Disappointed to see the comments downplaying the situation because as many people get killed in car accidents every week or whatever. Terrorist acts damage the social fabric far beyond the death toll. That's the whole point of terrorism.
It certainly feels different when you feel affected. You want to be reactionary. You want to have a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe I now understand why people are so quick to try to blame the issue on a certain cause.
But inside me I've spent my time fighting against this. I know that those attacks are not done "just for fun", they are driven by what makes them so effective: The fear they instill. The panic. The people who want to start putting the blame on a marginalized group that is prone to violence by their own situation.
Part of me wants to elaborate, but another part of me feels too sick to actually write more about this. I just want to go to bed, forget it happened.
I would like to ask the HN community to please not be reactionary about it. Please don't be xenophobic. Please don't marginalize groups.
And I have actually only seen one comment talking about car accidents, in a very different light than what you imply... so add to that, please don't make shit up.
Exactly, and very important, not given the platform they want, the media are very much a part of this as well.
We have to fight for enlightenment values, and need to lead by example - we can't make martyrs out of people.
I know someone who is deadly afraid of putting shoes on tables. Because her friend did that before dying in a traffic accident.
Blow up enough people often enough and fear and panic will become pervasive. People stop opening their shops, investments stop coming.
Terror is a pretty effective way to overthrow a gov't.
Another is South Vietnam.
Although there was a war going on the NLF did a great job of terrorizing the local population and installing their own shadow government. The terror attacks fractured the populations allegiance to the South Vietnamese gov't (what good is a gov't that can't protect you?).
Terrorism can be an effective tool in guerrilla warfare.
Terrorism is not Effective: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective
Terrorism is not About Terror: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror
Just look at the statistics. The total number of people killed by terrorists is negligible. And 0 terrorist groups have ever won and achieved their stated goals.
I remember the Boston bombing. That same week, there was another explosion at a chemical plant that killed many more people, and blew up a nursing home. Guess which event got more press, by a large amount? Which event are people more likely to remember? Can you even name what city the chemical plant exploded in or remember any details about it?
Why is this? It's because people react to violence much differently than they react to accidents. Because thousands of years ago, violence was the one cause of death you could do something about. If you got an infection, or if a natural disaster struck, or a famine broke out, etc, those are all out of your control. But if someone was a threat to your family or tribe, you could fight them, or flee from them.
We have many emotions and social instincts whose entire purpose is to deal with other humans that threaten us. Like paranoia, anger, and hate. No one hates the chemical plant, and wants to go kill it. People hate the Tsarnaev brothers.
Don't speak too soon. We have several political movements dedicated to this.
Hmm. Wasn't it Bin Laden's goal to restore the Islamic Caliphate?
It's all about human agency and intentions. Terrorist attacks are carried out by HUMANS with the clear INTENTION of inflicting harm on the populace. Accidents on the other hand lack these essential factors. When I walk by a chemical plant, it never crosses my mind that the plant would attack me or be capable of doing such a thing and therefore I am not worried to be around but on the other hand if I happen to be walking in a bad neighborhood late at night, I would be very wary of people around me because I know very well that some of them might inflict harm on me for any reason.
So, I think that the comparison you drew between these two categories is not that solid and that people have every right to be "terrified" of terrorism and take all the precautionary measures to stop/prevent it.
Every time they strike they put us on edge, and we make new laws and protocols to protect ourselves, giving up freedom in the name of security.
Flashing the towers card here sounds a little embarrassing in retrospective. Sadly, the I.Snake is also the bastard son of Bush great plans for Irak and the Guantanamo shame.
No, it's not. The danger is over reacting, as history has proven time and time again. Fear is not the answer.
The only impact is people's reaction to it. Blame should be shifted to those who react. It absolutely should be downplayed.
[1] http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2015/05/05/01016-201...
The point being of the people murdered in France this year less than 1/5th of them where killed by terrorists. Yet, the other 4/5th don't make international news.
Yes, this is a tragedy, so are all those other deaths.
PS: Even at over twice the normal rate, the average US city is far worse every year.
Maybe there are 100 people killed in France in a typical year by complete strangers. And we're talking about 180 people (maybe more) killed in 2015 by complete strangers and in the name of Allah. I don't think that can be easily ignored.
What's hard, is accepting that things like this happen, but there not reason to alter policy in any meaningful way.
Wait till you live in Iraq or Afghanistan where these incidents occur on a daily basis and see if you will still stand by your statement or revisit it very soon.
