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On March 24 2017 06:40 LegalLord wrote:
Arguably the social effect of terrorism is more important than actual deaths. People are rightfully frightened by terror attacks and public safety takes a nosedive. Yes, it does reduce casualties via risk management but treating terrorism as "you are about as likely to die in a terrorist attack than be struck by lightning" shouldn't be so dismissive.
Terrorists kill 100 children at a school? The death count isn't that big in the grand scheme of things. But the effect in general on the perception of safety of children at school is rightfully changed. And rightfully so.
You can't really control individual acts of terror though, you can only control your response to it. If you pile up more and more security you set yourself up for an even bigger public outrage when it inevitably fails. With every increase in security you are turning yourself more fragile because you are more easily scared, you don't end up more robust.
You can only control terrorism by controlling your response to it, you can't eliminate terrorism itself. If that level of risk is unacceptable you cannot even leave your house. You would be paralyzed 24 hours every day.
And obtaining weapons gets easier and easier anyway. You can use a car, in a few years you can probably rig up a 200$ drone or whatever and social media isn't going away either. That's a race no public authority can ever catch up with.
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On March 24 2017 06:40 LegalLord wrote:
Arguably the social effect of terrorism is more important than actual deaths. People are rightfully frightened by terror attacks and public safety takes a nosedive. Yes, it does reduce casualties via risk management but treating terrorism as "you are about as likely to die in a terrorist attack than be struck by lightning" shouldn't be so dismissive.
Terrorists kill 100 children at a school? The death count isn't that big in the grand scheme of things. But the effect in general on the perception of safety of children at school is rightfully changed. And rightfully so.
I'm the only person I know who thinks we're doing way too much for "security" (as I view security as an unnecessary mirage). Other people generally argue that we should do as much as possible to prevent terrorism *without* renouncing our values. I can see the merit of that position as well. When you point out that terrorism isn't a very big problem in the world today, it's not really to say that we shouldn't fight it or that it doesn't matter, it's to counter arguments that we should be doing more than what we're doing now, which is basically everything we can within the limits of a fair system.
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The goal of terrorism is to make a country change its way of life and influence its politics through fear. Giving up civil liberties due to freely admitted irrational fears of terrorist attacks that are extremely unlikely to happen is the terrorist's goal.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
To each event a proportional response, of course. If it's reckless not to have tight security (e.g. around legislative offices and important national landmarks) then it's on you if a terrorist gets through. Beyond that, a law enforcement and surveillance proportional to the threat (how big a police to fund, where to place security cams, etc., according to the threat). Sure, it's not time to go full police state in response to one rogue terrorist attack. But "more likely to get struck by lightning" folk are also not acting proportionately. A massive increase in potential terrorists should, at the very least, come with a reasonably larger security response. And in places where the terrorism threat is genuinely quite large (e.g. organized terrorist groups killing people on a regular basis), the measures can and should be far more severe - police state, send in the tanks, start killing and imprisoning agitators, and so on.
Where does the UK fall on this spectrum? Quite far towards "things are safe enough and this is just a rogue event we shouldn't overreact to." The signs (previous criminal record, Muslim, 52 years old, little history of terrorism) are not insignificant, but also not glaring and underappreciated (counterexample: Boston bombings where they were explicitly told by foreign intelligence to watch out for the culprits). The tools used were quite benign. This specific case is mostly one that should be handled with some standard soothing language and "it's going to be ok" talk. But let's not generalize that way in response to every attack. The Paris attacks were significantly more than that and deserved a much more aggressive response than what is justified here, and yet the same culprits took the "more likely to be struck by lightning" approach.
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On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind.
On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo.
That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism.
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On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism.
Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless.
Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, you dieing of natural causes or being murdered. Hint: both are bad but one is probably going to be worse than the other.
You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that.
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On March 24 2017 22:16 Reaps wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism. Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless. Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, dieing of natural causes or being murdered. You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that.
In that case, your main focus should still be on trucks or something like that. You are far more likely to die due to a truck driver who hasn't slept enough than from terrorism. And i am pretty sure your family would be very distressed by that, too.
You are also more likely to drown in your bathtub or to be crushed by a falling vending machine if i recall correctly. So both of those should be about as high of a focus as terrorism. And i am pretty sure that you could reduce falling vending machine deaths to basically 0 with far less money than what is being spend on counterterrorism. Just bolt every vending machine to a wall, done.
