The Paris Attack Debate Thread

[Valmy]

Donald Trump has a lot of twitter followers, and the support of tens of millions of prospective primary voters.  He wants to among other things, reinstate "Operation Wetback," and close mosques.  I suppose one could conclude that the US must be a hotbed of fascism and racism because he has more twitter followers than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. 

Is that a wrong thing to conclude? I am not so sure with this damn election.

My only relief with all those State governors being dicks is that there were so many Texas was not especially exposed as having horrible people like we normally are. So thanks other states.

[alfred russel]

How many twitter followers does that Republican candidate who claims that Obamacare is worse than slavery have?

That isn't a fair way to judge his support, considering that many of his supporters can't read and  among those that can, many have yet to discover the internets.

[Admiral Yi]

Donald Trump has a lot of twitter followers, and the support of tens of millions of prospective primary voters.  He wants to among other things, reinstate "Operation Wetback," and close mosques.  I suppose one could conclude that the US must be a hotbed of fascism and racism because he has more twitter followers than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio.

I'm not sure if you're trying to build a moral equivalence argument or one about the irrelevance of Twitter followers to ascertaining underlying beliefs.

I personally think that Trump's popularity tells us quite a bit about American attitudes towards illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism, just as the popularity of the Saudi cleric tells us quite a bit about Saudi attitudes towards religiously motivated violence.

[Jacob]

I personally think that Trump's popularity tells us quite a bit about American attitudes towards illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism, just as the popularity of the Saudi cleric tells us quite a bit about Saudi attitudes towards religiously motivated violence.

There's a significant amount of subjectivity in those inferences of yours, though. Might it not as well be an indication of American disgust towards their political system, say, or a reflection of American fascination with bombastic personalities over substance for Trump? And conversely, might the Saudi cleric's number of follower's not be an indication of appreciation for his rhetorical style, for his stance on some local political contexts (be it challenging/ supporting the House of Saud, his stance on charity towards fellow Muslims, or some other issue or set of issues)?

I mean, I think we can have some discussions about Trump with some level of knowledge here since we're pretty exposed to his substance and to his followers, but I don't think we have enough information on the Saudi cleric or the other contexts he is speaking to to ascertain that religiously motivated violence is or is not a key driver for his number of followers.

[Admiral Yi]

There's a significant amount of subjectivity in those inferences of yours, though. Might it not as well be an indication of American disgust towards their political system, say, or a reflection of American fascination with bombastic personalities over substance for Trump? And conversely, might the Saudi cleric's number of follower's not be an indication of appreciation for his rhetorical style, for his stance on some local political contexts (be it challenging/ supporting the House of Saud, his stance on charity towards fellow Muslims, or some other issue or set of issues)?

I mean, I think we can have some discussions about Trump with some level of knowledge here since we're pretty exposed to his substance and to his followers, but I don't think we have enough information on the Saudi cleric or the other contexts he is speaking to to ascertain that religiously motivated violence is or is not a key driver for his number of followers.

Rather than subjectivity I think it's fairer to say they are only isolated data points, and need corroboration to create sustainable generalizations.  Such corroboration might include things like Muslims killing the shit out of innocent people.

[Jacob]

Rather than subjectivity I think it's fairer to say they are only isolated data points, and need corroboration to create sustainable generalizations. Such corroboration might include things like Muslims killing the shit out of innocent people.

I still suspect your methodology is flawed. Be that as it may, what's your generalization for the tendency of white people killing the shit out of innocent people?

[Admiral Yi]

I still suspect your methodology is flawed. Be that as it may, what's your generalization for the tendency of white people killing the shit out of innocent people?

What is your suspicion based on?

I don't have a generalization for the tendency of white people to kill the shit out of innocent people.

[Jacob]

What is your suspicion based on?

Dealing with internet data while working on online/mobile games I've found the correlation between "number of likes"/ "number of followers"/ "number of users" of any given thing/ person/ software and a specific prediction of behaviour based on subjective analysis of the thing/ person/ software to provide piss-poor results.

Saying "this person says [this one thing] (amongst many), and has many followers who belong to [some group], therefore we can say with confidence that [this one thing] appeals to [some group] in a specific way" seems pretty analogous to "this software has [this one feature] (amongst many), and has many users who belong to [some group], therefore we can say with confidence [this one feature] appeals to [some group] in a specific way."

The second line of reasoning has proven itself utterly unreliable as a matter of practical experience, so I suspect the first is equally unreliable.

I don't have a generalization for the tendency of white people to kill the shit out of innocent people.

Interesting. It seems we do it a fair bit, if you look at us as a "white people" group.

[Admiral Yi]

Interesting. It seems we do it a fair bit, if you look at us as a "white people" group.

You might want to be careful with your verb tense there.

