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It's not negativity, it's a dream that I hope one day will be established; people living in peace and traveling to each others countries to learn and trade, enr
by drats 17y ago
It's not negativity, it's a dream that I hope one day will be established; people living in peace and traveling to each others countries to learn and trade, enriching and improving each other's lives.
I am being a realist, there are terrorist attacks almost daily in some ME countries and Pakistan. A train packed with tourists and businesspeople is pretty much the same target value to a terrorist as a plane, except you can attack it from the outside much more easily. The prevalence of IEDs and people willing to use them, highly mobile suicide car bombs and the doctrine of certain radical Muslims which allows for moral permissibility of killing fellow Muslims who are "dealing with the enemy" (strains of Wahhabi and Qutbism thinking like Bin Laden's) would make such an attack inevitable.
This "negative" attitude of mine is part of the economic damage that is done to the moderate Muslims of these countries by the extremists. How many tourists have decided not to take a trip to many of these countries? How many businesses haven't been set up? How many skilled workers have fled? It's a massive economic damage these people are inflicting beyond the scope of their deplorable murders.
- baguasquirrel 17y agoThe Silk Road has existed before in history. Times can change. China has a pretty big army after all.
- bh23ha 17y agoI think the terrorism threat is overblown. This is going to sound horrible but very few people are killed by terrorists compared to pretty much every other cause of death. And a lot of the discourse in countries like Pakistan is not pure terrorism but actually the deeper struggles of any authoritarian regime. Call me a dreamer but I really do hope and think this will happen.
- Qz 17y agoThank you for saying that. I say the same thing all the time on various websites -- I mean I wouldn't be surprised if you're more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in a terrorist accident. I'm more afraid of getting on the highway.
- techiferous 17y agoFear sells news and news is as much about money as it is journalism.
- Qz 17y agoI realize the news agencies will spout that kind of stuff, but the commenters don't have to go along with it.
- grinich 17y agoBut terrorism isn't about the number of people killed. It's about creating a state of fear.
- rue 17y agoThe solution is to not be afraid.
- grinich 17y agoFear is an innate human emotion, deeply rooted in our fight-or-flight mechanism. It's a key survival characteristic. To overcome fear by rational thought is going against nature, and difficult at best. When confronted with violence, it takes almost zen-like concentration to purge the associated fear. Our susceptibility to fear closely parallels that of hunger, sex, or advertising. The mind is hard-wired to have specific reactions to certain stimuli, and power comes from the ability to impose those stimuli. Terrorism is just one example. I agree that the solution is to place rational thought above implicit emotional responses. However, the past has taught us that the public's reaction is almost always hysteria rather than logical analysis.
- rue 17y agoOvercoming fear is also a key survival characteristic.
- mseebach 17y ago> I think the terrorism threat is overblown. This is going to sound horrible but very few people are killed by terrorists compared to pretty much every other cause of death. Between the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the work of intelligence services, we've been successful in keeping jihadist terrorism out of the west for five years now. But the safety we have within our borders here doesn't extend to a 10.000 mile railroad passing through a dozen countries, several of which are anything but politically stable. I mean, would you take a ride in the countryside of any ME country in a bus with "I'm a rich American/European infidel" painted on the side? Then why do the same in a train?
- arethuza 17y agoNot every country in the region is a disaster area like Iraq. Turkey and Egypt are destinations for mass market tourism from Western Europe and Russia - they are full of obvious non-locals in buses and hire cars. Jordan is a popular excursion as well, with even Syria becoming a fairly popular destination. We've been to both countries loads of times from the UK and have always felt perfectly safe. I've felt safer walking round Cairo than some American cities.
- mseebach 17y agoMy point isn't that you're not right in those points. My point is that if trouble arises in either of those places (which isn't unlikely at all, considering a time-span of several decades), a travel advisory is sent out, and tourism to that area ceases temporarily. See Bangkok today, for an example. If that happens to any country on the route, the entire route shuts down.
- donaq 17y agoThey're radical, not stupid. Offing a couple of fellow Muslims is one thing. Having both the US and China pissed at you would be an extraordinarily stupid position to deliberately get into. There wouldn't be a cave deep enough to hide in.
- noilly 17y agoa more salient consideration is the already existing tension between China and India over their border. You cannot currently get between India and China directly by train.
- papersmith 17y agoFTA: Nonetheless, China says that other countries approached it for help and that is how the idea got started. “It was not China that pushed the idea to start with,” said Wang. “It was the other countries that came to us, especially India. These countries cannot fully implement the construction of a high-speed rail network and they hoped to draw on our experience and technology.”