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Great then. Do you have any ideas then how to stop the radicalisation of young muslims? I'm less inclined to believe that rational discussions with ISIS warrior

by kpil 9y ago

Great then. Do you have any ideas then how to stop the radicalisation of young muslims? I'm less inclined to believe that rational discussions with ISIS warriors and their supporters will lead that far. I live in what used to be one of the most secular countries in the world, and for various reasons our government have encouraged immigration from the middle east for 20 years, providing free education, free healthcare, generous social welfare, and an actively non-racist society. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to automatically integrate many in our society, mainly because of unemployment caused by the originally low "human capital", and partly due to there are many cultural issues that wasn't even socially acceptable to discuss at all until recently. While many have done great, there are many more that haven't and the 2nd or 3rd generation are still doing pretty bad compared to the natives, which has created street gangs and criminality in many areas, even in small towns. Among many bad things, one of the results is that we now have many ISIS warriors here, and no plan on how to handle them. It doesn't even seem to be illegal to be an ISIS warrior here. Many more are susceptible to the propaganda, and in my book, any means stop the propaganda is more than welcome. I really don't understand how large US companies can carry messages from violent extremist like it's no big deal.

scrollaway 9y ago
> Great then. Do you have any ideas then how to stop the radicalisation of young muslims? The stuff GP is talking about is generally not being done to "stop the radicalisation of young muslims" but more likely as CYA/good PR. Maybe for some it's genuinely in good spirit but let's be honest here, it's probably not going to make a big difference. Ideas to stop radicalization? Well, slowing down marginalization first would be a good move and that's going nowhere good in the US right now. Maybe electing representatives and leaders that don't feed on a self-fueled machine of fear would help. To do that you need an electorate with more critical thinking, which means better education. (And here you see you got a catch-22 since you need leaders that fight for better education in the first place...) Concretely, what "you" as in any average joe can do is not much, but if you want to do something: help people understand their votes, educate them on politics as well as foreign culture, make them travel more. What a big company like Google/Youtube could do if they cared to fight for it? Probably a hell of a lot more, but they're not in that business honestly.
- kpil 9y ago
  I wish we could stop the marginalization, but just free education including university, healthcare, etc, isn't enough apparently. It's a similar problem as other marginalized groups - there must be some dynamics in play that keeps them marginalized. Maybe it's as simple as their own pride combined with more or less subtle classism (more than racism) from the middle classes that alienates them. I don't think this is fixable without rather far going measures, like tearing down bad suburbs and rebuild as low scale areas that encourages a high degree of social control that also the middle class would like to live in, forcibly designate schools to assure an even mix of social background, programs for encouraging studies, repress religious influences, some new ideas to punish young criminals without putting them in crime-scools like now, and probably really harsh punisment for repeat offenders. Nothing of this is likely to happen except harsh punishment that won't do much on its own.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > It's a similar problem as other marginalized groups - there must be some dynamics in play that keeps them marginalized. It's called having a scapegoat, it's especially obvious in Europe. 30 years ago the scapegoats in Western Europe used to be Eastern Europeans. Refugees from the Yugoslav wars had not been welcomed at all, EU expansion to the East (Poland) resulted in a lot of racist sentiments flaming up along the lines of "These Poles are gonna steal all our stuff and are criminal". Now, 30 years later, not much has changed. Those that used to be marginalized have now found a new target they can marginalize themselves: Muslim refugees. Suddenly we have a "European Identity" and that identity even includes Eastern Europeans who seem to have learned very little from their own marginalization and now proceed to do exactly the same things to another group. It looks like humans always need somebody to put the blame on, stuff just can't go wrong, there always has to be some "evil mind" behind all the ugly stuff that happens.

by kpil 9y ago

scrollaway 9y ago

> Great then. Do you have any ideas then how to stop the radicalisation of young muslims? The stuff GP is talking about is generally not being done to "stop the radicalisation of young muslims" but more likely as CYA/good PR. Maybe for some it's genuinely in good spirit but let's be honest here, it's probably not going to make a big difference. Ideas to stop radicalization? Well, slowing down marginalization first would be a good move and that's going nowhere good in the US right now. Maybe electing representatives and leaders that don't feed on a self-fueled machine of fear would help. To do that you need an electorate with more critical thinking, which means better education. (And here you see you got a catch-22 since you need leaders that fight for better education in the first place...) Concretely, what "you" as in any average joe can do is not much, but if you want to do something: help people understand their votes, educate them on politics as well as foreign culture, make them travel more. What a big company like Google/Youtube could do if they cared to fight for it? Probably a hell of a lot more, but they're not in that business honestly.

kpil 9y ago
I wish we could stop the marginalization, but just free education including university, healthcare, etc, isn't enough apparently. It's a similar problem as other marginalized groups - there must be some dynamics in play that keeps them marginalized. Maybe it's as simple as their own pride combined with more or less subtle classism (more than racism) from the middle classes that alienates them. I don't think this is fixable without rather far going measures, like tearing down bad suburbs and rebuild as low scale areas that encourages a high degree of social control that also the middle class would like to live in, forcibly designate schools to assure an even mix of social background, programs for encouraging studies, repress religious influences, some new ideas to punish young criminals without putting them in crime-scools like now, and probably really harsh punisment for repeat offenders. Nothing of this is likely to happen except harsh punishment that won't do much on its own.
- freeflight 9y ago
  > It's a similar problem as other marginalized groups - there must be some dynamics in play that keeps them marginalized. It's called having a scapegoat, it's especially obvious in Europe. 30 years ago the scapegoats in Western Europe used to be Eastern Europeans. Refugees from the Yugoslav wars had not been welcomed at all, EU expansion to the East (Poland) resulted in a lot of racist sentiments flaming up along the lines of "These Poles are gonna steal all our stuff and are criminal". Now, 30 years later, not much has changed. Those that used to be marginalized have now found a new target they can marginalize themselves: Muslim refugees. Suddenly we have a "European Identity" and that identity even includes Eastern Europeans who seem to have learned very little from their own marginalization and now proceed to do exactly the same things to another group. It looks like humans always need somebody to put the blame on, stuff just can't go wrong, there always has to be some "evil mind" behind all the ugly stuff that happens.