Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindstab | Hacker News Reader

I don't even know what to say or do about the top comments here:

"The people ... are declining to use thoughtful discussion to show that they are anything other than blights on humankind."

" It's clear that they're stuck in the Middle Ages, and I don't think any amount of intervention is going to change that."

And plenty more

This kind of sad attitude is exactly what maintains the status quo. This "we invented the internet so we are endlessly right and better than you" attitude.

People are mad because "they/we"[?] created like the most offensive video in a bit (I'm sure if I made a $5 budget video of jesus eating babies there are plenty of people in the Bible belt of the states who'd like to kill me) and just wantonly posted it online and then use the reaction to say that those people are degenerate and inferior and always were and always will be.

Do you have any idea of the greater context? I mean lets start with American meddling in the whole middle east region? Drone strikes on families and funnels and weddings killing entire families. And then downhill from there.

I think people forget to begin with there is some pretty bad american sentiment out there.

Top it with leaked pictures of depraved sexual torture from american POW camps and more desecration of holy books and it suddenly looks like America is working over time to piss people off.

So yes, you take a historically poor, starving and undereducated people and do this to them, and they are going to get violently mad.

But to maintain such disdain towards them just feeds the problem.

We desperately need to engage them, to understand them, to win them over, to promote education and health and food [probably in reverse order].

This kind of arrogant hubris makes me really sad that this supposedly smart community can be so stupid with issues out side of machines and dealing with tolerance and the world as a whole and different societies. Such narrow mindedness is just... well it shows us up to be no better than those we are maligning despite all our supposed advantages

:(

>This kind of arrogant hubris makes me really sad that this supposedly smart community can be so stupid with issues out side of machines and dealing with tolerance and the world as a whole and different societies. Such narrow mindedness is just... well it shows us up to be no better than those we are maligning despite all our supposed advantages

You must forgive me for being intolerant of intolerance. The state religion (which, btw, going against is likely to get you killed) is used, daily and regularly (unlike the USA where Christianity's greatest day-to-day crime is saying mean things and holding back progressive legislation) to justify barbaric acts of cruelty against women and others. Acid attacks, stoning, the works.

So you are damn right I maintain disdain towards such a culture. I identify as a moral relativist to a point, but I can't justify, under any possible system throwing acid in the face of a woman for having sex or saying something.

It is an utterly backwards, barbaric, hateful culture. If calling a spade a spade makes me intolerant, so be it.

My point is that that attitude is useless. Great, you feel better for seeing something you don't like and calling it out.

You know what you aren't doing? HELPING the victims?

You REALLY care? Then step up, and engage. Swallow your pride and try and find ways to engage so that one day maybe things can be better.

Because I'm pretty damn sure just sitting on our side of the fence and ignoring them or calling them names is not going to change anything.

That's just it. You can't just change a culture and a religion like that - it has to happen organically. Ask a US armed services member what happens when you come in and try to force change on a nation.

And it is coming around, albeit very, very slowly. Women just gained the right to drive in some places.

There is nothing you or I can do, from within the USA, to effectively change the culture of a third world nation. I'd love to be proven wrong.

Oddly Saudi Arabia has just the other mindset, and is being wonderfully effective at working against the US. They are pouring tons of money into their religious schools which in many places are just the only place you can even go for any education. And so they are raising a new generation all over the world. All through out the middle east, but even more audaciously they recently opened on of their schools in central Paris to much controversy.

So yes, I agree short term forced solutions like armed invasions are extremely poor ways to effect chance (except retrograde) I do believe economic engagement and education promotion are the key. And yes, it takes longer, I agree you can't really change anything this drastic in any kind of short term (10 years is a short time). But there are long term ways we can effect change faster than ignoring it (imho ignoring it will probably let it get much worse)

So we can wait and see, does the American invade and destroy all infrastructure way work? Does the ignoring the problem and insulting it work? or does deep long term engagement and education work.

My bet's on the way the Saudi's are taking it. Which imho sucks for everyone.

EDIT:

for example

http://vimeo.com/46337060

This is an example of what I think is EXACTLY the right way to be moving forward: empowering a new generation and showing them freedom and other of our beliefs rock and giving them education to think critically not emotionally.

It will take time but this x100 or x1000 I think is the way to start changing things

Why the hell do "we" have to do anything? How about withdrawing all troops, aid, and support - since it's clear that when we meddle in their shit, it gets worse?

What about members of that culture living in America ? Is it racism to "point out the spade" ? It is beyond obvious that this hateful islamic culture is not going to stay contained, whatever Americans' thoughts on the issue.

It is painful to see that the only "moderate" reaction is a few tweets. Everybody seems to be too afraid of these backward muslim morons to point out that they are backward islamic morons.

I'd love to live in a world where live and let live works, but that's not this world. Islam started with massacring Jews, atheists and Christians by the thousands, and the only advancement since has been increasing numbers.

And please keep in mind that 10th century Egypt was >95% Christian, when evaluating their "tolerance" (and frankly a reading of either Egyptian or Spanish archives from during the relevant periods easily reveals that muslims were not, at all, tolerant during those periods).

boy, don't you feel sheepish, now that we know it was the Taliban that coordinated and planned these attacks?

what does that have to do with this board's general close and simple mindedness when it comes to geopolitics and interacting with different cultures. It seems like a lot of the people here have the depth of a tom clancy novel

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