🔗 Quick links thread

Is the threat of radical Islamism as a massive sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to ‘unite and inspire’ people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies?

A documentary series from mid 2000-s. Three 1 hour episodes. Their narration of history is a bit too un-nuanced for my taste. But by the third episode, when they hit the Bush years and "The War On Terror", I was mostly in agreement with their conclusions.

Recommended watch.

dse

@cartman82 said:

You could have written an answer, you just wouldn't have gotten points for it, which is what you're really sore about. Whining how SO sucks because the asker got their answer too fast is the pinnacle of selfishness.

What I have noticed actually is that unless the question is Javascript related (or maybe iOS/Android or PHP or HTML) one rarely gets any answer at all. I speculate if the question was answered before the whinner posted his and get reputation for it, it should have been one of those (that I do not encounter nor care about). So as far a I am concerned yes good riddance :) it seems there are already too many Javascript experts in SO.

dkf

@dse said:

What I have noticed actually is that unless the question is Javascript related (or maybe iOS/Android or PHP or HTML) one rarely gets any answer at all.

You're looking in the wrong places. SO is actually divided into many smaller communities that cluster around different technical themes (that typically map to their tags). Some of the communities are totally dysfunctional, and others work really well.

Also, everything sucks if you expect a perfect answer within 10 minutes.

blakeyrat

Sounds like "can jet fuel melt steel?" conspiracy theory bullshit.

And no, radical Islam is not a myth. But the threat of it in the US and other western societies may be. (I dare you to go to, say, Afghanistan and say radical Islam is a myth.)

blakeyrat

@dkf said:

Also, everything sucks if you expect a perfect answer within 10 minutes.

So far, I've gotten a even-working answer zero times within 2 years.

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

Sounds like "can jet fuel melt steel?" conspiracy theory bullshit.

Nope.

@blakeyrat said:

And no, radical Islam is not a myth. But the threat of it in the US and other western societies may be. (I dare you to go to, say, Afghanistan and say radical Islam is a myth.)

That's pretty much the point of the series. Watch it.

blakeyrat

@cartman82 said:

That's pretty much the point of the series. Watch it.

Is there a 3-paragraph version instead of a 3-hour version?

Also I should clarify: by saying "radical Islam isn't a threat", I'm not saying they won't come to western countries and bomb shopping malls and poison-gas subways, I'm saying:

The numbers of deaths those actions generate will never rise significantly above the "shit happens" threshold of the number of essential random deaths anyway, and
Those bombs can't change the fundamental composition of the government of those countries-- the US is not, and will never, install a government willing to adopt Sharia law.

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

Is there a 3-paragraph version instead of a 3-hour version?

It's a documentary, so no.

blakeyrat

There's like 3 factual errors in the first 45 seconds.

It also keeps inserting clips from that Design for Dreaming short, so WTF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9nHxwzw-2o

EDIT: I hate documentaries. The writer of this seems to have just came up with this dumb thesis, then edited together NOTHING BUT RANDOM SHIT in an attempt to support it. Meanwhile it's all irrelevant.

Some guy in 1949 criticizing Americans for "lusty" dances and maintaining lawns is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11!

... seriously?

The US was always highly individualistic. That's exactly why we're so fucking successful in every way we are successful.

Cartman82, are you British? Because this seems to just be a lazy anti-American film which somehow obtained funding from the BBC.

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

Is there a 3-paragraph version instead of a 3-hour version?

Also I should clarify: by saying "radical Islam isn't a threat", I'm not saying they won't come to western countries and bomb shopping malls and poison-gas subways, I'm saying:

The numbers of deaths those actions generate will never rise significantly above the "shit happens" threshold of the number of essential random deaths anyway, and

Those bombs can't change the fundamental composition of the government of those countries-- the US is not, and will never, install a government willing to adopt Sharia law.

1 & 2: Yup. When compared with the existential threat during the Cold War, terrorism is a fart in the wind. I'm repeatedly disappointed that people today are willing to throw away their liberties for some marginal increase in safety.

Kind of like being too afraid to turn off UAC, for example.