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On March 24 2017 22:22 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 22:16 Reaps wrote:On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism. Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless. Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, dieing of natural causes or being murdered. You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that. In that case, your main focus should still be on trucks or something like that. You are far more likely to die due to a truck driver who hasn't slept enough than from terrorism. And i am pretty sure your family would be very distressed by that, too. You are also more likely to drown in your bathtub or to be crushed by a falling vending machine if i recall correctly. So both of those should be about as high of a focus as terrorism. And i am pretty sure that you could reduce falling vending machine deaths to basically 0 with far less money than what is being spend on counterterrorism. Just bolt every vending machine to a wall, done.
Yep, you're also more likely to be struck by lightning, so lets cut all costs to counter terrorism to zero, infact lets just remove all intelligence and security forces all together, it'll be great i promise.
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On March 24 2017 22:16 Reaps wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism. Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless. Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, you dieing of natural causes or being murdered. Hint: both are bad but one is probably going to be worse than the other. You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that.
I think going through months of agonizing painful treatments, dying anyway, and leaving my family saddled with medical debt is a lot worse than them finding out that I got stabbed and died within hours.
Of course that's not really the point though, I'm not saying terrorism is cheerful. What I'm saying is that spending billions of dollars to save 10 lives a year is preposterous compared to spending billions to find a cure for Alzheimer's or cancer or automobile safety mechanisms that would save tens of thousands or millions.
I mean, consider this type of butterfly effect. The UK goes shifts into a complete Orwellian totalitarian state in order to stave off terrorist attacks. As a result all of their educated people flee to other countries to escape oppression. Now more people are dying than before due to a lack of educated people being able to solve problems. Is that a worthy trade-off to save that microscopic percentage of people that would be killed be terrorists?
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On March 24 2017 22:31 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 22:16 Reaps wrote:On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism. Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless. Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, you dieing of natural causes or being murdered. Hint: both are bad but one is probably going to be worse than the other. You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that. I think going through months of agonizing painful treatments, dying anyway, and leaving my family saddled with medical debt is a lot worse than them finding out that I got stabbed and died within hours. Of course that's not really the point though, I'm not saying terrorism is cheerful. What I'm saying is that spending billions of dollars to save 10 lives a year is preposterous compared to spending billions to find a cure for Alzheimer's or cancer or automobile safety mechanisms that would save tens of thousands or millions. I mean, consider this type of butterfly effect. The UK goes shifts into a complete Orwellian totalitarian state in order to stave off terrorist attacks. As a result all of their educated people flee to other countries to escape oppression. Now more people are dying than before due to a lack of educated people being able to solve problems. Is that a worthy trade-off to save that microscopic percentage of people that would be killed be terrorists?
I think LegalLord summed it up the best, there should be proportional response for each attack, this means no over reacting and also not under reacting, this is my thoughts on the subject, and he explained it better than i probably could of.
I feel our security forces are already doing a great job, they foil more attacks all the time, however it is impossible to stop them all, i never claimed otherwise
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On March 24 2017 22:45 Reaps wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 22:31 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 22:16 Reaps wrote:On March 24 2017 22:03 LightSpectra wrote:On March 24 2017 06:29 maybenexttime wrote:
@LightSpectra
You're forgetting that many of those causes do not end your life very prematurely and violently. While the number of deaths from terrorist attacks would still be insignificant compared to deaths from transport accident, you have to keep the former in mind. On March 24 2017 06:32 Reaps wrote:
Yea pretty much, this is the argument the gun nuts make in the gun thread, comparing natural deaths to being violently murdered, doesn't really work imo. That's a great argument, guys. After all, as everybody knows, dying of cancer or an automobile accident or Alzheimer's is totally painless and peaceful. The only tragedy in the world is of course terrorism. Oh please, stop with the strawman, nobody has said these diseases are painless. Ask yourself what would be more distressing for your family, you dieing of natural causes or being murdered. Hint: both are bad but one is probably going to be worse than the other. You're no better than the right wing gun nuts if you wanna use strawmen like that. I think going through months of agonizing painful treatments, dying anyway, and leaving my family saddled with medical debt is a lot worse than them finding out that I got stabbed and died within hours. Of course that's not really the point though, I'm not saying terrorism is cheerful. What I'm saying is that spending billions of dollars to save 10 lives a year is preposterous compared to spending billions to find a cure for Alzheimer's or cancer or automobile safety mechanisms that would save tens of thousands or millions. I mean, consider this type of butterfly effect. The UK goes shifts into a complete Orwellian totalitarian state in order to stave off terrorist attacks. As a result all of their educated people flee to other countries to escape oppression. Now more people are dying than before due to a lack of educated people being able to solve problems. Is that a worthy trade-off to save that microscopic percentage of people that would be killed be terrorists? I think LegalLord summed it up the best, there should be proportional response for each attack, this means no over reacting and also not under reacting, this is my thoughts on the subject, and he explained it better than i probably could of. I feel our security forces are already doing a great job, they foil more attacks all the time, however it is impossible to stop them all, i never claimed otherwise
Then I don't think I have any qualm with you, we seem to be in agreement.