The pack leaders are the rational ones. The ones that stand to gain the most from organizing these horrors.
And that's why we very much should not react by further damaging the social fabric ourselves, but that is extremely hard, especially when everybody will be clamoring for some kind of reaction.
A scene from Brazil that explores this idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4KFNhxibec
Well, just to say my misunderstanding of to which Brazil it was referred.
I do think you want to treat it as "murder is a serious crime and needs to be prosecuted and punished" rather than "this is an act of Islamic terrorism and we need to declare War on Terror!". But, universally ignored is hardly how you want to react. You want to close borders and you want to declare emergency and you want to, ideally, apprehend these people using conventional police. You do not want to live in a permanent state of panic or build a police state after the fact, and you definitely don't want to take out your anger on a whole population of people over the actions of a small radical group. But you do want a, rational but concerned, reaction.
Right now, you want to get people to safety, help the survivors and catch those responsible, in that order.
I don't think ignoring the problem is the only way to not let the terrorists win. But I do agree responding militarily or by widespread panic is what they most likely want.
maybe it will also have a side-effect of uniting people and countries against a common threat to all humanity.
I don't think that will happen. Remember "Je suis Charlie"? How long did that sentiment last?
It's a matter of time before people will be writing 'Je suis Francais', and then promptly forget it a few days or weeks later.
Even worse is that I agree.
Can we do anything to change it?
I admire your patience for sure. The hope that we have decades to unwind this mess.
I fear, though, militant religious sects may not have the same self control.
I fear that the inability or lack of willingness to meet violence with violence may be the downfall of rationality. We rightfully shun violence in place of discussion, but as is evident (again), we are not dealing with rational actors.
I think a discussion about how we can realistically meet this violence with violence is warranted. Sam Harris made a good argument for this in this podcast: http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun-...
We have in a way changed the paradigm already. A bad actor brandishing a box cutter on a plane is to be sure to be met with resistance that wouldn't have been seen pre 9/11.
But that could actually be an advantage. The more people see them for the nutcases they are the shorter the path to a possible solution.
> I fear that the inability or lack of willingness to meet violence with violence may be the downfall of rationality. We rightfully shun violence in place of discussion, but as is evident (again), we are not dealing with rational actors.
The danger in dealing with non-rational actors is that rational people will either do one of two things: they will join the non-rational actors and will respond non-rationally themselves, or they will persist in setting up a rational frame of reference for dialogue with the non-rational actors, which clearly will not work.
So the solution is to treat non-rational actors as exactly what they are: crazy, and deal with them accordingly.
Sorry for not being clear. I'm not speaking about others perception; we can easily discern they are out of shape. They, though, don't care what the rest of us rational people think.
>So the solution is to treat non-rational actors as exactly what they are: crazy, and deal with them accordingly.
Agreed. What I'm arguing is that that may involve reciprocating violence -- which we (rightfully) inherently tend to avoid. You can't rationalize with irrational people.
In that situation, we need multiple people to be willing to sacrifice themselves to save others. In today's world, the modus operandi is to cower and hope things pass over or to sympathize with the attackers views. This will not work going forward as the attackers could give a fuck what you think or how you feel so long as your death plays into their idea of making the world right.
Intention is all that matters, and why its attempting to damage social fabric.
I'm not trying to be flip. I'm saying that by any viable moral theory, you are catastrophically wrong.
I'm not changing a damn thing in how I live my life, and not even out of courage (i.e. the "we can't let the terrorists win" bromide that took over in America in late 2001). It just shouldn't matter that much to you, and it only prevails insomuch as you let these irrational fears get to you.
No it's not - people die from unexpected accidents completely unaware of the risks all the time - intuitive risk perception doesn't work really well - caveman instincts and all that - risk perception is not the problem - if this was indeed an isolated incident that would not repeat it would be sad but not very relevant - an example of this is Breivik murders.
But obviously this is not comparable - people behind this will try to repeat it if not dealt with - this is why it's a big deal.
Unfortunatley from a mathematical standpoint you are incorrect, from an irrational human standpoint you have a point however.
The human mind is much worse at reasoning and reality than anticipated, how you and others perceive the world is not as real as you'd like to think, thats the whole point of math and science:
I think a lot of people are afraid that these incidents will lead to more wars in the Middle East, create more terrorists, and cause more attacks. This will further erode our fourth amendment freedoms and probably the second too, which is exactly what the terrorists want.