Where do you get that from? Rockstar my ass, the average techie is treated like a leper. As for Linus, the average tech consumer probably never heard of him, knows Gates, Jobs and Musk though.
And Linus was blunt way before Linux became a success. The average engineer is like that, at least in a professional context. As for a) and b), yes and yes.
Nothing to do with "perfect behavior" aka civility, Linux already had a Code of Conflict. This is a Code of Conduct, which is about "protecting" "minorities".
The reasoning is: X is dominated by white males (Asians and Jews being promoted to honorary whites), which is proof of oppression of minorities through invisible "microagressions" and other white Sith-lord mind-tricks. Thus we need a CoC to protect said minorities so X can be more diverse...and oc a diversity officer/consultant is needed to police X, and flush out any hidden thought-criminals. Said "officer" soon discovers the task is overwhelming, so xe pushes for more officers to be appointed, that they are "xe"'s buddies is just a coincidence of course.
This is also called a witchhunt, and the green-haired Witchsmeller Pursuivant has already claimed "they"'s first scalp (Asian btw) over something irrelevant the developer wrote 7 years ago. This purge started immediately after Linus' departure: https://lulz.com/linux-devs-th...
"Linux had officially committed to implementing and obeying the CC Code of Conduct — and they immediately set about using it to remove top Linux coders. Sage Sharp, who describes theyself as a “diversity & inclusion consultant, hufflepuff, non-binary agender trans masculine” and has 7k followers, cites GeekFeminismWiki and targets Google’s Theo Ts’o with accusations of being a rape apologist"
You're conflating several character traits, nothing wrong with ambition or fearlessness per se. Theyt can lead somebody to fail, but that's not necessarily bad, iI you set your sights high and fail, you may still accomplish a lot.
Still, you can be ambitious, and willing to take risks, while not being a sadistic, overbearing, condescending jerk (which is what arrogance really means). You can also have these traits and still have a realistic idea of your own abilities. You can even have moments of crushing self-doubt, just depends on how you deal with it.
The people you mention were not necessarily assholes, they had a wide range of personalities. The only thing they had in common, apart from being known for their accomplishments, is they were more interested in things than people. Common in STEM.
Edison and Jobs were probably the nastiest in this group, opportunists who screwed people over. Edison electrocuted animals and was friends with Henry Ford, a passionate anti-semite. Edison was also a pacifist though. Gates screwed people over too, to a much lesser extent, seems more of a conventional bussinessman. Jobs lost touch with reality (LSD?), ignored doctors and died from a treatable cancer. He never showered, didn't listen to employees, fired people for making eye contact. Musk also seems unhinged at times (Ambien+alcohol?), but less disagreeable. Linus is a sober, hard-nosed realist, maybe with autistic traits. His approach to social interaction is very.. Finnish. Comes from their military, which was set up by the Prussians. Einstein was also on the spectrum, there's nothing to suggest he was toxic though. He stayed out of personal conflicts and politics. Tesla was a bit foppish and eccentric, not sure if he actually believed his more outlandish ideas or if they were PR baloney. Seems too much of a gentlemen to shout people down Jobs-style. Don't know enough about the other guys to comment.
"Arrogance" is a rather vague term, with many different definitions. Some people seem to conflate it with self-confidence, which is incorrect.
When psychologists study such traits they use definitions like " sadistic contempt". Ie habitually dragging other people down, which oc is truly toxic behavior,. That kind of behavior is correlated with low IQ, so I suspect it's a symptom of the Dunning-Kruger effect. This confirms my life experiences: the most contemptuous individuals I had to deal with were often uneducated and didn't know what they were talking about. Sometimes there's a fair bit of (fragile) ego involved, and they don't accept that a more educated person may actually be more knowledgeable. That this person is then still more successful than they are may cause cognitive dissonance, so they explain that as "privilege" or otherwise undeserved status, which must be attacked.
You can't really win an argument with such a person, best is to work around them and avoid them as much as possible.
Yes, I've read some literature on narcissism, and it seems to be mostly a defense mechanism. These are people with fragile egos, who have built a protective wall around it by adopting a persona. Such people easily feel threatened, thus treat constructive criticism as a personal attack. They also see other people in black-and-white terms (" either with me or against me"). Their egos need constant feeding (narcissistic supply), so they surround themselves with sycophants and weaklings who they can dominate and bully. Without the ego-tickling, they may fall into depression.
