Specifically, there are Syrian rebels who have nothing to do with Daesh, and the Russians have been attacking them along with Daesh in their support of Assad.
That is true. It is also true that some of the rebels joined ISIS.
Syria is a big goddamn mess right now, and there are no "good guys".
Whether or not the survey response means they support Daesh, I would still be concerned that they even have a somewhat positive view of that bunch of evil motherfuckers. Someone that has an even slightly positive view of Daesh is not someone I want to be around.
I agree with you, but you and I are not running for our lives, so we might have a different perspective on the world than they do.
In the Western world of the 1930s, many intellectuals were communists. It seems kind of stupid to us today, but there was a large body of thinking that liberal democracy was fragile, and wouldn't survive the economic crisis. Many European countries, in particular, were losing their new republican democracies, and were either going fascist or communist. If you honestly believed that this was going to happen, and you had to pick one of the two sides, communism was an understandable choice.
Suppose you're fleeing the Ba'athist regime. The alternative, staying, may mean that you will probably get drafted to drop barrel bombs on your fellow citizens, flattening entire city blocks in the vain hope of killing a few rebels who are probably underground. (Even Syrians who don't mind Assad that much generally don't want to do that.) Russia is on Assad's side, and the US isn't doing anything. The only group opposing Assad is ISIS.
Is it so unreasonable for you, in that situation, to say "well, I don't like ISIS, but at least they're actually doing something about the brutal dictatorship"? Remember, when pressed on why they have a mildly positive view towards ISIS, the number one cited reason by Syrian refugees isn't their religious ideology or their humanitarian policy, but their "military achievements".
History is full of instances of bad regimes being overthrown only to be replaced by bad regimes. Hell, it happened in France; Paris gave the world the word "terror" to refer to this kind of political violence. It rarely turns out well in the near term. Nonetheless, you don't know what you'd do in that situation and neither do I, because neither of us have done it.
ISIS are sick, evil bastards, who would be a bad joke if they weren't slaughtering, raping, and enslaving so many people. They are also fighting equally brutal dictators. Many of the people who have tried to escape that world are finding themselves in countries which have a racist level of distrust towards them. If you had nothing, and honestly felt that nobody in the world was on your side, you might have a mildly positive attitude towards some bad people too.
However it utterly ignores that Islam does not have all of these flavors of Islam as yet, [...]
Yes it does. Islam has a lot of flavours. Some are legalistic, some are mystical and contemplative, and that's not counting the large number (possibly the majority) of people who identify as Muslim and do all the rituals but who don't really give a crap about politics unless it's hurting them directly.
Here's the thing: if you're a Muslim, and you don't support ISIS, you're a shitty Muslim. It's identical to Christians who claim homosexuality "isn't sinful:" they're shitty Christians.
OK, I'll bite. What is it specifically about ISIS that makes it mandatory for all Muslims to support it specifically?
While we're on the topic, on what basis do you claim authority to decide what constitutes a "shitty Muslim" or "shitty Christian"? Only fundamentalists are preoccupied with who is "in" and who is "out". Are you a fundamentalist, or do you just accept their premises?
[...] except that one survey has shown that 13% of Syrian refugees support ISIS. Would you take a 1 in 8 chance that your houseguest wants to kill you?
The question was "In general, do you have a postitive or negative view of ISIL?" 4% of Syrian refugees answered "positive", and 9% said "positive to some extent". That is not the same as 13% expressing "support" for ISIS.
Moreover:
Further seeking to understand respondents’ views of ISIL, the survey included questions which asked participants to identify the factors that contributed the most to the group’s popularity amongst, and influence on, its supporters. Respondents were asked to consider such arguments regardless of whether or not they themselves accepted their validity. When asked to identify such reasons and factors, 15% of respondents cited ISIL’s “military achievements”, with the highest proportions of those citing this factor coming from Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and amongst the Syrian refugee population.
The survey didn't expand on "military achievements", but it wouldn't surprise me if the most common reason for a Syrian refugee holding a positive (or mildly positive) view of ISIS is that nobody else is trying to oust the Ba'athist regime.