Filed under: You didn't think I'd go there, BUT I DID!

@blakeyrat said:

There's like 3 factual errors in the first 45 seconds.

Specifics? I didn't fact check, I just presumed their facts are in order. It's their interpretation that could be called into question.

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

Some guy in 1949 criticizing Americans for "lusty" dances and maintaining lawns is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR 9/11!

... seriously?

The US was always highly individualistic. That's exactly why we're so fucking successful in every way we are successful.

Cartman82, are you British? Because this seems to just be a lazy anti-American film which somehow obtained funding from the BBC.

What, really? At least watch until the end before you draw conclusions.

That guy later goes into Egypt and his teachings are inspiration for the Islamic brotherhood we have today. The point is to describe the philosophical underpinnings of this people that hate America, not to cast judgment from the author's POV.

blakeyrat

"in the past, politicians promised to create a better world". Not true, except with an extremely pedantic reading of "in the past" EDIT: or perhaps an extremely pedantic reading of "politicians"

"their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people". Also not true, with the same caveat as before.

"these dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies". Oh, so the Brits who made this no longer have faith in the NHS? Which failed? Because I've heard the exact opposite about 473 billion times.

Of course part of the problem is this opening is so goddamned vague you can't pin-down anything. But he's still making wide, sweeping statements that I'm calling fucking wrong.

The entire rest of the first hour, from skimming around, appears to be a history of:

Some British wanker who thought the US danced too sexy
Egypt's westernization
The Neo-Conservative political movement here in the US

I didn't find any hint that any of these histories related to the thesis at all.

BTW, a lot of my opinions changed when I realized this video was made in 2004. It's just another lazy and thoughtless "GEORGE BUSH IS TEH EVILZZZ!" docu, isn't it? Ugh.

blakeyrat

@cartman82 said:

What, really? At least watch until the end before you draw conclusions.

No. I'm not spending 3 hours of my life on some 14-year-old "political activist" somehow getting hold of BBC funding and an editing crew and making his "GEORGE BUSH IS TEH EVILZZZ!" video. And I don't need to see 30 minutes of the history of the Neo-Conservative movement; maybe you Brits have no idea, but all informed Americans already know it.

I'll gladly evaluate his argument if you present it in a more digestible form.

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

"in the past, politicians promised to create a better world". Not true, except with an extremely pedantic reading of "in the past" EDIT: or perhaps an extremely pedantic reading of "politicians"

"their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people". Also not true, with the same caveat as before.

"these dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies". Oh, so the Brits who made this no longer have faith in the NHS? Which failed? Because I've heard the exact opposite about 473 billion times.

These are not factual errors, that's like his general thesis.

I presume that's his interpretation of the difference between the "optimistic" post-WWII era, where there were all sorts of grandiose govt programs (space exploration, "war on poverty"), vs. the 2000-s, where the promises were "negative", concentrating on safety and "war on terrorism".

@blakeyrat said:

No. I'm not spending 3 hours of my life on some 14-year-old "political activist" somehow getting hold of BBC funding and an editing crew and making his "GEORGE BUSH IS TEH EVILZZZ!" video. And I don't need to see 30 minutes of the history of the Neo-Conservative movement; maybe you Brits have no idea, but all informed Americans already know it.

I'll gladly evaluate his argument if you present it in a more digestible form.

He concentrates more on the cabal of "neo-cons" that formed around Regan and later Bush Jr., than the president himself.

I'm not gonna champion his argument here. I don't agree entirely with all his points. Some of the stuff feels very simplified and is probably much more nuanced in reality. And even the things I agree with, I haven't done enough research to be comfortable arguing it.

That's why I posted a "quick link", not a new thread. Basically, if you're interested, watch it. If not, do something else. No need to force yourself if you think there's nothing new to learn here.

If nothing else, I at least learned one thing that blew my mind - there was no such thing as Al-Qaeda before 9/11.

blakeyrat

@cartman82 said:

If nothing else, I at least learned one thing that blew my mind - there was no such thing as Al-Qaeda before 9/11.

