octavian on 3/2/2015 at 09:54
Quote Posted by Yakoob
I think the big counter argument is that it does make a difference - if you can find the "cause" you can learn to prevent it.
Preventing the "cause" is a non-issue. You're already in the effect. That's a bit like getting drunk and thinking, if I can find the cause I can learn to prevent it. You find out that you drank too much so you decide not to drink alcohol ever again, just to be sure. Problem is, it's going to take a couple hundred years for your system to process the alcohol you already drank. And when you reach that point some other drama will happen and it will be the same thing all over again. Even though it may seem like we're talking about discrete events, one "here", one "there", events that you could prevent, you're dealing with ideas, large numbers of people and different cultures. That's quite a bit of inertia.
DDL on 3/2/2015 at 10:05
So your response to problems is to just go "whelp, screw it: we're already pretty fucked, so why try harder?"
That's not a very constructive attitude.
faetal on 3/2/2015 at 10:55
Octavian - to extend your analogy, you can stop drunk and sober up, rather than continue drinking.
octavian on 3/2/2015 at 12:15
Quote Posted by DDL
So your response to problems is to just go "whelp, screw it: we're already
pretty fucked, so why try harder?" That's not a very constructive attitude.
Who should try harder? Me?
I'm self-employed EU citizen, peaking somewhere below average inteligence on my best of days and working hard just to be on the very bottom of the middle class. I shouldn't be doing anything else than paying taxes and not causing trouble. So I'm already doing pretty much all I
can do.
As far as the France incident goes, I bought a crate of wine. From France. Made in France. And both me and her have been using french perfumes pretty much since forever, simply because the frags we like just happen to be french. From France. Made in France. A happy coincidence. Just giving some money to France. Here you go France! As far as I'm concerned, I'm done. Maybe I'll buy two vinyls of Daft Punk's next album. Maybe. Just because, you know, France.
If it's come to the point of
me trying any harder than that
then we're
pretty fucked. Because I can't do anything more than that. Most people can't either. And even if I could, I don't know what. And the general consensus among both high ranking officials in and out of power and highly educated intelectuals is that they don't know what to do either. If a solution already exists, it's not at all obvious to anybody.
This is my opinion and it's constructive for me personally as it keeps me from getting confused about life. I may be wrong in my analysis though.
And to extend it even further faetal, worst would be not remembering all the stupid things you did.
DDL on 3/2/2015 at 12:55
I think you may no longer be in the same discussion, or possibly even postcode.
The general theme here is roughly whether religion is a positive influence, negative influence, or a more nuanced mix of both, and....what might be possible fixes for religiously-motivated bad things like suicide bombers and shit.
Saying "it's not about religion it's about Putin and shit carpets and people breaking in coz of drugs or something but we're all fucked anyway and I buy french wine and PAY MY TAXES DAMNIT" is....an interesting, but fairly tangential, bit of existential commentary.
And I'm not entirely sure what sort of response is appropriate. It's non-sequiturgeddon, here.
demagogue on 3/2/2015 at 13:27
It maybe useful if the point is to blast the assumption that political motivation and religious motivation are qualitatively different in the first place. If they aren't, then I think it's a perfectly reasonable response to extend a middle finger to the ivory tower framing of the topic and reground it in reality.
The trend in cogsci these days is to model human motivation where economic, political, and religous behavior are all manifestations of the same framework. A book like Freakonomics is a popular example, though I wouldn't say that book's answers have to be useful here.
There are lots of ways to make the point, but one would be noticing that contemporary Christians and atheists have a more similar worldview (religion in the deep sense) than contemporary Christians and ancient Christians. And to the extent that's true, focusing on religion in general is to have already missed the point of what part of a worldview is doing the real work behind all kinds if behavioral patterns. Look at how people really act, not how they say they act. Terrorists are probably not very trustworthy understanding their own motivations, as they have no education on behavioral matters, and their attribution to religious belief simpliciter is suspect at best.
DDL on 3/2/2015 at 13:44
I would say that for something like a suicide attack (and most of these recent shootings are suicide attacks in all but name: these are not stealthy assassins slipping back into the shadows), you really need religion of some sort.
It'd be vastly less easy to convince someone to blow themselves up, or commit suicide by angry french swat team, without the promise of "something after".
Even things like patriotism ("I am willing to DIE for my country") usually apply less to actual death, and more to 'risking your life':
I believe my country is important enough to risk my life for, yes.
I believe my country is important enough that I am actually going to kill myself, right now, right here....no.
I'm not saying it's impossible to convince someone to blow up a building for the cause of "lower taxes on the middle-income bracket and more affordable dental care, which you won't see, because you'll be dead", but it's certainly more difficult than the heaven story.
Thirith on 3/2/2015 at 13:52
School shootings and the like are also quasi-suicide attacks, yet they're usually not motivated by religion, as far as I know.
DDL on 3/2/2015 at 14:32
Ah! Good argument! So now we're comparing "religious motivation" with "bleak, nihilistic death-wish motivation", which is a more valid comparison than "religious motivation" with "political motivation", to my mind.
Thirith on 3/2/2015 at 15:13
Where do you draw the line, though, and what sort of line is it you're drawing? I could imagine that with all three motivations, there may be a fundamental element of "I don't like the world as it currently is, and I wish to bring about a different world, even if it results in my own death." I'm not convinced there's as clear-cut a distinction as you suggest.
