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[most of this was incoherent - sorry] Perhaps the suggestion of be respectful is the wrong choice of words; probably I mean "avoid inciting the extremist eleme

by ErrantX 17y ago

[most of this was incoherent - sorry] Perhaps the suggestion of be respectful is the wrong choice of words; probably I mean "avoid inciting the extremist elements" instead (till they become irrelevant). What would you suggest as an alternate solution?

jerf 17y ago
Are you familiar with the logic as to why we "don't negotiate with terrorists"? It is not because the people saying that are waving their dicks around and showing off. It is because when you do negotiate, you encourage other terrorists to try terrorism next week. Today's hostages may die, but they are saving tomorrow's hostages, and the next day's, and the next day's. It is brutal calculus, but it is the only sane answer. The cost of being nice here is death; it is a net cost of lives. My solution is simple: To tell the extremist elements that they can't dominate our discourse, and to meet both threats and any attempts to follow through on those threats with all the force necessary to dissuade them. The "nice" answer is wrong and has all sorts of "not nice" results. And however hard this may be to believe or accept, the potential losses of knuckling under to terrorism are unbounded. Because the thing is, it's not about the grievance they say it's about. There's an infinite supply of grievances, and even if there wasn't, if you leave the decision about whether you've discharged the grievance in the hands of the terrorist they can always decide you haven't done enough. What it is about is that they can get more benefit from the terrorism than it costs them. That is what you must be concerned about, ensuring that the costs of terrorism exceed the benefits, and one easy (and arguably necessary-but-not-sufficient) way to do that is to make sure they don't get benefits. Official "Draw Mohammed" day is a good solution on the side, by raising the costs of terrorism. Any policy that has the end result of moving the cost/benefit advantage of terrorism in the direction of "benefit" is wrong, especially any that cross from net-negative to net-positive. Regardless of how "nice" it is. Regardless of how well-cloaked in moralistic bibble-babble it is. And it will be so cloaked; the ability of humans to rationalize the short-term convenient answer is nearly unbounded. This is part of the basic contract of civilization and operates at a lower, more fundamental level than most people are used to debating at, in that if terrorists are allowed to tear apart civilization (the ultimate end result if this policy of appeasement is followed), most of the rest of our debates are rendered moot. The first order of business is make sure we still have a civilization in which to have our arguments about what it should be. I've gone down to this level because it's really important. The US remains a ways away from this being a serious problem, but I am concerned about the number of draws we're making against this account without depositing things; we're a ways from bankrupt here but the trend is strongly negative lately. I have carefully referred to "nice" policies rather than naming names, but in most cases there are, shall we say, correlations between political parties and the "niceness" of their policies; applying this discussion to their country's policies is left as an exercise for the reader. But there is definitely a time and a place for "not nice" policies, if you actually want your civilization to survive.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- billybob 17y ago
  Exactly. Whenever we self-censor because of terrorist threats, we send the message that threats work. Threats will get you want you want. If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," then crazies with agendas wouldn't be able to push the whole world around. Not that I'd find it easy to publish something, just for humor's sake, that could get me or my loved ones killed. But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    > But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it. Just for the record; I entirely agree here! If it is important then it needs to be said. But if you say something for fun (which I think one should be allowed to do!) and because of it a bomb goes off elsewhere in the world - that is hard to justify. > If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," Yeh, the problem with applying this to extremism is that, for the most part, it doesn't work. On one hand it gives them ammunition to "legitimise" their actions and on the other punishment isn't necessarily a concern for some. They will kill anyway.
    - smallblacksun 17y ago
      No. If south park had shown Muhammad, and someone had gotten killed because of it, the only people to blame would be the ones who killed them, not anyone involved with south park. As cliche as it is, if we let them dictate what we do and do not do, the terrorists win.
      - ErrantX 17y ago
        Yes, to a point. But there is an element of blame too; they must know what reaction their actions would provoke - and yet they choose to continue with them. There is, perhaps, only a small portion of blame - but it is akin to throwing a red cape between a bull and a man with his back turned. I think it is morally justified to think: "if I say this will some idiots try to kill other people? perhaps I should tone it down"
pbz 17y ago
Respectful is not the word to use, fearful is much closer...
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
godDLL 17y ago
Respect does not enter into it. It's a word you are using out of context. One shouldn't be giving any special treatment to faith-based ideology regardless of whether they can amass whacko proponents or not. This isn't anything like 'shutting up and walking away from a fight', it isn't a personal experience or situation; this is a matter of policy and public fucking health (mental too). (edited for clarity of language)