This is more or less the definition of what is known as a "snowflake" nowadays. Linus definitely isn't one of those, they tend to be the green-haired transracial diversity officers and their ilk.
Asian cultures tend to be authoritarian and very controlled. Each individual is assigned a role based on what family / tribe / caste they're from, what their gender and age are etc. Before I get modded down, just talk to any Asian and they'll confirm this.
Deviate from this norm and see just how "polite and humble" these cultures are. At best you'll get shouted and cussed at, and ostracized. Violence is liely and you can even get killed, esp when loss of face is involved. In Thailand, a trivial dispute(cab fare) can literally get you sliced in half with a sword. If you insult the host at a wedding, you can literally get shot. In Korea, a professor may literally treat his PhD students like slaves, force them to redecorate his misstress' appartment, wash his car etc. If you refuse, you're dragged through campus by your hair, if you complain to the Dean you're fired. Demanding sexual favors from female students is the norm there rather than exception. In Japan, wives get up at 4 AM to cook their husband's lunch. They're expected to be demure and submit to their husband at all times. Men traditionally respond to dereliction of marital duties with flipping tables as a demonstration of power, which easily escalates to physical violence and often divorce. Work culture is terrible, your boss is your god and you're not allowed to have a private life whatsoever. In India, women are literally possessions, which are sometimes even set on fire. Read a newspaper, watch a doc some time to learn about their rape problem. Then there's the caste system.. if a couple violates it by unsanctioned marriage, the "higher" family may retaliate by killing their children, burning down their house, beheading the couple etc.
These societies are,as a rule, also quite xenophobic. if you're looking for an "enlightened" model for western society, look elsewhere.
Why couldn't they be both rapist and rape-survivor? Don't you know Reddit is an inclusive community? Don't be so rape-ist, people like you are the "problem Reddit has struggled with for several years".
To the best of my knowledge, there is no equivalent of the golden rule in Islam. There are moral obligations, but only to your co-religionists. As for critical thinking, that's considered a crime in most of the ME nowadays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Quoting Socrates at a muslim fundamentalist, as if he would accept his authority, is pointless. As you rightly point out yourself, he's from the Time of Ignorance (Jahiliyya). If the fundamentalists had their way, anything from that time would be destroyed. Not just books, but tombs, statues and monuments as well, heck, even the pyramids. IS has pledged to destroy the holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
The type of logic commonly used in muslim theology is reasoning by analogy, not syllogism. Even if you were able to corner a fundi with the Socratic method he'd simply say "you speak like a snake," and probably punch you in the face as well. It's how they're raised, dogma is literally bashed in to them. The average madrassa's curriculum is a brainwashing program, endless recitation while rocking back and forth, memorization of the entire Quran (phoneticallly if you don't speak Arabic). Kids are sometimes beaten to death for getting a surah wrong. Quoting their own scripture at fundis (or even regular muslims) in person is just downright dangerous. If you do it online they'll tell you that the true meaning is lost in translation, that interpretation requires deep knowledge of Islam etc. They'll quote some authority who came up with an interpretation that suits their purpose.
PS If you feel the need to engage in such discussions online, protect your anonymity. I'm not even joking, it's dangerous. It probably doesn't make the news in the US, but people get killed over this in the muslim world on a daily basis. If somebody publicly accuses you of being an apostate (kaffir, murtad), that's a death sentence, Rushdie was by no means an isolated case.
Getting in bed with Middle Eastern despots for oil
All ME leaders are despots, because.. well, ME. Are you saying we should boycott ME oil?
and cleaning up the messes that European colonialism left across the globe
Ahistoric BS. Muslims colonized Europe, not the other way around. They invaded the Crimea, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, part of France, Malta, Sicily, parts of Italian mainland, and Central Europe as far north as Poland. They were thrown out of most, but kept harassing and raiding for centuries.
The pirates of the Barbary coast attacked shipping and coastal towns to take slaves all over the Mediterranean, and other places, like Ireland, even the Americas and Iceland. It took the USMC to stop this piracy jihad (it was religiously justified). At the time it was part of the Ottoman empire, which was based on slavery (+castration), as well as on an sectarian caste system (millet). This was changed only after pressure from Britain, which propped them up as a counterweight to Russia. Last slave market in Istanbul was closed in 1908: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Slavery was re-introduced in 1915, during the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian (= anti-Christian) Genocides. What happened then is the same what Turkey's clients are doing atm in Syria: taking sex slaves, crucifixion, beheading, stoning, amputation, genocide. I'll leave it to you to figure out why (hint: Surah 5:33).
If you think this is all water under the bridge, you do not understand Arab culture. The majority do not share the West's linear conception of time and ideas about progress. In their mind, land once conquered by muslims remains theirs, even if they lost it 600 years ago. In Egypt for example, children are taught in school that Spain belongs to the muslims. Before WW I, Turkish children were taught that the Balkan was rightfully theirs, independence of Europeans was an affront to Turkish honor, and they needed revenge. This lead to the Armenian genocide.
PS I should point out it was the Mongols, not Europeans, who broke the muslim's power. They're still butthurt about it ("Destiny disrupted"). Also, a muslim theologian at the time wrote this was a punishment from Allah for straying from orthodoxy, his works are cited by modern islamists. It all has little to do with Europe or US policy.
I think one of the main problems with the muslim world is lack of critical thinking, which leads to unquestioning belief in authority and conspiracy theories. Don't take my word for it, this is straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As for ISIS, it's too simplistic to say it's just religion, see this (somewhat biased, but largely true): https://newrepublic.com/articl...
But you can't understand what they do without taking islam into account. They blow up not just ruins from pagan times (Jahiliyyah), but also muslim shrines. Well, that's Wahhabism in action, and Saudi Arabia has the same policies, to the extent that they can get away with it. In Paris, IS targeted the music venue Bataclan, makes sense since music is banned in Wahhabism. It's also jewish-owned, and has been a target many times before, also the headlining band recently toured Israel, apparently. So there's the antisemitic aspect. Restaurants and bars were attacked: that's alcohol, music, *and* men and (non-covered) women in the same room, that's triple haram. Wahhabism also bans sports (any kind of game actually), which explains the attack on the soccer game.
Without this background-knowledge the massacre looks like a random burst of violence, perpetrated by mentally ill people. Far from it, it was well-planned, and in line with doctrine.
Another example, IS wants to conquer Rome. They also called Obama "the dog of Rome". This obsession puzzled me, until I found out what "Rome" can refer to in the Muslim world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Know your enemy. Western policymakers don't seem to understand IS, so they got caught off gaurd last friday: http://blogs.reuters.com/great...
IS announced Washington DC and London will be next, so nobody can plead ignorance anymore.
Maybe they should go after Alibaba then. Seriously, I'm guessing that UPS doesn't deliver in IS territory. IS probably uses an address in Turkey and smuggles it acros the Syrian border. If Anon could get a hold of such addresses as well as credit card data, that could be quite useful.
The US government has stated that it is legal to join, although they discourage it. But let's face it, nobody here on/. would ever get through the physical:D
They're looking for "specialists like architects, doctors, engineers, technology specialists, media and translators" as well though: http://thelionsofrojava.com/
Thank you for the clarification. One of the reasons that I enjoy Slashdot, as much as I do, is that I can enter the little bit that I know and someone, almost always, comes along and fills in the details for me
Same here, I learn more from the comments than the stories./. is going downhill though.
There's some sensitive types out today and while you weren't specifically racists, you certainly insinuated (even if not intentional) some prejudicial beliefs.
No I didn't, but I wasn't very clear. With "these people" I was referring to the attackers, not any wider group.
I can say that there are people there who speak out and condemn the violence and hate it (and the behaviors that are, truly, cultural) as much as you or I.
I've studied and worked with people from the ME, even had them in the family. They were much more decent people than the 2nd, 3rd generation immigrants of ME descent here in Europe. Especially the palestinians I've met. It's the people over there that suffer most from this type of violence. They're struggling to maintain a secular society in the face of this threat in places like Algeria and Tunisia. The events in France is a type of violence that is not uncommon in those countries.
