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Are Geeks in Saudi Arabia Just Like Us?
Robin 'Roblimo' Miller (of NewsForge and sometimes Slashdot) spent five days in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, meeting with local Linux advocates and users, and wrote five articles while he was there. The article titles are Saudi Arabia: Linux advocates in white robes, Saudi Space Institute techies love their new Linux computer, Meet Saudi Arabia's most famous computer expert, Saudi open source conference opens minds, and Linux and open source opportunities in the Mideast. This is the first in-depth look ever at open source (and programming in general) in a conservative Islamic country. Roblimo concludes that under the robes, Saudi geeks are much like geeks everywhere, but from comments on the stories it looks like a lot of people don't agree.
I agree. Before you consider talking about geek stuff, consider that this is a country that does not allow other religions other than islam to be followed here. I mean, how pathetic is that?
Next, a lot of money is/was spent on weapons. And I mean a fucking ton. They bought 25 billion worth of weapons and they fucking don't have enough trained people to use them.
In many war torn/ impoverished countries where there are muslims, the saudis go and pay handsome amounts of money to build mosques.
It doesn't matter that a school or other infrastructure might benefit more than a place of worship. No, a big mosque will be built while there are ruins all around it.
And that is the case not only in those countries but also in the us. Pretty much everywhere see islamic extremism, saudi money is funding it.
Islamic extremist teachers were earlier granted diplomatic visas and were attached to the saudi embassy when they came to preach in the us.
This practise was stopped after the us investigated this practise(wsj, nytimes).
In Oct or nov,2003 there was a similar report in dw-tv(dw-world.de) in its people and politics programme.
The saudis setup a school and 2 hours a day! was dedicated to islamic studies while other subjects such as maths, sciences etc were half hour.
Such kind of education is not allowed in germany.
But it was going on because of diplomatic immunity.
The saudis are funding the arabs in sudan to continue the civil war.
They import foreigners to do a lot of technical jobs and then tell the native saudis that they are going to kick the foreigners out because the saudi citizens should get jobs.
There are so many jobless saudis within the royal family. All fucking leeching off that oil money.
Maybe the saudis would progress in engineering if they didn't teach so hours teaching extremism in the first place.
But we have to remember this- saudi arabia is a very strategic country. Oil==money.
oil is not something that the world is going to stop using tomorrow. Countries have to engage saudi arabia in dialogue or if that doesn't work,
switch investments and buy oil from iraq.
Countries like bahrain, qatar is something saudi arabia should learn from.
Don't believe the above statements? Use your friend-google.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
Bin Laden seemed to have geek tendencies. He was a civil engineer, was not that social, and became a "religious geek".
Table-ized A.I.
One of my friends went to the middle east once - someplace she hasn't been before, so she went there for vacation. If it wasn't for her brother being with her, she'd probably be dead. One of the people on the bus she was on was threatening her because she didn't have her arms or head covered.
You think they're just like us huh? Did the Americans have kamakazi pilots? Suicide bombers? No. America is a "cultral melting pot" remember? That basically says we're fairly tolerant, because we see so many different races and religions each day. Until the Taliban fell over there, the ENTIRE freaking nation was one governemnt - one religion. So you can't tell me its only the few extremists there that would kill women for being head-garb-less. Actually, its only a few people there who aren't extemists, that would object to killing them for such a petty thing.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
you think geeks cant be fundementalists?
t hreadid =2548
p ?s=&threa did=2521
islamic fundementalism is deeply rooted in these cultures using open source will not change it one bit
for example check this week long flamewar at the egyptian linux user group
http://www.linux-egypt.org/showthread.php?
its mostly in arabic but I gather it started because a few muslim members said merry cristmas to the christian members
http://www.linux-egypt.org/showthread.ph
If your point is that Saudi Arabia in 2003 is stuck at about the same level of civilization as Europe in 1203, I completely agree.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
There are many types of idiots. For example, foolish idiots, big idiots, lovable idiots, etc. Among these many types of idiots, you are a dumb idiot.
You see, I said that the plight of women in Saudi Arabia is the result of the region's culture, not the predominant religion. Here is where your imagination flung you into fantasy land and you thought you had read something like a justification for the oppression of women. Sometimes it's fun to play make believe, but you just can't pretend that I support the violations of human rights and then wish it to be true.
Secondly, you will find women all over this world who go absolutely giddy at the thought of contributing to the de facto enslavement of countless women who work in the garment industry in the Pacific rim and elsewhere. They are thrilled to scurry into the local shopping mall and spend hard earned wages to buy the latest fashions - the profits from which ensure that women and children will continue to be exploited for fashion.
As you can see, you not only failed to reply to a post that supported the oppression of women as you intended to do, but you didn't even do a good job of illustrating where I would have been wrong if your fantasy make believe had been true. Thus I claim you are a dumb idiot.