I agree with almost everything you said. Your statistics are correct, although you did skip over the part where it is a stated goal of ISIS that 200 million Shia are apostates and marked for death.
Nonetheless, please read the post that I was replying to. It may help you understand the point I was trying to make. The flippant part was this:
Moderate Muslim: someone who wants someone else to cut off your head
The main motivation of most "moderate Muslims" is not to have your head cut off, but to get through their day like pretty much everyone else on the planet.
Radical Muslim: someone who wants to cut off your head Moderate Muslim: someone who Radical Muslims want to cut the head off of
FTFY. Not-so-fun fact: If you are killed by an Islamist terrorist, you are eight times more likely to be Muslim than non-Muslim.
START TRYING TO DRAG YOUR DEATH CULT INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Maybe you could start by opening your home to a Syrian refugee. People fleeing the "death cult" are precisely the sort of people who could do with your help.
Yeah, exactly. This is pretty much the same as Kim Davis, except that Jobb is only inconveniencing himself.
He can take whatever stand he likes as far as I'm concerned, whether noble or petty. It's his right to do so. But if he doesn't do his job (which for a scientist includes not actively preventing other researchers from replicating your results), he has to face the consequences for that.
What the hell is going on here, and why isn't this front-page news on Slashdot?
There are three parts to the question.
"What the hell is going on here [...]": ESR passed on an unsubstantiated rumour. He does that. Eventually there may be some substance to it, but there isn't now.
"[...] why isn't this front-page news [...]": Not everything that ESR says is news. Now if it had been expressed as a Linus rant, El Reg would have picked it up pretty quickly...
"[... ] on Slashdot?": Because you didn't submit it.
Slashdot Mirror
Snowden isn't the one who wants people dead.
The name of an act doesn't change just because it's amended.
That is true. It is also true that some of the rebels joined ISIS.
Syria is a big goddamn mess right now, and there are no "good guys".
Whether or not the survey response means they support Daesh, I would still be concerned that they even have a somewhat positive view of that bunch of evil motherfuckers. Someone that has an even slightly positive view of Daesh is not someone I want to be around.
I agree with you, but you and I are not running for our lives, so we might have a different perspective on the world than they do.
In the Western world of the 1930s, many intellectuals were communists. It seems kind of stupid to us today, but there was a large body of thinking that liberal democracy was fragile, and wouldn't survive the economic crisis. Many European countries, in particular, were losing their new republican democracies, and were either going fascist or communist. If you honestly believed that this was going to happen, and you had to pick one of the two sides, communism was an understandable choice.
Suppose you're fleeing the Ba'athist regime. The alternative, staying, may mean that you will probably get drafted to drop barrel bombs on your fellow citizens, flattening entire city blocks in the vain hope of killing a few rebels who are probably underground. (Even Syrians who don't mind Assad that much generally don't want to do that.) Russia is on Assad's side, and the US isn't doing anything. The only group opposing Assad is ISIS.
Is it so unreasonable for you, in that situation, to say "well, I don't like ISIS, but at least they're actually doing something about the brutal dictatorship"? Remember, when pressed on why they have a mildly positive view towards ISIS, the number one cited reason by Syrian refugees isn't their religious ideology or their humanitarian policy, but their "military achievements".
History is full of instances of bad regimes being overthrown only to be replaced by bad regimes. Hell, it happened in France; Paris gave the world the word "terror" to refer to this kind of political violence. It rarely turns out well in the near term. Nonetheless, you don't know what you'd do in that situation and neither do I, because neither of us have done it.
ISIS are sick, evil bastards, who would be a bad joke if they weren't slaughtering, raping, and enslaving so many people. They are also fighting equally brutal dictators. Many of the people who have tried to escape that world are finding themselves in countries which have a racist level of distrust towards them. If you had nothing, and honestly felt that nobody in the world was on your side, you might have a mildly positive attitude towards some bad people too.
Scrum was never a "thing" [...]
Those people making obscene amounts of money by handing out Scrum Master certifications would beg to differ.