GIA's policy of extermination was not unlike what IS is doing today, they just didn't have social media back then. They tried a 9/11 type attack against France already in the 90s, but were thwarted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I've been warned about terrorists, kidnapping, and armed conflicts - I've traveled extensively in Africa and South America over the years as well as some in the Middle East.
I think the State Department is legally obliged to warn citizens, even if chances of being kidnapped are 0.1% a year.
See the violence in the "Christian" or "Voodoo" areas of East and West Africa. I'd not be surprised if they averaged out to a higher number of fatalities than the Islamic extremists have done in, say, the past quarter century.
That's possible, I don't think it's fair to compare those 2 regions though. Anyway, this type of ideology is a modern phenomenon. It started in the 20s with al-Qutb and has just slowly gained momentum. It's going into full bloom now, and things will get worse before they get better. Even if IS is defeated tomorrow, they'll melt away and pop up somewhere else. My money is on a war in the Caucasus within 2 years, there are 8-10k Chechnyans in IS and they've been threatening Putin.
I could be wrong but I don't really think the root is the religion, region, or culture.
The culture is definitely very different, Westerners tend to underestimate that. I have some anecdotes if you're interested.
I think it all boils down to being hopeless, full of despair, having nothing to lose, and having everything to lose.
"the fountainhead of Islamic extremism that promotes and legitimizes such violence lies with the fanatical "Wahhabi" strain of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia. Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades.
"Saudi Arabia has not stopped its interest in spreading extreme Wahhabism. ISIS...is a product of Saudi ideals, Saudi money and Saudi organizational support, although now they are making a pretense of being very anti-ISIS."
You're referring to the La Castellane estate in Marseille. It's the most dangerous place in the most dangerous city of Europe. A bit sensationalist, but unfortunately all true: http://www.frontpagemag.com/po...
Tbh, Marseille has always been sleazy. Not surprising since it's a port town and a gateway from Africa and ME to Western Europe. But these, ahem, people, take it to a whole new level. AK47, anyone?
Wrong country, Iran condemned the Paris attacks. They support Hezbollah and Assad in their fight against the Syrian rebels. They are ISIS' enemy nr 1, it's the 1300 year old batle of Sunni extremists vs Shiite extremists.
All empires are, by definition, multicultural, or at least multi-ethnic. Not sure why that'd be a "feat", nor why you think Persia was the first. But your most ahistoric claim is that the persian empire was muslim. It was Zarathustrian many centuries before they were invaded by Arabs. You need to brush up on your history buddy. If they repelled the (ME) crusades, how come Christian pilgrims got safe passage to sites in the Holy Land? And how were Portugal and Spain liberated? These were the military objectives of the crusades. It was the Ummayad and Ottoman caliphates that invaded Europe, not the other way around. It was simply a continuation of the policy of conquest of Christian countries like present-day Egypt, Syria, Turkey etc. They got to the gates of Vienna and the Polish border. they enslaved 35 million people in total. The Mongols killed all the muslims in Baghdad in 1258: "The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Timur did the same in 1401, and also depopulated Aleppo and Damascus. He subjugated the Ottoman empire.
The west didn't invade it. The only reason it survived as long as it did was western *support*, against Tsarist Russia. The French and British even fought their wars for them (Crimea), and supported and armed muslim tribes in the Caucasus and Afghanistan as well. In return, the Ottomans had to abolish slavery (last of their slavemarkets closed in 1912) and grant rights to religious minorities. The resentment over this led to formation of groups such as the Young Turks, and eventually the Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides. Turkey entered WW I in order to fulfill the dream of a pan-Turkish empire stretching all the way to China. Didn't exactly work out, but this idea is very much alive today, as is neo-Ottoman ideology (basis for Turkey's foreign policy).
Slashdot Mirror
I feel sorry for you. Also, your post gave me cancer.
It's like the chirping of crickets. It can be enjoyed, in a soothing, Zen kind of way.
And in this context, it's proof of success.
Where do you get that from? Rockstar my ass, the average techie is treated like a leper. As for Linus, the average tech consumer probably never heard of him, knows Gates, Jobs and Musk though.
And Linus was blunt way before Linux became a success. The average engineer is like that, at least in a professional context.
As for a) and b), yes and yes.
