part of it. I despair at those who believe otherwise.

by iMark 11y ago

I'm not entirely sure how I would define my guiding motivation in life, but I swear "do no harm" would be part of it. I despair at those who believe otherwise.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago

I'm not sure if I could keep a motivation like that if, for example, my family was killed by a drone strike.

slantedview 11y ago
Point taken, though many of those who are inspired to take up arms against innocent people have no such legitimate grievance.
- lmz 11y ago
  What if your ideology believes that you should treat those killed by drones as your own family because you share the same ideology?
  - noobermin 11y ago
    Did the people who they bombed operate drones? AFAIK, france doesn't conduct drone warfare. It could be, I suppose, that someone could simply hate western culture due to the acts of one nation, but that doesn't make it right. If you hate all Muslims because of the acts of few, you're most likely in the wrong. The same morality should apply to the people on the other side.
jules 11y ago
I would like to believe that even if my family was killed in a drone strike I would not go to a random country and kill civilians. Furthermore, I would like to see data on how many terrorists had families that were killed in drone strikes. My understanding is that the vast majority have other grievances, many of them theological.
iMark 11y ago
I'd try - seriously. I don't know who came up with "an eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless" but I believe it. I'm sure it's something I'd struggle with when the hard choice arises, but I honestly believe I'd try to keep to it.
- aplummer 11y ago
  Yea but you weren't born with these ideas, you can't know how you'd be if you grew up in a different context.
  - iMark 11y ago
    Nobody is born with these ideas.
    - chinhodado 11y ago
      I think by "born" he meant "growing up with".
  - Ygg2 11y ago
    I'm was not born with idea of harming people, but if my family ended up as "collateral" damage during a wedding I'd be in a pretty dark place. Lots of dark ideas would come to me.
- ngneer 11y ago
  Ghandi "came up with it"

user_0001 11y ago

What about those who do harm in your name?

iMark 11y ago
That's their choice not mine. As much as I'm able to claim, I'd never advocate such.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  And there stems the entire problem with islam from. A lot of people killing "in its name"; more often than not, where that is just abused as an ideology to rally more marginalized people to the cause. We'll never be able to stop those that abuse religions and causes for political gain, but we can starve their number of "soldiers" by not giving impressionable people more reasons to hate a country.
  - iMark 11y ago
    I don't believe Islam is fundamentally different than Christianity. Present day interpretations aside, I believe both share a similar DNA. I believe the solution is to look inward (as I've already, "do no harm"), rather than to condemn outwards. And yes, I'm willing to concede the naiveté of my viewpoint.
    - scrollaway 11y ago
      I agree, I hope my comment was not misinterpreted. Most muslims believe in "do no harm", and every single one I've talked to thinks those terrorists are the exact opposite of true muslims. Those attacks done "in the name of islam" create islamophobic reactions from people. Media spreads this islamophobia further, to people who just trust whatever they see on TV. The climate grows to marginalize muslims further. The ones closest to the edge, who were surrounded by violence in the past (war climates) and are now surrounded by hatred from the country they live in, end up knowing only violence and seeking to be understood by their own violence. The cycle of terrorism. We enable it. What can you do once you understand it? Tell other people? You'll be silenced. You'd get shit on on facebook. Attacked on twitter. Downvoted on reddit. HN is still a sane place but what % of the population does that really represent? Can it even make a change? And it's not like you wouldn't ever get downvoted here. There's a lot of people who believe in the direct "more immigrants = more terrorists" idiocy. Today is such a fucking depressing day. Having to worry about my sister, my brother, my guild mates and on top of that seeing the attackers get exactly what they want: more fear. More knee-jerk reactions. Let it fucking end...

andrepd 11y ago

That's precisely the point. Bar psychopaths, nearly everyone thinks they are doing the right thing, even as they do horrors. These people are so deeply indoctrinated that they think they are ultimately doing good in the eyes of god.

iMark 11y ago
That's equating "do no harm" with "do the right thing". I don't believe the comparison stands.
- j42 11y ago
  It does if you play devil's advocate and follow the chain of reasoning. If god is great and non-believers are bad and "god" says it's righteous and just to punish the non-believers, then naturally doing "god's work" is doing no harm? Actually the truth is even messier... most of these young men committing atrocities are merely indoctrinated pawns who know very little of their own religion and instead defer to their "emir." This ideological poison is being propagated by those individuals, with power/financial interests back in the middle east. I think the individual committing the act believes they are doing good, and the individual who convinced them to do it is too morally corrupted & detached to care about ideals such as "civilian life." There are far more atrocities that occur in this world than there are psychopaths in the general population. If we hope to make any progress toward peace, I think we need to truly understand the reasons why and how weak, impressionable minds with poor cultural integration can be manipulated to commit such atrocities. It's easy to label these individuals as determined, unreachable psychopaths (particularly out of fear) but the sad truth is, most extremism is borne not of evil but of weakness. A select few manipulate this weakness to convince otherwise insignificant people, often with desires of grandeur to commit unthinkable acts. This power of perspective becomes increasingly obvious as you realize most problems with immigrants in European countries occur in the 2nd and 3rd generations -- those who have seen the true horrors of war first hand are not so easily fooled. The hard truth is: if society doesn't provide susceptible minds with alternatives first, a small but steady % will be at the mercy of whomever comes along promising "answers."

neuro_imager 11y ago

Unfortunately, the reality of the world is that many people do not adhere to this. Thus the need for strong leadership to bring those who will not co-operate kicking and screaming to the discussion table (or to eradicate them if no such discussion is possible). My first thought about Paris is not to pray for it. It is to bring harm to those who brought the attack on the Parisians. "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell