What on earth is an appropriate response...

[goat starer]

To the kind of events in Paris today?

I live in a city with a 25% Muslim population... I have many Muslim friends... Yet I find myself having terrible reactionary responses these days... And then hate myself for them. It sometimes feels like the world is shaping up some terrible clash of ideologies and I don't share any of them.

[Griffin NoName]

I have no answer. Or none that is satisfactory.

The majority of killers are men so enforced lowering of testosterone levels may be an appropriate answer. I don't think religion is relevant; there's just you are in my band, or you are not and I'll kill you.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Echo chambers also apply, yesterday there was a author on the Daily Show saying that when you share your opinions with like minded people you are likely to radicalize on then whatever those are, in consequence if you have fundies of X denomination and they only listen to fundie ideas they will radicalize even more. Add to that the fact that for the past fifteen years there has been a worsening on the so-called 'clash of civilizations' with terrorist attacks on one end and drones and bombing on the other, and you have a fertile ground for more and more fanatic/reactionary responses on both sides (do you think ISIS is an accident?).

When something like this happens we have to remember that for every crazy fundie there are hundreds of thousands/millions of non fundies who would never think on doing such things themselves, in the same way we wouldn't condone bombing a house full of civilians including women and children to potentially kill one 'terrorist'.

[Darlica]

Maybe  "Je suis Charlie" .

I know some people stand behind the campaign because they want the right to mock Islam.
I stand behind it because I believe in freedom of speech and that whatever you write or draw it should never be used to justify killing you!

And by all means, lets also remember that when Christianity (on which shoulders western culture rest heavily whether we like it or not) was a only 1000 years old religion it was partly a very radical and violent  movement too. Terrorising both it's own believers and "heathens". Not that it in anyway justify what happen in Paris, but it can be a good idea to remember that it has happen before, albeit with swords and daggers instead of automatic weapons, and then it was by "our" hand so let's not play out the Martyr card.

[Griffin NoName]

then it was by "our" hand so let's not play out the Martyr card.

So where does that leave Gaza and Israel?

Plenty of cartoons about Jews, not so sure about their G-d but since there's only one any cartoon of a G-dish creature must coount.

[Swatopluk]

Ultra-orthodox rabbis can get as nasty as their Islamist counterparts (including calls to genocide and detailed fantasies about mutilating babies).
And it's far too easy to find Kristian(TM) guys that share the sentiment. In case of doubt (and opportunity) they have no problem to join against the common foe (non-extremists of all kinds plus of course the godless/atheists*).

*those can be murderous thugs too but rarely join with their religious spiritual kin.

[Griffin NoName]

...........detailed fantasies about mutilating babies).

Well, we have King Herod to thank for that. 

[Swatopluk]

That slander was about 4 centuries later.
But some of those phantasies are from the Old Testament (and commentaries to it)

[Griffin NoName]

That slander was about 4 centuries later.

Later than what?

Last Post

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Herod killed children, two of his own and their mother, and that's it, the whole massacre of the innocents is a complete fabrication, with no evidence to support it beyond the gospel of Matthew.
---
erm... not the last post thread?

[Darlica]

then it was by "our" hand so let's not play out the Martyr card.

So where does that leave Gaza and Israel?

Plenty of cartoons about Jews, not so sure about their G-d but since there's only one any cartoon of a G-dish creature must coount.

That is a can of shit that has been brewing for centuries too. All these conflicts in and about the "holy land".

Regarding the drawings, those who get the worst pounding in the French satirical magazines are French politicians and leaders of the catholic church, French "houshold names", some pictures are very misogynistic some border to racism and some are really good satire...

I don't endorse any type of gender,sexual, religious, racial or ethnic prejudice. BUT I still think there isn't a drawn picture or a written or spoken word that justify killing artist/author/speaker.   

[Griffin NoName]

Agreed. Against killing.

Yes, I was being cheeky about Herod. But. It's the Book of Esther (OT) which we read on Purim in the synagogue and every time his name is read out, the whole congregation hisses. There's also a tradition of wearing fancy dress and having a children's party but I cannot remember why (well, the fancy dress bit). It's about the most fun Judaism gets.

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/12/08/The-Slaughter-of-the-innocents-Historical-Fact-or-Legendary-Fiction.aspx#Article

[goat starer]

On another forum (yeah... I know... Disloyal but you guys don't do a lot of wargaming) a good bloke I know posted a terrible rant against Islam after this event...

I can't believe how succesful these groups are at polarising people and creating a self fulfilling prophesy of war.

[Griffin NoName]

Goat, I agree, and it is awful, but on the other hand.............if it is a wargaming forum, what do you expect

[Darlica]

Off Topic:
Goat, which games do you play?

[goat starer]

Mostly 15mm sci fi... Tomorrows war, star grunt. Free zombie games... The odd big of rune quest inspired stuff.

And I have to say most wargames seem terribly peaceful.

[Griffin NoName]

I know one can't compare.....

But 2000 dead in Nigeria -boko harem massacre 10th Jan

I can't help comparing the response in France and the EU and the US to smaller atrocities here. I just think we have somehow inured ourselves to these genocides and certainly I've never heard of any of the countries suffering this way holding mass protests, memorials, flowers, candles, in the way we do it in the west................... they just die or run instead.

Someone can put me right on this if they disagree. Please?

[goat starer]

I know one can't compare.....

But 2000 dead in Nigeria -boko harem massacre 10th Jan

I can't help comparing the response in France and the EU and the US to smaller atrocities here. I just think we have somehow inured ourselves to these genocides and certainly I've never heard of any of the countries suffering this way holding mass protests, memorials, flowers, candles, in the way we do it in the west................... they just die or run instead.

Someone can put me right on this if they disagree. Please?

Closeness to home and familiarity are powerful things... We should probably care about all equally but like it or not there is a hierarchy - family, friends, your home town, country, places you are familiar with, everyone else. Without it the world might well be unbearable.

Those countries don't have the tine or resource to do the big shows of public outrage / grief... They are too busy living.

There is also the fact of unusualness... We kind of expect terrible stories from Africa. Not so much from Paris.

[Griffin NoName]

Thank Goodness. Someone else is questioning it.

Why did the world ignore Boko Haram's Baga attacks?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

What Goat said, it is to be expected if the stuff happens in South Sudan or Syria, or Yemen (that one rarely goes on the news for the scale of what happens there), but there are other elements at play. Chances are that more people die violently in the Banlieue close to Paris than in this incident, but youth's dying in a poor neighborhood isn't worth showing anywhere but the 11 PM local news. In some cases, -like how many black men die at the hands of the police every year in the US- there is a political component to censorship and/or deliberate misinformation (ie, the police not gathering/releasing the statistics to save face).

In the case of Nigeria, the silence of the Nigerian government is deafening. The president doesn't care what happens in the north (more muslims, less xtians than the south), has systemic corruption at all levels (he has taken millions for himself plus grabbing some juicy oil contracts also), and is facing elections soon so showcasing incompetence wouldn't help his chances. That silence in turn becomes silence in the West (or should I say North?) because if they don't care about their own, why should we?

Finally, there is this inherent tribal thing in which more than 21000 reported cases of ebola are some sort of curiosity, but a couple of sick individuals in the West are reason to close air routes, screen everybody, and generally speaking, go into panic mode. Who cares if some poor [I'm going to say] souls die of a very nasty hemorrhagic fever in west Africa, but god forbid a white person gets sick of it.

As Goat said: me, family, friends, town, country, and those places you are somehow related to (which is why travel is such a powerful thing).

[Griffin NoName]

No reason for not questioning it. All the more reason to question it.

Also, soon we will have mass immigration from lands made uninhabitable by climate change and it looks like Europe will become more and more popular. So it won't be over there, it will be over here.

[Aggie]

Also, soon we will have mass immigration from lands made uninhabitable by climate change and it looks like Europe will become more and more popular. So it won't be over there, it will be over here.

Climate change, and the traditional cause of violence in one's homeland.  That's why I'm here, a few generations later.  I guess immigration has been more normalized in North America than in traditional monocultures like Europe*. I wonder how the experience of being an immigrant differs between the two places?


_{*mind you, the First Nations here are still pretty pissed off at the second wave of immigrants that showed up.  Not sure how they view the newest ones.}

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

We live in Interesting Times, for sure.

Back before the Intertubes?  We got our "news" filtered for our "protection".   Sure, the Journalists had more integrity back then, but they had their blind spots and biases too.  Maybe not as obvious as some we see today.

But with the Al Gore's Intertubes?  We can look, if we want, to any part of the globe for news of What's What.

And we see that mostly, What's What is humans are still busy killing each other over the stupidest and most trifling of reasons:
  "Never rub the blue belly-button jelly clockwise you heretic!"

Will this ever change?  I certainly hope so! 

Ironically these self-same InterTubes can help with that-- by exposing people to new ideas, different than their own.  Such exposure tends to make them more tolerant of those counter-clockwise belly-rubbing heathen.

Meantime?  We have more killings...

... what worries me?  Is the invention of cheap mass conversion. 

Yes, I mean as an energy source-- that little E=MC2 stuff. 

The human race isn't mature enough for such a liberation of energy-- with cheap mass conversion?  Those little clockwise-only natives could not only blow up the anti-clockwise tribe next door?  But their entire country and everyone else along with... !!!

*sigh*

[Griffin NoName]

_{*mind you, the First Nations here are still pretty pissed off at the second wave of immigrants that showed up.  Not sure how they view the newest ones.}

First wave immigrants tend to pull the drawbridge up behind them - a second wave may well make the host country more hostile, too many of them, taking jobs etc.

From the The National Archives - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/census/events/britain4.htm

With increasing numbers of immigrants, especially Russian, Austrian and Polish Jews, arriving in Britain, immigration had come to be seen as a serious political issue by 1901. Some politicians and publicists were quick to denounce it as a threat, and even as an 'alien invasion'............
............
............
..............The anti-immigration climate of the time, however, led to the setting up in 1902 of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, whose report resulted in the 1905 Aliens Act.

I am ashamed to say, my Great Grandfather (entered Britain late 19th century) sat on this Commiisssion*, to stop any more people like himself coming into the country.

The shame (I assume) was such that , during my lifetime at least, this has never been mentioned. My cousin found out, I don't know how, and told me about it.

* Interesting, after some searching, I found a list of members and recognised no names. However, I am not familiar with the names of that generation on my mother's side of the family. Or perhaps he wasn't a member but someone reporting to them. Or perhaps he testified before the Commission (can't find a list of names for that, and it seems more likely than actually being on the Committee). Or perhaps he cropped up during the 1905 shenanigans getting the Act through Parliament rather than the 1902 Commission. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/office-holders/vol10/pp42-57#h3-0008

[Aggie]

And we see that mostly, What's What is humans are still busy killing each other over the stupidest and most trifling of reasons:
  "Never rub the blue belly-button jelly clockwise you heretic!"

What this indicates to me is that humans need only the barest excuse to kill each other, else we'd acknowledge the obvious fact that there's no difference in going widdershins. Religion makes such a lovely vehicle for violence precisely because it invokes the highest authority. Very few other ideas make such a good banner to wrap our violence and power-mongering up in, save perhaps Patriotism. When they are combined, it's synergistic.

[Griffin NoName]

And we see that mostly, What's What is humans are still busy killing each other over the stupidest and most trifling of reasons:
  "Never rub the blue belly-button jelly clockwise you heretic!"

What this indicates to me is that humans need only the barest excuse to kill each other...

Men need..... Ok some women do but only a very few, not enough to generalise.

[Aggie]

Ayuh, but far too infrequently have women protested their men going off to war in a widespread and meaningful way. Surely, if half the population of the world was universally against human-human violence, we would have made some progress by now? Part of seeing men as brutal killing machines involves seeing them as disposable people, whose deaths matter less than women or children, no matter the circumstances.

I abhor violence against women, but in sheer numbers it's dwarfed by violence against men.  By men. Even cultures that are sane enough to take measures against the former readily glorify the latter.

(I don't disagree with you, but I'm getting off the "I Hate Men" bandwagon this year).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Women are statistically more likely to have more empathy to others than men do, and as a confirmation for every woman psychopath there are four men psychopaths.
---
OTOH despite all the xenophobic attempts to the contrary over millennia, men have absolutely no problem mating with women of other races, countries or religions.

[The Meromorph]

OTOH despite all the xenophobic attempts to the contrary over millennia, men have absolutely no problem mating with women of other races, countries or religions.

Not to change the subject...
They do if they're old, fat and ugly men...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Sorry, my bad, I should've been more specific: men have not problem in their intention to mate with women of other races....

[Griffin NoName]

My son is married to a Japanese female. So add that to the tally.

.......Surely, if half the population of the world was universally against human-human violence, we would have made some progress by now?

Um. Surely if men and women's brains are created equal, we would have 50/50 Directors on the Boards of UK companies?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Not a fair comparison, privilege tends to remain in the group that owns it in the first place, for instance, the University of Florida (where my son is attending) has the following demographics:

Race	Student Body	State Demographics
NH White	56%	57%
NH African American	7%	17%
Hispanic	17%	23%
Asian	7%	3%
International students	9%	-

In a truly equal world the table above where the different populations are represented should match or be very close to the state demographics, which in this case only happens with whites, but both Hispanics and Blacks are underrepresented while Asians are overrepresented.

OTOH in US demographics 51.1% of the population are women vs 48.9% of men but in UF the ratio is 54:46 which means that women are overrepresented (and according to my son the trend keeps going up). This one is an interesting trend that also shows up in High, Middle and Elementary school as a higher level of achievement for women than for men. It has been argued that women naturally have an advantage to remain focused from an early age compared to men, and that testosterone during and after adolescence increases the difference.

So to sum up, if anything Boards of Directors should have more women than men just going by achievement, but I'm sure that those are overwhelmingly old white men, regardless of the demographics of the UK, not because they're better at their jobs but because they are very good at keeping their influence.

[Aggie]

OTOH despite all the xenophobic attempts to the contrary over millennia, men have absolutely no problem mating with women of other races, countries or religions.

Not to change the subject...
They do if they're old, fat and ugly men...

Only if they're old, fat, ugly and poor men.  Rich ones have no issues. Wealth can be very much a relative thing, as far as that goes.

.......Surely, if half the population of the world was universally against human-human violence, we would have made some progress by now?

Um. Surely if men and women's brains are created equal, we would have 50/50 Directors on the Boards of UK companies?

If men and women's primary focus in mate-finding was the same, then perhaps; perhaps you'd also see the rates of cosmetic surgery and makeup use become equal between men and women.  Until then, you'll continue to see men motivated by power and money and clawing to the top at any cost, as it's the most reliable way for a man to be regarded highly by high-status members of the opposite sex (or same sex, as may apply...). You'll also continue to see women (even the very brightest in the business world) leverage beauty into power.  I do not believe the latter is exclusively male-driven, either (i.e. that prettier women get promoted by chauvinistic men over plainer but more talented ones).  I've worked in enough environments with significant numbers of female personnel to have seen how beauty is used between women to achieve and enforce social dominance.

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, Zono.

I don't disagree Aggie.

[Griffin NoName]

Now reports of Jews saying they don't feel safe living in Britain. Big increase in policing Jewish areas. It's like we caught a virus from France and Belgium. I wonder where they would feel safe.