Except that's not true. They've existed since the late 1980s, and first became infamous by bombing US embassies in 1998.

Here's a question I probably don't want to know the answer to because it leads down Conspiracy Theory Alley-- who does the video blame for the 1998 embassy bombings?

tarunik

@blakeyrat said:

Those bombs can't change the fundamental composition of the government of those countries-- the US is not, and will never, install a government willing to adopt Sharia law.

Yeah -- apparently the idea that governments work better for everyone when religion isn't tangled up with the state hasn't come up and smacked them across the face yet. Then again, they're probably blind as a bat to it...

cartman82

@blakeyrat said:

Except that's not true. They've existed since the late 1980s, and first became infamous by bombing US embassies in 1998.

Here's a question I probably don't want to know the answer to because it leads down Conspiracy Theory Alley-- who does the video blame for the 1998 embassy bombings?

A bunch of terrorists financed by Bin Laden. Which is different from "Al-Qaeda", an international terrorist organization with cells in 60 countries and underground mountain fortresses in Afghanistan.

Part 3, from ~ 7:20.
Also here:

Al-Qaeda - Wikipedia

Jamal al-Fadl - Wikipedia

dse

@tarunik said:

Yeah -- apparently the idea that governments work better for everyone when religion isn't tangled up with the state hasn't come up and smacked them across the face yet. Then again, they're probably blind as a bat to it...

This is very true, either one has to try and see what happens to society, economy, education and infrastructure (good example is Islamic revolution in Iran), or look at those who tried it as examples and learn. I hope at least US (not having gone through the evils of religion) select the latter method; but try telling this to some of the Americans that actively promote the role of religion in the state. Europe has had its share of theocracy atrocities.
As for the rest of the countries who want Sharia law, let them run the state with whatever crappy system they think works best for them (just make sure they do not get Nukes), then wait 30 years and harvest seculars, atheists and free-thinkers instead of religious fanatics.

blakeyrat

@cartman82 said:

A bunch of terrorists financed by Bin Laden. Which is different from "Al-Qaeda", an international terrorist organization with cells in 60 countries and underground mountain fortresses in Afghanistan.

So because the organization grew, it became an entirely different organization. Which just happened to have the same leadership, the same name, and the same purpose.

Makes sense.

Jaloopa

Microsoft totally didn't exist before 1995!

Boner

biblicalgenderroles / Jul 11, 2015

Is my husband raping me?

“Is my husband raping me?” This is a question that was asked of me recently by a Christian wife. She sent me her story as an anonymous comment on my article “Is a husband selfish for h…

I found this disgusting.

blakeyrat

I'm more shocked the website "biblicalgenderroles.com" is on our onebox whitelist. WTF?

Maciejasjmj

@Boner said:

I found this disgusting.

So you posted it here for all of us to be disgusted. Thanks a lot.

PleegWat

blame jeff.

Maciejasjmj

Someone puts a well-but-not-perfectly-trained recurrent neural network to work, generating Magic: The Gathering cards. Hilarity ensues (for those in the know, at least):

http://twitter.com/RoboRosewater

Buddy

Lossy text compression.

Dawn 1 New Civic Body (NIV)
The Day

1 In the day God created the airs and the air. 2 Now the air was hazy and dry, fog was ago the jet of the low, and the Aim of God was hovering ago the airs.

3 And God said, "Let there be bay," and there was bay. 4 God saw that the bay was ace, and he far the bay for the fog. 5 God called the bay "day," and the fog he called "ink." And there was eve, and there was morning—the key day.

6 And God said, "Let there be a air between the airs to cut air for air." 7 So God made the air and far the air low the air for the air too it. And it was so. 8 God called the air "sky." And there was eve, and there was morning—the aid day.

9 And God said, "Let the air low the sky be cast to one eye, and let dry bed act." And it was so. 10 God called the dry bed "bag," and the cast airs he called "seas." And God saw that it was ace.

Jaloopa

@Boner said:

I found this disgusting.

But if she had been in pain for weeks or a month and he finally came to her and said “Babe I need this, I promise I will make it quick” – then she should have put his need for sex above her need to not experience additional discomfort.