SoSexy on the other hand is essentially arguing that first-world countries become fully Orwellian states, or perhaps fascist conclaves, in order to stave off potential terrorist attacks.
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Yes, I also wants giant robots randomly purging immigrant suburbs. Go take your pills now.
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On March 24 2017 23:01 SoSexy wrote:
Yes, I also wants giant robots randomly purging immigrant suburbs. Go take your pills now.
Earlier you had this exchange:
Kwark: "So, if I'm understanding you correctly, your response to this attack is to argue that the British government should introduce new laws to make the distribution of anti-government leaflets punishable by lifetime imprisonment without appeal in the hope that potential terrorists will make the mistake of spreading leaflets before they attack, thus allowing them to be stopped by this new law. You acknowledge the risk that a potential terrorist might do something other than distribute leaflets before their attack but think that a life sentence for leaflets, and only leaflets, is appropriate because you don't want to stray too far down the slippery slope.
That about right?"
You: "Not sure about right, but if the other option is doing nothing, sign me up for it."
Considering open government and the freedom of speech to criticize it are the bedrocks of modern liberal democracy, I don't see what's so ludicrous about how I characterized your opinion.
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Oh yes, I am still backing that one up. If someone is distributing ISIS leaflets, it should not be considered free speech but hate speech. They are not creating a discussion that will boost our democracy and enlight us with new perspectives. Do you get this?
Now answer this: If I go to Berlin and start distributing nazi leaflets and the police comes and arrests me, would you say that this is a totalitarian way of acting who undermines 'the bedrocks of modern liberal democracy'? The response to islamic terrorism should be the same.
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What's an "ISIS leaflet" or a "Nazi leaflet"? If it specifically has some ISIS or Nazi symbology that's specifically outlawed, then sure. No problem.
But that line was blurred a long time ago when fascists started arguing that anybody who doesn't endorse fascism as a counter to terrorism is therefore a sympathizer to terrorists themselves. Hence why Geert Wilders wanted to completely outlaw Islam in the Netherlands, etc.
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United States42771 Posts
On March 24 2017 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:
What's an "ISIS leaflet" or a "Nazi leaflet"? If it specifically has some ISIS or Nazi symbology that's specifically outlawed, then sure. No problem.
But that line was blurred a long time ago when fascists started arguing that anybody who doesn't endorse fascism as a counter to terrorism is therefore a sympathizer to terrorists themselves. Hence why Geert Wilders wanted to completely outlaw Islam in the Netherlands, etc.
The specific examples of the leaflets were given at the start of the discussion
They were leaflets saying "fight for Islam" and "resist the modern crusaders". SoSexy wants those to be punished by life imprisonment with no appeal.
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Good. Then we agree that people doing ISIS propaganda should be arrested the same way people doing nazi propaganda are arrested in Germany. I doubt that makes us totalitarian.
I don't believe your second part of the post is relevant to our current discussion but that could easily spark another heated discussion (not on this thread I think).
Last thing I wanted to say is let's not play with words. Asking what a nazi leaflet is is redundant - you intuitively know what it is, come on. As a philosophy graduate I like to play these games myself but let's keep it real. It would be hard to call something like this not-nazi + Show Spoiler +, or something like this, distributed in London (!), not pro-ISIS + Show Spoiler +
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United States42771 Posts
Literally nobody here is agreeing with you SoSexy. We all think you're a fascist. Whatever school you got your philosophy degree from owes you a refund.
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You are free to think what you want. If you are interested, however, I have never voted for a neo-fascist party (which in Italy, btw, took 0.26% at the last elections). So relax, Kwark. And chill - I know you are a moderator and will never get sanctioned, but attacking my degree is really low.
P.S. also your correlation between degree and fascism makes no sense. Gentile was the theoretical father of fascism and we all know Heidegger's sympathies towards nazism.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://thegameinquirer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/leaflet_3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed-lg/public/2014/08/12/isis-leaflet-london.jpg)