[Jacob]

Interesting. It seems we do it a fair bit, if you look at us as a "white people" group.

You might want to be careful with your verb tense there.

I used "we" as in "the group I belong to", with no intended implication either way about your affiliation or that of any other specific person.

[The Minsky Moment]

I personally think that Trump's popularity tells us quite a bit about American attitudes towards illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism, just as the popularity of the Saudi cleric tells us quite a bit about Saudi attitudes towards religiously motivated violence.

I would put it a bit differently.
I would say his popularity despite his enthusiasm for the Eisenhower-era "operation wetback" is suggestive of severe moral decadence, a willingness to embrace the use of violence, sometimes deadly violence, against an unpopular minority, which is exactly what happened at that time.
I would say his popularity despite his support for mosque closure demonstrates an attitude of blithe disregard towards the most fundamental rights of human beings and the very foundation of the US constitution. 
The term "fascistic" doesn't seem too lightly used in this context (and knowing your own views on the Donald I suspect you don't entirely disagree).
I would also say that the Saudi cleric's popularity illustrates the severely retrograde nature of Saudi society and a willingness embrace violently xenophobic sentiments that echo the ones Trump is pushing here.

IF your point is that these are not equivalent, morally or otherwise, I would of course agree.  The Saudi cleric is much worse.  Saudi Arabia is a horrible place, where political discourse has been utterly twisted by a system that suppresses all forms of political expression other than support for the monarchy, with the exception of Wahhabist-dominated mosques. Wahhabism itself is a deviant sect that openly places itself in opposition to over 1000 years of Islamic tradition.  To use that as the example of the inherent ills of Islam doesn't make sense, any more than holding up Fred Phelps as the exemplar of Christianity. 

[Admiral Yi]

I used "we" as in "the group I belong to", with no intended implication either way about your affiliation or that of any other specific person.

You missed my point, which is that whites are not currently killing the shit out of innocent people.

[Admiral Yi]

I would put it a bit differently.
I would say his popularity despite his enthusiasm for the Eisenhower-era "operation wetback" is suggestive of severe moral decadence, a willingness to embrace the use of violence, sometimes deadly violence, against an unpopular minority, which is exactly what happened at that time.
I would say his popularity despite his support for mosque closure demonstrates an attitude of blithe disregard towards the most fundamental rights of human beings and the very foundation of the US constitution. 
The term "fascistic" doesn't seem too lightly used in this context (and knowing your own views on the Donald I suspect you don't entirely disagree).
I would also say that the Saudi cleric's popularity illustrates the severely retrograde nature of Saudi society and a willingness embrace violently xenophobic sentiments that echo the ones Trump is pushing here.

IF your point is that these are not equivalent, morally or otherwise, I would of course agree.  The Saudi cleric is much worse.  Saudi Arabia is a horrible place, where political discourse has been utterly twisted by a system that suppresses all forms of political expression other than support for the monarchy, with the exception of Wahhabist-dominated mosques. Wahhabism itself is a deviant sect that openly places itself in opposition to over 1000 years of Islamic tradition.  To use that as the example of the inherent ills of Islam doesn't make sense, any more than holding up Fred Phelps as the exemplar of Christianity.

If you agree that they are not morally equivalent then I am not sure what your point was in bringing up Trump in the first place.

One can claim that Saudis are special because of their political environment; then the difficulty become devising the special circumstances that explain the support for and contribution to violence undertaken by Muslims in other countries, including the US and Western Europe.  At what point does this search for alternative explanations become an exercise in excuse-making?

I think Fred Phelps is perfect example of the excesses that can be created by the prohibitionist/Calvinist strain of Christianity.  Then what? 

[Jacob]

You missed my point, which is that whites are not currently killing the shit out of innocent people.

Ah, I see. I missed that yes, probably because I don't think that's particularly true.

Domestically in the US, Chris Harper-Mercer and Dylan Roof certainly killed the shit out of innocent people not very long ago, and it seems pretty well accepted that it's a matter of "when" not "if" it happens again.

I don't know on what grounds you may exclude the civilians killed in the Ukraine, but I'm reasonably certain their killers were white, that the dead were innocent, and that it isn't over quite yet. The passengers on Malaysia Air Flight 17 where innocent, and though there's no specific killers established, we can reasonably assume that they're white.

I think there's been a significant number of innocent people dying as the result of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere in in the Middle East - carried out primarily at the behest of and by white people - and terming them "collateral damage" does not make them any less innocent or any less dead.

I also see no reason to exclude the deaths of innocents during the Troubles in the UK, or the disintegration of Yugoslavia, from the pattern of fact either.

[Razgovory]

Query:  Is this last decade more deadly for people in the Middle East then say the 1960's or the 1970's (decades before the rise of Political radical Islam)?