That website is horrific!

Scarlet_Manuka

@Jaloopa said:

That website is horrific!

As a reasonably fundamentalist Christian, I would like to point out that I agree with you. I read as much of the site as I could stand and found, I think, one point that was interesting (there might have been two, I can only recall one currently). But that was pretty much drowned out by the irrepressible tide of... I don't even have a good word to describe it; let's go with "crap".

It was one of the more egregious examples of cherrypicking statements out of context, and then twisting the meanings even further to support one's own personal view, that I have ever seen. And I've read a lot of young-earth creationist literature¹, so that's a pretty high bar².

¹About 5% of which doesn't do this.
²Not perhaps as high as for, say, patent applications, or crackpot physics inventors.

ben_lubar

@cartman82 said:

Kind of like being too afraid to turn off UAC, for example.

I fail to see how my computer asking me "are you sure you want to fuck up everything" instead of just doing it is "throwing away liberties".

ben_lubar

boomzilla

@cartman82 said:

A bunch of terrorists financed by Bin Laden. Which is different from "Al-Qaeda", an international terrorist organization with cells in 60 countries and underground mountain fortresses in Afghanistan.
...
Also here:

I was amused that on the al Qaeda wiki entry, they have:

Active 1988–present
Leaders Osama bin Laden (1988–2011)

It sounds like the sort of pedantic dickweedery that conspiracy nuts are good at. @blakeyrat, did the flags in the video have any gold fringe?

blakeyrat

I bet the guy who made that docu went on to found the gold fringe movement in the UK, where it doesn't even SLIGHTLY made sense.

Now all those stupid Brits have to deal with that "free man on the land" nonsense too! Haha fuckers!

FrostCat

I love those guys who show up in tricorns and pioneer clothes to rant about the entity named in all caps isn't the sovereign person they are, or whatever twaddle they actually spout. I wanna see a judge sentence 'em to dressing like that for a year, instead of going to jail, including wearing homespun woolen underwear or whatever. It'd be like that crazy woman who showed up to jury duty in a star trek uniform to protest...uh...some dumb shit, because she was too dumb to just say the words "jury nullification".

blakeyrat

@FrostCat said:

I love those guys who show up in tricorns and pioneer clothes to rant about the entity named in all caps isn't the sovereign person they are, or whatever twaddle they actually spout.

Yeah like this wacko:

(To be fair to Snipes, he hired the Universe's Worst Accountant. Then again, he went to prison because he doubled-down on the moronic-ness instead of getting a second opinion.)

FrostCat

That's the funny bit! He's kind of a clothes horse. Making him dress like Ben Franklin's portrait would probably be a worse punishment than jail!

sloosecannon

That's hillarious.

ijij

Highlights from SciPy2015:

Jul 16, 2015

Scientific computing in Python

Python is rapidly becoming the primary language for scientific computing and data analysis.

Jarry

ArnoldC

A programming language based on the one liners of Arnold Schwarzenegger

IT'S SHOWTIME TALK TO THE HAND "hello world" YOU HAVE BEEN TERMINATED

because

cartman82

###Top 10 Incredibly Useful Windows Programs to Have On Hand

It's been a while since I've seen one of these. Was reminded of a few apps I should keep around and found a new one that seems nice (speccy).

aliceif

old news:
https://what.thedailywtf.com/t/best-language-ever-arnoldc/2311

Jaloopa

@cartman82 said:

speccy

Looks like a nice alternative to Everest since they stopped doing a free home edition

cartman82

http://yellowhammernews.com/faithandculture/alabamian-gets-schooled-mike-rowe-dirty-jobs/

Guy from "dirty jobs" gives some life advice

accalia

hmm.... i'm gonna have to remember that. is good advice.

ijij

The closing...

That’s why I would never advise anyone to “follow their passion” until I understand who they are, what they want, and why they want it. Even then, I’d be cautious. Passion is too important to be without, but too fickle to be guided by. Which is why I’m more inclined to say, “Don’t Follow Your Passion, But Always Bring it With You.”

Carry On
Mike