However it utterly ignores that Islam does not have all of these flavors of Islam as yet, [...]
Yes it does. Islam has a lot of flavours. Some are legalistic, some are mystical and contemplative, and that's not counting the large number (possibly the majority) of people who identify as Muslim and do all the rituals but who don't really give a crap about politics unless it's hurting them directly.
OK, I'll bite. What is it specifically about ISIS that makes it mandatory for all Muslims to support it specifically?
While we're on the topic, on what basis do you claim authority to decide what constitutes a "shitty Muslim" or "shitty Christian"? Only fundamentalists are preoccupied with who is "in" and who is "out". Are you a fundamentalist, or do you just accept their premises?
[...] except that one survey has shown that 13% of Syrian refugees support ISIS. Would you take a 1 in 8 chance that your houseguest wants to kill you?
No, it didn't.
The question was "In general, do you have a postitive or negative view of ISIL?" 4% of Syrian refugees answered "positive", and 9% said "positive to some extent". That is not the same as 13% expressing "support" for ISIS.
Moreover:
The survey didn't expand on "military achievements", but it wouldn't surprise me if the most common reason for a Syrian refugee holding a positive (or mildly positive) view of ISIS is that nobody else is trying to oust the Ba'athist regime.
I agree with almost everything you said. Your statistics are correct, although you did skip over the part where it is a stated goal of ISIS that 200 million Shia are apostates and marked for death.
Nonetheless, please read the post that I was replying to. It may help you understand the point I was trying to make. The flippant part was this:
The main motivation of most "moderate Muslims" is not to have your head cut off, but to get through their day like pretty much everyone else on the planet.
FTFY. Not-so-fun fact: If you are killed by an Islamist terrorist, you are eight times more likely to be Muslim than non-Muslim.
Maybe you could start by opening your home to a Syrian refugee. People fleeing the "death cult" are precisely the sort of people who could do with your help.
After all, it took Microsoft all the way to Windows 7 to produce an OS that didn't suck ass.
To be fair, Win2k and WinXP were pretty good.
Or is is actually a problem with OS itself?
Let me put it this way: PS4s run FreeBSD, and they have less of a problem with graphics performance. It's definitely the drivers.
Damn, cover blown.
Also animated and Japanese, presumably.
Well, I can probably make a reasonable guess at your age and gender.
I'm pretty sure my username doesn't reveal anything, either.
Yeah, exactly. This is pretty much the same as Kim Davis, except that Jobb is only inconveniencing himself.
He can take whatever stand he likes as far as I'm concerned, whether noble or petty. It's his right to do so. But if he doesn't do his job (which for a scientist includes not actively preventing other researchers from replicating your results), he has to face the consequences for that.
You can't be a planet, which is nobody's fault, not even the IAU. But we will fight the oppressors for your right to be a planet.
Yeah, my girlfriend hasn't moved from the couch since we got it - and she hasn't complained of bugs.
So either it's an addictive game, or you're doing a good job of keeping the house clean.
What the hell is going on here, and why isn't this front-page news on Slashdot?
There are three parts to the question.
"What the hell is going on here [...]": ESR passed on an unsubstantiated rumour. He does that. Eventually there may be some substance to it, but there isn't now.
"[...] why isn't this front-page news [...]": Not everything that ESR says is news. Now if it had been expressed as a Linus rant, El Reg would have picked it up pretty quickly...
"[... ] on Slashdot?": Because you didn't submit it.
...and celebrate Guy Fawkes Day instead.
Seriously. Yeah, some kids prefer candy to explosives, but not the cool kids.
Also it doesn't cost $50 to see a film at the cinema [...]
It probably doesn't apply to you, but thanks to the Australia Tax, it's pretty close to that for a modest-sized family.
Exactly for what do we need 12 gigs of ram?
Batcomputer emulator.
You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
I wish people would take the threat of gigantic boulders from outer space more seriously. The very existence of the human race is at stake.
Time to retrofit a WW2 battleship with a wave motion engine, methinks.
It worked didn't it?
WP:POINT