You came up with three counterexamples, good job.
Nothing to do with "perfect behavior" aka civility, Linux already had a Code of Conflict. This is a Code of Conduct, which is about "protecting" "minorities".
The reasoning is: X is dominated by white males (Asians and Jews being promoted to honorary whites), which is proof of oppression of minorities through invisible "microagressions" and other white Sith-lord mind-tricks. Thus we need a CoC to protect said minorities so X can be more diverse. ..and oc a diversity officer/consultant is needed to police X, and flush out any hidden thought-criminals. Said "officer" soon discovers the task is overwhelming, so xe pushes for more officers to be appointed, that they are "xe"'s buddies is just a coincidence of course.
This is also called a witchhunt, and the green-haired Witchsmeller Pursuivant has already claimed "they"'s first scalp (Asian btw) over something irrelevant the developer wrote 7 years ago. This purge started immediately after Linus' departure:
https://lulz.com/linux-devs-th...
"Linux had officially committed to implementing and obeying the CC Code of Conduct — and they immediately set about using it to remove top Linux coders. Sage Sharp, who describes theyself as a “diversity & inclusion consultant, hufflepuff, non-binary agender trans masculine” and has 7k followers, cites GeekFeminismWiki and targets Google’s Theo Ts’o with accusations of being a rape apologist"
You're conflating several character traits, nothing wrong with ambition or fearlessness per se. Theyt can lead somebody to fail, but that's not necessarily bad, iI you set your sights high and fail, you may still accomplish a lot.
Still, you can be ambitious, and willing to take risks, while not being a sadistic, overbearing, condescending jerk (which is what arrogance really means). You can also have these traits and still have a realistic idea of your own abilities. You can even have moments of crushing self-doubt, just depends on how you deal with it.
The people you mention were not necessarily assholes, they had a wide range of personalities. The only thing they had in common, apart from being known for their accomplishments, is they were more interested in things than people. Common in STEM.
Edison and Jobs were probably the nastiest in this group, opportunists who screwed people over. Edison electrocuted animals and was friends with Henry Ford, a passionate anti-semite. Edison was also a pacifist though.
Gates screwed people over too, to a much lesser extent, seems more of a conventional bussinessman.
Jobs lost touch with reality (LSD?), ignored doctors and died from a treatable cancer. He never showered, didn't listen to employees, fired people for making eye contact. Musk also seems unhinged at times (Ambien+alcohol?), but less disagreeable.
Linus is a sober, hard-nosed realist, maybe with autistic traits. His approach to social interaction is very.. Finnish. Comes from their military, which was set up by the Prussians.
Einstein was also on the spectrum, there's nothing to suggest he was toxic though. He stayed out of personal conflicts and politics.
Tesla was a bit foppish and eccentric, not sure if he actually believed his more outlandish ideas or if they were PR baloney. Seems too much of a gentlemen to shout people down Jobs-style.
Don't know enough about the other guys to comment.
"Arrogance" is a rather vague term, with many different definitions. Some people seem to conflate it with self-confidence, which is incorrect.
When psychologists study such traits they use definitions like " sadistic contempt". Ie habitually dragging other people down, which oc is truly toxic behavior,. That kind of behavior is correlated with low IQ, so I suspect it's a symptom of the Dunning-Kruger effect. This confirms my life experiences: the most contemptuous individuals I had to deal with were often uneducated and didn't know what they were talking about. Sometimes there's a fair bit of (fragile) ego involved, and they don't accept that a more educated person may actually be more knowledgeable. That this person is then still more successful than they are may cause cognitive dissonance, so they explain that as "privilege" or otherwise undeserved status, which must be attacked.
You can't really win an argument with such a person, best is to work around them and avoid them as much as possible.
Linus doesn't strike me as such a person.
Yes, I've read some literature on narcissism, and it seems to be mostly a defense mechanism. These are people with fragile egos, who have built a protective wall around it by adopting a persona. Such people easily feel threatened, thus treat constructive criticism as a personal attack. They also see other people in black-and-white terms (" either with me or against me"). Their egos need constant feeding (narcissistic supply), so they surround themselves with sycophants and weaklings who they can dominate and bully. Without the ego-tickling, they may fall into depression.