by ErrantX 17y ago

jerf 17y ago

Are you familiar with the logic as to why we "don't negotiate with terrorists"? It is not because the people saying that are waving their dicks around and showing off. It is because when you do negotiate, you encourage other terrorists to try terrorism next week. Today's hostages may die, but they are saving tomorrow's hostages, and the next day's, and the next day's. It is brutal calculus, but it is the only sane answer. The cost of being nice here is death; it is a net cost of lives. My solution is simple: To tell the extremist elements that they can't dominate our discourse, and to meet both threats and any attempts to follow through on those threats with all the force necessary to dissuade them. The "nice" answer is wrong and has all sorts of "not nice" results. And however hard this may be to believe or accept, the potential losses of knuckling under to terrorism are unbounded. Because the thing is, it's not about the grievance they say it's about. There's an infinite supply of grievances, and even if there wasn't, if you leave the decision about whether you've discharged the grievance in the hands of the terrorist they can always decide you haven't done enough. What it is about is that they can get more benefit from the terrorism than it costs them. That is what you must be concerned about, ensuring that the costs of terrorism exceed the benefits, and one easy (and arguably necessary-but-not-sufficient) way to do that is to make sure they don't get benefits. Official "Draw Mohammed" day is a good solution on the side, by raising the costs of terrorism. Any policy that has the end result of moving the cost/benefit advantage of terrorism in the direction of "benefit" is wrong, especially any that cross from net-negative to net-positive. Regardless of how "nice" it is. Regardless of how well-cloaked in moralistic bibble-babble it is. And it will be so cloaked; the ability of humans to rationalize the short-term convenient answer is nearly unbounded. This is part of the basic contract of civilization and operates at a lower, more fundamental level than most people are used to debating at, in that if terrorists are allowed to tear apart civilization (the ultimate end result if this policy of appeasement is followed), most of the rest of our debates are rendered moot. The first order of business is make sure we still have a civilization in which to have our arguments about what it should be. I've gone down to this level because it's really important. The US remains a ways away from this being a serious problem, but I am concerned about the number of draws we're making against this account without depositing things; we're a ways from bankrupt here but the trend is strongly negative lately. I have carefully referred to "nice" policies rather than naming names, but in most cases there are, shall we say, correlations between political parties and the "niceness" of their policies; applying this discussion to their country's policies is left as an exercise for the reader. But there is definitely a time and a place for "not nice" policies, if you actually want your civilization to survive.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
billybob 17y ago
Exactly. Whenever we self-censor because of terrorist threats, we send the message that threats work. Threats will get you want you want. If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," then crazies with agendas wouldn't be able to push the whole world around. Not that I'd find it easy to publish something, just for humor's sake, that could get me or my loved ones killed. But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  > But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it. Just for the record; I entirely agree here! If it is important then it needs to be said. But if you say something for fun (which I think one should be allowed to do!) and because of it a bomb goes off elsewhere in the world - that is hard to justify. > If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," Yeh, the problem with applying this to extremism is that, for the most part, it doesn't work. On one hand it gives them ammunition to "legitimise" their actions and on the other punishment isn't necessarily a concern for some. They will kill anyway.
  - smallblacksun 17y ago
    No. If south park had shown Muhammad, and someone had gotten killed because of it, the only people to blame would be the ones who killed them, not anyone involved with south park. As cliche as it is, if we let them dictate what we do and do not do, the terrorists win.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Yes, to a point. But there is an element of blame too; they must know what reaction their actions would provoke - and yet they choose to continue with them. There is, perhaps, only a small portion of blame - but it is akin to throwing a red cape between a bull and a man with his back turned. I think it is morally justified to think: "if I say this will some idiots try to kill other people? perhaps I should tone it down"

pbz 17y ago

Respectful is not the word to use, fearful is much closer...

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

godDLL 17y ago

Respect does not enter into it. It's a word you are using out of context. One shouldn't be giving any special treatment to faith-based ideology regardless of whether they can amass whacko proponents or not. This isn't anything like 'shutting up and walking away from a fight', it isn't a personal experience or situation; this is a matter of policy and public fucking health (mental too). (edited for clarity of language)