Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism
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Is there any scientific literature that supports this? The post seems to treat it as a foregone conclusion and declares war on that basis, but I would love to see the research before deciding whether I agree with what they're doing.
As opposed to legal terrorist violence?
- only the State has a monopoly on violence, so State violence is legal
- terrorist violence is illegal
Perhaps it would be clearer to say, the always-illegal terrorist violence...but that seems like too many words. I'm happy with it as it is.
And while those are perhaps not the terrorists your government wants you to be concerned about today, it remains a common form of terrorism (see, for a relatively clear current example, Duterte's fairly overt campaign of terror in the Philippines.)
I had no idea. I'm a post 1980 baby after all.
But if you have ever watched a techie de-escalate a hostile situation you shouldn't have high hopes.
But I disagree with the invocation of "this is a complex topic" to sort of muddy the waters of what is or is not terrorism. That ambiguity gives wriggle room for terrorists to slip in and justify their acts which can't be allowed.
It's pretty clear to me when I switch on the news and see Manchester, or Bataclan, or the south of France or Charlie Hebdo, or Al Shabbab, or basically anyone doing this brutal medieval stuff is terrorism.
I don't really want to wade into the Israeli Palestinian thing except to say that, as in Northern Ireland, sometimes there is this financial incentive, to both sides, for conflicts to simmer for a long time at low-temperature -- if peace is declared, the money stops flowing. And in such a situation, it pays to muddy the waters, since both sides want to seem justified to keep the money flowing. I am certainly no expert on this ME issue, this is, IMHO, a factor.
But this sort of incentivized conflict is, IMHO, entirely different to the non-state terrorism we are all aware of today.
Either you added one too many negations or I am failing to understand your point... you are saying that the idea you agree with is that the propagation of narratives does not actually help support terrorists?
I'm genuinely having trouble reading that sentence so I'm going to assume from the rest of your quote that you are advocating the hypothesis that narratives that attempt to justify terrorist violence supports terrorists. I think most people would agree with that, but that is not what was questioned.
There currently seems to be a prevailing Western narrative unquestioned by mass media that the most effective way to prevent terrorism is to control the material people consume, especially on social media.
The TV and print media is full of the narratives of billionaire press barrons and arms-exporting governments. If we accept that radicalisation is driven by narratives that become accepted (we are the good guys) and that it is a gradual process (opposed -> indifferent -> supporter -> active) how would we even know if we were radicalised by the narratives that we consume?
Perhaps when we advocate detention without trial of terror suspects; the abdandomnent of human rights laws for terror suspects; extra-judicial murder for suspected terrorists; a war on foreign soil with the overt and understandable intent that our armed forces should have zero casualties?
Personally, I think there is a case for censoring truly extreme material as long as extreme caution is used so it doesn't spread to narratives which are critical of government foreign policy and there is an equal silencing of the overtly genocidal attitude of the far right that gets a far easier time and regularly enters corporate media ("bomb them"). I suspect the latter is quite effective radicalisation material and helps advance the idea that entire countries hate a religion and that this is a war that is an existential threat to people of that religion.
You're probably too clever for me to be able to argue with. But that doesn't matter to me. Because it doesn't really matter what either of us believe, it only matters what we do. And when I look at the world, I don't see it is the people who win the arguments who win. It is the people who can sway others with emotion, the countries that can better tell their own story, the civilizations that can build something that other people want and the militaries that can deploy technologies that dominate that win. And above all, I'm someone who loves humanity. For what it is. So it doesn't matter to me even if your arguments are right. Because I'm more concerned about what's necessary. I have strong opinions, born of my own experience, based on logic and emotion.
Maybe I have been duped by the MSM, the AI of tech corporations and swindled on a hopeless dream of being a "somebody" / a tech founder / a snowflake whatever, in a consumerist society that needs to worship individualism and the purchase of status, or relief from fear, to drive the economy. I've certainly been duped by my friends and enemies, so, surely, the government, big corporations and the media, with their infinitely better resources, can probably dupe me too.
But I'm fine with that. Because all that really matters to me is how I live my life. I figure most people are living in a delusion anyway. Of one form or another. SO the question is not "do I have the truth?" the question, for me, is "Is my perspective useful?" Does it work for me? Does it help me achieve my goals? Whatever they might be.
And I think I'm good at that, or at least I try to be.
But on the topics you broach I'll give you my clear opinion: our societies, that have something to offer ( freedom, justice, prosperity, equality, harmony ( maybe democracy if you like that sort of thing ) ), are better than the societies that don't have such things to offer. As far as I'm concerned, any violence from people emanating from such places against our own is wrong. Prima facie wrong. Mainly, I think, because, if they were to win, they would offer nothing. So we must win, because we can offer something. So all our wars, against them, are justified to me. I see it as their problem. If their societies didn't suck, if they had devleoped themselves, protected themselves from manipulation and outside influence, then they'd be in a better place. But instead, they didn't keep their houses in order, and they became these breeding grounds for bad things, bad ideas. And I see no problem with wiping them out. If we have to. Just like the human body will kill its own cells if it diseased, I believe we should not hesitate to cut off those parts of our human civilization that are toxic. An extreme view to utter, but not to practice. I'm not saying that makes it okay. I'm saying it's okay, because that's what we say is okay. We have to protect what's good. What's good is certainly not what's perfect. But we have to get down in the dirt, and do bad things, to protect the good.
Maybe you say that's extreme, and you pretend I'm bad, and I don't expect you or many others to agree with me. I got that you would see it differently. But I would just see that as the comforting delusions people adopt to tell themselves they're good and righteous.
I want you to imagine if you have a family, and you are on a camping trip in the forest, far from any outside help. And a group of bandits tries to attack your camp. What kind of family person are you, who would refuse to do anything necessary to protect the good that was their family? I say, that you'd be in the wrong, if you refused to do anything "wrong" to protect your family.
So that's how I see humanity. Essentially good. Worth protecting. But protecting it, and developing our civilization, is not going to be pretty. Look at China. So much achieved. But so much horror and bloodshed to get there. To me that's all there is. The development of the human civilization and the forward march to a better future. There will be blood. But I believe it's worth it. Other people don't. That's fine. To me, their "noble mindsets" are the fruits of the peacetime they now enjoy because of the thousands of years of bloodshed that have brought our civilization to where we can enjoy peace.
TL;DR - I enjoy peace and love as much as the next human. I just think it's fine to do anything we need to protect that and keep moving forward as a species. Yes, it's a war mindset. Yes, the "terrorism is a threat" narrative gets a lot of mileage. But who cares? Nothing is guaranteed in this world. As far as I am concerned, humanity is always at war. If it's not terrorism, it's disease, it's planetary annihiliation. Until we are a multiplanetary species, who can upload our brains into new bodies whenever we like, until we've cured death, we're always going to be at war. So we're on that road. We can't take any chances. We ought not to waste any time. See the threats. Stamp them out. Protect what's good. Excise the diseased parts. Nothing else matters. We do not have the luxury of fanciful meditations, except from the security of an armchair, a secure perch provided by the blood of people who fought and died to bring you to the brief respite from endless horror we currently enjoy. Humanity has a long way to go, and it's not going to be pretty, but I believe we'll get there. You just have to be prepared to get dirty along the way. Get down in the dirt, and muck it out. To save and protect what's good.
You probably care more for argument and logic and facts and finely stated opinions than all of this emotive, rhetoric. But to me, it's not that. It's very plainly how I see things. So, thanks for giving me this chance to express it here. I feel internet conversations are useless, but they give me a chance to know my own thoughts better.
Even defining "illegal terrorist violence" globally is tricky. What is illegal in one country often isn't in another. One person's illegal terrorism is another's rebellion against corrupt government.
"Supressing such narratives" can easily become censoring anyone who disagrees with those in power and until I see evidence that such suppression is actually effective, and that safeguards are in place to prevent it going to far, I'll always err on the side of freedoms over censorship.
So there is a good definition FB could use. That being said, I can't figure out why companies ought to fulfill the role of judges, especially not proactively. It's not their business and they have no expertise in it, and there are conflicts of interests. If some content or website is illegal, then it should be investigated by the police and closed down under judicial oversight. If it's not illegal, then it should be left alone.
by this definition, lots of US soldiers are terrorists, they kill (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, sometimes forcedly) civilians in Libya, Iraq (where nuclear weapon not found), Syria, Vietnam in old days and in many more countries
> Taleban attacking a military base are not terrorists by that definition
Of course, they are defending their own place, what the hell is military base of different country is doing something in totally different country, maybe occupation? which means using terroristic acts
It's this kind of sloppy thinking that makes a rational discussion of this topic (and many other controversial topics) so hard. I wrote "intentionally target noncombatant civilians" and you essentially ignored this.
There is a huge difference whether you kill someone intentionally or non-intentionally as a side effect, or at least that's what the majority of people who seriously think about this topic agree upon. Intentional killings of noncombatant civilians by US army members are considered crimes or war crime, depending on the circumstances. They are often prosecuted. But I've already mentioned legal grey zones such as drone strikes in which the killing of innocent bystanders is not intended but taken into account.
> Of course, they [the Taleban] are defending their own place,
But they are often classified as terrorists, hence the example. Just to make this clear as well, the example is a bit ill-conceived in retrospective, since there is no doubt that Taleban as an organization are terrorists - they bomb cilivians in cities all the time. Of course, the definition of a terrorist organization is more complicated than just "they always intentionally kill civilians".
Terrorism is a label that is applied to any violent attack performed by (most of the time) non-state agents these days, where it should instead be used on situations where the perpetrator's intent is to instill fear on the population and get recognition on the media for their political agenda.
With this in mind and taking aside the ethics of it, not showing or at least not exaggerating news about terrorist attacks could be a good mitigation strategy (the general media would certainly do the opposite though).
Personally, my take on this post is just PR for Facebook.
[0] - http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/430497-terrorism-isn-t-a-cri... (Schneier on terrorism)
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Gq-5zISAk (Relevant Carlin)
Is this accurate or just another easy way of saying "these people are not human they are just evil"
Is it both more accurate and more frightening to allow yourself to think that terrorists live a generally peaceful and happy life within a family? Aren't the worse monsters the ones who live amongst us and not the ugly other?
I suspect it is and that makes the solution harder on some ways but also easier in others. If your brother can fall into thinking one way then he can change his thinking and move into another way.
I think this is pretty careful sentence structure on their part to suggest that it's normal people who enter into such a life, not that they are at their core hate filled and violent. The section seems to agree with what you're suggestion, and maybe it's just awkwardly worded, but as a native speaker, to me it sounds like the usual deescalation tactic of affirming the goodness in people. "Life" may be causing some misunderstanding or changing the scope slightly, but it still fits.
[...] we have begun work on systems to enable us to take action against
terrorist accounts across all our platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram.
Given the limited data some of our apps collect as part of their service,
the ability to share data across the whole family is indispensable to our
efforts to keep all our platforms safe.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-eur...
Really, "terrorists" usually have the same goals as "we" do: peace, respect, safety, prosperity. If we stopped pretending that "we" are right and "they" are wrong, the problem might go away in the long run.
Note that I do not approve of the terrorist approach to communication but, maybe, they just have no other way of making themselves heard, so if we listened, they might start talking instead of bombing.
Without communication we'll never find common ground. Without common ground, the problem will not go away.
If you blow up people waiting in line in an airport, going to a concert, or visiting a nightclub, you are dead wrong. There is not much wiggle room here.
If everyone who feels they are don't have a way of making themselves heard (whether or not that thought is valid) just starts harming unrelated people, we can just do away with society completely.
So... The US starts the Iraq War, thousands die, society goes away completely, and then ISIS show up? These groups didn't just decide to start these campaigns, their lives got progressively worse and they sought something that might improve it.
I know there are innocent casualties when we wage war, but that is not the same as what is happening here.
Let me give a specific example, the Islamist terrorists who follow the Wahhabism Islamic doctrine, the very same doctrine of Da’ish (ISIS). They have no respect for Kafir, the Arabic term for "unbeliever", or "disbeliever". The term itself alludes to a person who rejects or disbelieves in Allah and the teachings of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and denies the dominion and authority of Allah; or otherwise does not heed the beliefs and prescriptions held by the religion of Islam.
Indeed Kafir are deeply loathed by Allah with specific passages of the Qur'an that would amount to what we in modern times would categorize as hate speech: 2:10, 2:99, 2:171, 3:73, 3:28, 6:106, 8:55, 9:28, 48:29. These passages specifically refute your argument regarding a mutual goal of respect.
I could go further arguing "peace" with Kafir cannot exist in the face of jihad, for example 8:12: "I will instill terror into the hearts of Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them".
Sadly I could go on but I think my point is made.
The root of your argument is cultural relativism, and the fallacy that all culture is equivalent. Some cultures are superior to others if we compare merit and achievement. For example, when faced with the decision to live under a secular state (where there is a separation of religion and government) or to live under a theocracy (government in which a deity is the source from which all authority derives) I submit that history has shown that it is far better to live under a secular state. If you agree with this than you are making a value judgement that a secular state is better than a theocracy... and therefore rejecting cultural relativism. At this point your whole argument unravels.
We're no longer dealing with some Marxist hippies kidnapping planes for show.
The new breed we deal with is hell bent on destroying the so-called West. This "homeopathic" solution you present is only enabling them more.
Or, to put it into terms closer to the demographic majority of HN, "we have also recently started to experiment with using AI to understand text that might be undermining the authority of the Oval office".
Given that Facebook collects data from a ton of sources besides facebook.com (even your CC data), it's literally a Big Brother scenario. Big "AI-powered" Brother without any oversight or responsibility.
> But counterspeech is only effective if it comes from credible speakers.
No it isn't. It's also effective if the background noise of conversation in your life is countering the "terrorism supporting narratives". Credible people are important. But not the only pillar. If you have a lot of voices countering the terrorists' narratives then you can get somewhere too.
Overall tho I'm a fan of this post as a step in the right direction, not just for FB realizing it can do something to counter t, but also awakening to its wider role in the world.
Yes, but terrorists may use roads, buses, local grocery shops, cinemas. Should all of those places counter terrorism?
If someone was walking around a grocery store with posters of corpses and passing out literature that advocates violence, they sure as hell would and should get kicked out.
The response to terrorism seems to demand ever increasing surveillance, collaboration between tech companies and intelligence agencies to undermine user privacy, militarizing of police forces, limiting free speech and political expression, control of the media (including social media), extrajudicial detainment and murder on a global scale.
And yet, every time there is an attack, it seems there's a clear and obvious trail of evidence leading to the conspirators that was ignored, which could have been followed up on by existing methods.
Is it the case that terrorists are just that good or that governments are only pretending to fight them in order to justify authoritarian power grabs?
That's probably not the issue FB is countering. They are/should be focussed on the content that's spreading radicalization/extremism. Lots of pages do that and since so many people have access someone is bound to be attracted!
Just recently a young female doctor from Pakistan was in news becausr she joined a terrorists group because she liked there posts/propaganda videos on FB. Thankfully she was caught during a operation!
Thag content really needs to be controlled! It's making small groups being a able to raise money/attract followers quite easily with just a private fb group or page!!
Why would they ban these people? Why not shadow ban them, shadow ban the entire thread, and then turn over those IP addresses to the FBI or NSA, who could then prosecute the targets with prejudice?
Why does FB think they can solve the world's problems by shuffling electrons around the internet? Some problems have to be solved in meatspace.
Because dead people can't sell clicks, but stories about dead people sell a lot of clicks. So let them die, just keep the evidence out of Zuck's money-making machine.
I wish our country could do something similar but Pakistan doesn't send terrorists by plane :|
Our country already extremely vets, tracks the movement and stay of Pakistani nationals inside our borders. I know of a few people who have married Pakistani nationals and stay in Mumbai. They undergo the most inhumane scrutiny. You want an ankle bracelet on you when you live in the US? Terrorist attacks in India have seldom been committed by visa travellers. It has either been disgruntled natives like Tiger memon colluding with corrupt Indian officials or poor security infrastructure which leads to ttacks over water. I am sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.
Using AI model's to monitor all 1-1 conversations in the world is too dangerous of a power - it increases the risk for tyrany much more than it decreases the risk of terrorism.
I have something that might not be that relevant. Consider China's control of conversations on Weibo as a microcosm of "all 1-1 conversations". Assume they are using some sort of AI there ( there's a good argument for any sufficiently large bureaucracy being AI-like ). Is it really so bad? They've tracked huge GDP growth for 70 years and very low civil conflict, and much harmony, I think, from some points of view, definitely.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Basically, if we wanted to eliminate terrorism, we would have severely curtail freedom. And there aren't nearly as many terrorists as people think. More people die from car crashes, drug overdoses, etc. But changes in the law, the way police and law enforcement do things, could cause a loss of the liberties and freedoms we currently enjoy.
" some terrorism as opposed to the curtailing of freedoms that would come from eliminating" [1]
is preferable ?
I completely took it to mean: "I would prefer to live in the Islamic State, than in the USA with mass surveillance."
Okay, well I'm undecided as to whether [1] would be preferable or not in the way it's phrased. What I have thought about tho is:
- Yes we could eliminate terrorism, and it would take a lot of extreme measures ( that the West would be unlikely to get away with )
- But why should we eliminate terrorism, since from a purely political standpoint, it is quite useful. From any sufficiently emotive or divisive issue political motivation and utility can be extracted. For instance, the fear of terrorism helps the State advance legislation that it probably would not be talking about if we did not have terrorism. So the funny paradox I see is that, at this stage of human development, our States can actually benefit from using the spectre of terrorism to develop and advance themselves. Please take this in no way to mean justifying terrorism in any way...just to say that, IMHO, real politik dictates that terrorism has political benefits for the very State it is supposed to politically disadvantage.
If you want to say that the state can get away with things it couldn't before because of a war on something it can't win, I'm with you. The "war on drugs" is about as useful as waiting for Godot. But make no mistake, nobody thinks its about drugs.
But overall, you seem to be taking these arguments to extremes that weren't really needed, and I'm not sure why. Nobody said anything about living in the Islamic State, and anyone who would take it that way I think has some serious thinking to do about their perspective.
Would you rather live in a European country where terrorist attacks happen on a semi-regular basis and are in the news, or would you prefer North Korea where the state is very strong and terrorism is unheard of?
You could just as easily say Paris v Warsaw, or Berlin v Shanghai.
TL;DR - comparison with NK is unfair since NK is very hostile to all foreigners and has few attractive economic reasons to live there, it doesn't offer much to potential expats / migrants. But Warsaw or China or HK, or SG have strong policies that seem to have stifled terrorism ( for now ). The fear of "police state == (NK or Burma)" is overblown. You can have strong policies and still have many attractive qualities.
Sorry, I feel the above isn't very clear, but it's the best I could do right now. Thanks
I mean, I like Singapore, but I'm not a fan of having one party that runs everything, the draconian drug laws and wide application of the death penalty. It's also worth pointing out that large numbers of the wealthy have left HK (and been replaced by transplants from China) and a similar trend has been happening in SG for decades
This time is now past and religious preaching it should make it clear that the values from a thousand years ago don't have place on modern society.
Many Islamic preachers recognize and openly criticize, they are just a minority usually refered as the uncle toms.