This is more or less the definition of what is known as a "snowflake" nowadays. Linus definitely isn't one of those, they tend to be the green-haired transracial diversity officers and their ilk.
Maybe. Still, it's OK to be white though.
Asian cultures tend to be authoritarian and very controlled. Each individual is assigned a role based on what family / tribe / caste they're from, what their gender and age are etc. Before I get modded down, just talk to any Asian and they'll confirm this.
Deviate from this norm and see just how "polite and humble" these cultures are. At best you'll get shouted and cussed at, and ostracized. Violence is liely and you can even get killed, esp when loss of face is involved.
In Thailand, a trivial dispute(cab fare) can literally get you sliced in half with a sword. If you insult the host at a wedding, you can literally get shot.
In Korea, a professor may literally treat his PhD students like slaves, force them to redecorate his misstress' appartment, wash his car etc. If you refuse, you're dragged through campus by your hair, if you complain to the Dean you're fired. Demanding sexual favors from female students is the norm there rather than exception.
In Japan, wives get up at 4 AM to cook their husband's lunch. They're expected to be demure and submit to their husband at all times. Men traditionally respond to dereliction of marital duties with flipping tables as a demonstration of power, which easily escalates to physical violence and often divorce. Work culture is terrible, your boss is your god and you're not allowed to have a private life whatsoever.
In India, women are literally possessions, which are sometimes even set on fire. Read a newspaper, watch a doc some time to learn about their rape problem. Then there's the caste system.. if a couple violates it by unsanctioned marriage, the "higher" family may retaliate by killing their children, burning down their house, beheading the couple etc.
These societies are,as a rule, also quite xenophobic. if you're looking for an "enlightened" model for western society, look elsewhere.
Welcome to the internet.
Why couldn't they be both rapist and rape-survivor? Don't you know Reddit is an inclusive community? Don't be so rape-ist, people like you are the "problem Reddit has struggled with for several years".
In the words of Quagmire, rape it forward.
..and my penis fell off.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no equivalent of the golden rule in Islam. There are moral obligations, but only to your co-religionists. As for critical thinking, that's considered a crime in most of the ME nowadays:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Quoting Socrates at a muslim fundamentalist, as if he would accept his authority, is pointless. As you rightly point out yourself, he's from the Time of Ignorance (Jahiliyya). If the fundamentalists had their way, anything from that time would be destroyed. Not just books, but tombs, statues and monuments as well, heck, even the pyramids. IS has pledged to destroy the holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
The type of logic commonly used in muslim theology is reasoning by analogy, not syllogism. Even if you were able to corner a fundi with the Socratic method he'd simply say "you speak like a snake," and probably punch you in the face as well. It's how they're raised, dogma is literally bashed in to them. The average madrassa's curriculum is a brainwashing program, endless recitation while rocking back and forth, memorization of the entire Quran (phoneticallly if you don't speak Arabic). Kids are sometimes beaten to death for getting a surah wrong. Quoting their own scripture at fundis (or even regular muslims) in person is just downright dangerous. If you do it online they'll tell you that the true meaning is lost in translation, that interpretation requires deep knowledge of Islam etc. They'll quote some authority who came up with an interpretation that suits their purpose.
PS If you feel the need to engage in such discussions online, protect your anonymity. I'm not even joking, it's dangerous. It probably doesn't make the news in the US, but people get killed over this in the muslim world on a daily basis. If somebody publicly accuses you of being an apostate (kaffir, murtad), that's a death sentence, Rushdie was by no means an isolated case.
Getting in bed with Middle Eastern despots for oil
All ME leaders are despots, because.. well, ME. Are you saying we should boycott ME oil?
and cleaning up the messes that European colonialism left across the globe
Ahistoric BS. Muslims colonized Europe, not the other way around. They invaded the Crimea, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, part of France, Malta, Sicily, parts of Italian mainland, and Central Europe as far north as Poland. They were thrown out of most, but kept harassing and raiding for centuries.