[Swatopluk]

Probably not in Israel. One kind of fanatics lobbing (highly inefficient) rockets into the land, another kind lobbying the government for an "Armenian" solution and parts of the government itself dream about Nuremberg laws of their own (some of them likely as only the first step).

As usual, I feel inclined to propose the Cyprus plan (Kick ALL those quarrelers, both Greeks and Turks, out of Cyprus, transfer Israel there, create a Palestinian buffer state between Germany and Poland, then let the Chinese nuke the Holy Land and especially the Holy Mount out of existence for good).

[goat starer]

Extreme... But not without merit...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Too complicated regarding Cyprus and the Palestinians, but warning the inhabitants a week before nuking the place out of existence, and let the sea cover what remains sounds far more agreeable. The problem is the radiation. OTOH using antimatter may be a cleaner alternative.

[Griffin NoName]

The Chinese probably export goods to the Holy Mount.

[Swatopluk]

The radiation is a feature not a bug there. Otherwise the Holy Mount would simply be replaced by the Holy Lake The Lord will rise out of at the End of Days.
Spike the bombs with cobalt!

[Griffin NoName]

By the way, just wondering, do you consider this an appropriate response?

[Swatopluk]

Appropriate highly dependent on the context.
In the present company, I'd consider it to be within reason.
If there was anyone directly affected present, I'd be far more careful.
The "Cyprus Plan" is an example of an extreme 'out of the box' approach to a problem that seem to be unsolvable by 'reasonable' means.
It aims at a number of root problems and connects them in an unconventional way. It could be used as a serious discussion starter.
Admittedly it is at least in part an angry reaction to the way the idiots on location and their backers and opponents abroad sabotage anything that coluld improve the situation. Like a parent that may threaten to smash a favorite toy that two kids cannot stop quarrelling about (and create havoc while doing it on a regular base): "If you handle it this way, then neither of you deserves it!". Cyprus is a similar problem in the neighbourhood. In that case the advantage would be that there would be a natural place for both the Greeks and the Turks to go while the Jews would need a place of their own that presently does not exist (outside the disputed territory on the Eastern Mediterranean coast).
The 'Holy Land' has been the cause of bloodshed for thousands of years now and the only way to prevent it from staying that way would be to get rid of it for good. The only way would be (since it cannot be wished away) to use burnt/salted earth on a level that could not be reversed in the forseeable future => spiked nukes would be about the only option and China the only 'neutral' power to do it (all other states owning enough nuclear weapons are too deeply involved).
The removal of the 'Holy Land' would get rid of one of the main focal points of terrorism-connected conflicts (be they real or just use Israel as a tool to incite a target audience). It would by no means solve ALL problems there but enough to at least consider it (in theory).
I try to imagine how milleniarists and their ilk would cope with a physical irreversible removal of the base of their (real or pretended) faith, the place where the events of Revelations are supposed to take place, since that faith is so crude that it requires certain physical features to be present.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Holy Lake? You're thinking too small, I'm thinking the Red Sea and the Mediterranean finally connected by something as large as the Ormuz Strait, no more dead sea, no more Israel or Palestine, a large coast for Jordan reaching into Lebanon. Granted, it would probably take all the nukes in the world detonated underground and it may not be enough, but the point would be that nothing would ever be there anymore. Note, the point is not to kill everybody living in Israel/Palestine but to erase the idea of a Holy Land, in fact it could be read as the fulfillment of some sort of rapture, and who knows, it may even bring a peace that would last a thousand years.
---
Personally I think it would be a shame for all the archaeology that would be lost under such 'solution', but then again, the status quo has proven very destructive anyway.
---
As a serious proposal it may not be appropriate, even if pragmatic (in theory), but I agree with Swato that in the absence of a solution (short of the disappearance of Palestine one settlement at a time) making radical proposals may bring some context to the problem.