The pirates of the Barbary coast attacked shipping and coastal towns to take slaves all over the Mediterranean, and other places, like Ireland, even the Americas and Iceland. It took the USMC to stop this piracy jihad (it was religiously justified). At the time it was part of the Ottoman empire, which was based on slavery (+castration), as well as on an sectarian caste system (millet). This was changed only after pressure from Britain, which propped them up as a counterweight to Russia. Last slave market in Istanbul was closed in 1908:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Slavery was re-introduced in 1915, during the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian (= anti-Christian) Genocides. What happened then is the same what Turkey's clients are doing atm in Syria: taking sex slaves, crucifixion, beheading, stoning, amputation, genocide. I'll leave it to you to figure out why (hint: Surah 5:33).
If you think this is all water under the bridge, you do not understand Arab culture. The majority do not share the West's linear conception of time and ideas about progress. In their mind, land once conquered by muslims remains theirs, even if they lost it 600 years ago. In Egypt for example, children are taught in school that Spain belongs to the muslims. Before WW I, Turkish children were taught that the Balkan was rightfully theirs, independence of Europeans was an affront to Turkish honor, and they needed revenge. This lead to the Armenian genocide.
PS I should point out it was the Mongols, not Europeans, who broke the muslim's power. They're still butthurt about it ("Destiny disrupted"). Also, a muslim theologian at the time wrote this was a punishment from Allah for straying from orthodoxy, his works are cited by modern islamists. It all has little to do with Europe or US policy.
Clock Boy, the sidekick to Litigation Man!
Alright then.
I think one of the main problems with the muslim world is lack of critical thinking, which leads to unquestioning belief in authority and conspiracy theories. Don't take my word for it, this is straight from the horse's mouth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As for ISIS, it's too simplistic to say it's just religion, see this (somewhat biased, but largely true):
https://newrepublic.com/articl...
But you can't understand what they do without taking islam into account. They blow up not just ruins from pagan times (Jahiliyyah), but also muslim shrines. Well, that's Wahhabism in action, and Saudi Arabia has the same policies, to the extent that they can get away with it.
In Paris, IS targeted the music venue Bataclan, makes sense since music is banned in Wahhabism. It's also jewish-owned, and has been a target many times before, also the headlining band recently toured Israel, apparently. So there's the antisemitic aspect. Restaurants and bars were attacked: that's alcohol, music, *and* men and (non-covered) women in the same room, that's triple haram. Wahhabism also bans sports (any kind of game actually), which explains the attack on the soccer game.
Without this background-knowledge the massacre looks like a random burst of violence, perpetrated by mentally ill people. Far from it, it was well-planned, and in line with doctrine.
Another example, IS wants to conquer Rome. They also called Obama "the dog of Rome". This obsession puzzled me, until I found out what "Rome" can refer to in the Muslim world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Know your enemy. Western policymakers don't seem to understand IS, so they got caught off gaurd last friday:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great...
IS announced Washington DC and London will be next, so nobody can plead ignorance anymore.
Maybe they should go after Alibaba then.
Seriously, I'm guessing that UPS doesn't deliver in IS territory. IS probably uses an address in Turkey and smuggles it acros the Syrian border. If Anon could get a hold of such addresses as well as credit card data, that could be quite useful.
Would the US public support a ground war in Syria?
Not a rethorical question, I'm wondering what the sentiment is over there (I'm in Europe).
A few westerners, including Americans, have joined the YPG (Kurds). They recruit online:
https://www.facebook.com/TheLi...
The US government has stated that it is legal to join, although they discourage it. But let's face it, nobody here on /. would ever get through the physical :D
They're looking for "specialists like architects, doctors, engineers, technology specialists, media and translators" as well though:
http://thelionsofrojava.com/
Thank you for the clarification. One of the reasons that I enjoy Slashdot, as much as I do, is that I can enter the little bit that I know and someone, almost always, comes along and fills in the details for me
Same here, I learn more from the comments than the stories. /. is going downhill though.
There's some sensitive types out today and while you weren't specifically racists, you certainly insinuated (even if not intentional) some prejudicial beliefs.
No I didn't, but I wasn't very clear. With "these people" I was referring to the attackers, not any wider group.
I can say that there are people there who speak out and condemn the violence and hate it (and the behaviors that are, truly, cultural) as much as you or I.
I've studied and worked with people from the ME, even had them in the family. They were much more decent people than the 2nd, 3rd generation immigrants of ME descent here in Europe. Especially the palestinians I've met.
It's the people over there that suffer most from this type of violence. They're struggling to maintain a secular society in the face of this threat in places like Algeria and Tunisia. The events in France is a type of violence that is not uncommon in those countries.
Take for example the Algerian civil war, very brutal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
GIA's policy of extermination was not unlike what IS is doing today, they just didn't have social media back then. They tried a 9/11 type attack against France already in the 90s, but were thwarted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I've been warned about terrorists, kidnapping, and armed conflicts - I've traveled extensively in Africa and South America over the years as well as some in the Middle East.
I think the State Department is legally obliged to warn citizens, even if chances of being kidnapped are 0.1% a year.
See the violence in the "Christian" or "Voodoo" areas of East and West Africa. I'd not be surprised if they averaged out to a higher number of fatalities than the Islamic extremists have done in, say, the past quarter century.
That's possible, I don't think it's fair to compare those 2 regions though. Anyway, this type of ideology is a modern phenomenon. It started in the 20s with al-Qutb and has just slowly gained momentum. It's going into full bloom now, and things will get worse before they get better. Even if IS is defeated tomorrow, they'll melt away and pop up somewhere else. My money is on a war in the Caucasus within 2 years, there are 8-10k Chechnyans in IS and they've been threatening Putin.
I could be wrong but I don't really think the root is the religion, region, or culture.
The culture is definitely very different, Westerners tend to underestimate that. I have some anecdotes if you're interested.
I think it all boils down to being hopeless, full of despair, having nothing to lose, and having everything to lose.
If only it were that simple. There's a lot of money and politics behind it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
"the fountainhead of Islamic extremism that promotes and legitimizes such violence lies with the fanatical "Wahhabi" strain of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia. Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades.
"Saudi Arabia has not stopped its interest in spreading extreme Wahhabism. ISIS...is a product of Saudi ideals, Saudi money and Saudi organizational support, although now they are making a pretense of being very anti-ISIS."
You're referring to the La Castellane estate in Marseille. It's the most dangerous place in the most dangerous city of Europe. A bit sensationalist, but unfortunately all true:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/po...
The chants about Mohamed Mera refer to this POS:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Tbh, Marseille has always been sleazy. Not surprising since it's a port town and a gateway from Africa and ME to Western Europe. But these, ahem, people, take it to a whole new level. AK47, anyone?
Wrong country, Iran condemned the Paris attacks. They support Hezbollah and Assad in their fight against the Syrian rebels. They are ISIS' enemy nr 1, it's the 1300 year old batle of Sunni extremists vs Shiite extremists.
A very mature reply, good job. He is right though:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
PS You sound very offended, what was that about the right to offend?
All empires are, by definition, multicultural, or at least multi-ethnic. Not sure why that'd be a "feat", nor why you think Persia was the first. But your most ahistoric claim is that the persian empire was muslim. It was Zarathustrian many centuries before they were invaded by Arabs. You need to brush up on your history buddy.
If they repelled the (ME) crusades, how come Christian pilgrims got safe passage to sites in the Holy Land? And how were Portugal and Spain liberated? These were the military objectives of the crusades.
It was the Ummayad and Ottoman caliphates that invaded Europe, not the other way around. It was simply a continuation of the policy of conquest of Christian countries like present-day Egypt, Syria, Turkey etc. They got to the gates of Vienna and the Polish border. they enslaved 35 million people in total.
The Mongols killed all the muslims in Baghdad in 1258: "The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Timur did the same in 1401, and also depopulated Aleppo and Damascus. He subjugated the Ottoman empire.
The west didn't invade it. The only reason it survived as long as it did was western *support*, against Tsarist Russia. The French and British even fought their wars for them (Crimea), and supported and armed muslim tribes in the Caucasus and Afghanistan as well. In return, the Ottomans had to abolish slavery (last of their slavemarkets closed in 1912) and grant rights to religious minorities. The resentment over this led to formation of groups such as the Young Turks, and eventually the Greek, Assyrian and Armenian genocides.
Turkey entered WW I in order to fulfill the dream of a pan-Turkish empire stretching all the way to China. Didn't exactly work out, but this idea is very much alive today, as is neo-Ottoman ideology (basis for Turkey's foreign policy).