Friday, June 09, 2017
Hesperado Podcast #12: "Geronimo Akbar...!!!"
My twelfth podcast. This one about eleven minutes long. As faithful listeners will be able to tell, I'm relaxing into my podcasts, this time with lurches into subtly goofy humor here and there.
Links mentioned in my podcast:
Jihad Watch article on the jihadist preacher living in Michigan who incited the London Muslim
Various articles on the "Rabbit Pack" at Jihad Watch comments:
Nettles & Nits: From the Jihad Watch comments archives...
An "Angemon Watch" or a "Fessitude Watch" continued...
Au revoir, Jihad Watch...
Counter-Jihad Mainstream deficiencies (again...)
And now, for Hesperado Podcast XII:
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19 comments:
I'm a fan of this blog for several reasons. Mainly, I like the pseudo-intellectual construction of the arguments. Good writing and good vocabulary really make it seem that all the alarmism about some showdown with Islam may have some basis in reality.
There's just one problem, and that's honesty. I really wish the author had the onions (applies to testes or ovaries in case author is man or woman) to advocate for the only positions that can be gleaned from this endlessly bloated exposition: We need to kill or intern all of the Muslims. We need a massive invasion of the entire ME and Muslim world where we subjugate, convert, or kill all of the Muslims. Every man, woman, and child. We need a huge cull of humanity, between 1/3 to 1/4 of the world's population.
Instead of writing endlessly snarky pieces about MC PC and other BS, why not say what you want to see HAPPEN.
Well Steve, there's probably not a question or criticism or complaint I haven't already seen (or heard) over the years -- usually many times. Ditto for your, "Okay, so Islam is really bad; now what do you want to DO about this problem?" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that rhetorical question, I'd be as wealthy as an Arab Emirate...
On one level, it's a fair question; but on another level, it can either be obtuse, or a sly way of dismissing the analysis with prejudice. What such a questioner would be doing is trying to force the conversation to leap past, or over, a necessary first step -- namely, what is the nature of the problem in the first place? People can't discuss a problem if their views on its nature diverge markedly (if not wildly).
This leads to a logical point: If a person can be persuaded to agree, more or less, that the nature of the problem of Islam is X, then they will see what ways to manage it make sense. If a house is on fire, but one of two people discussing it doesn't believe it's actually on fire, he's obviously going to dismiss the other's concern about what to do about it -- "You can't douse a perfectly fine home with a thousand gallons of water! You'll ruin all the carpeting, wood floors, and furniture, and the expensive grand piano in the living room! Are you nuts?"
Etc.
Anyway, Steve may not realize that I have taken stabs in the past at "what to do" about the problem, most notably in these essays one can find on this Google page:
https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=hesperado+iron+veil&oq=hesperado+iron+veil&gs_l=hp.3...2495.5256.0.6868.20.10.0.0.0.0.1399.2819.0j4j1j5-1j0j1.7.0..3..0...1.1.64.hp..13.6.1414.0..0j0i131k1j0i30k1j33i160k1.ReZlahc9K24
One reason I have been reluctant to go into this dimension of the problem in a gung ho way is what I mentioned above: We "warriors of ideas" in the so-called Counter-Jihad need to inform the public of the actual nature of the problem first and foremost; "solutions" will flow naturally and logically from that, given that most people in the West are not crazy or brain-damaged (I think).
Secondly, it's not our job to do anything about such a vast and complex public safety issue: that should be the job of our "fourth estate" (the news media) to inform us, and of our political representatives to protect our lives and infrastructure (one would think that's their main job by which they are working FOR US). But what we, as concerned citizens, can and should do is try to raise awareness of the problem -- what it actually is, as opposed to the anodyne whitewashing that goes on in the mainstream.
A much tidier way to search you posts in google is as follows, which will only return the search term on your blog. Simply put htis into google:
site:http://hesperado.blogspot.com iron veil
After reading some more of your posts, you have severe problems in your reasoning, mostly stemming form a lack of empirical input. That said, the way you step away from your own conclusions is revolting.
1. You completely exaggerate the problem of radical Islam to the West. I see no evidence cited by you (et al. making similar claims) that makes your point that we will have a world war in 10 years, that Sharia is coming to America, etc. Europe clearly has a problem, but the notion that it's an existential threat is without evidence. It's in fact, silly. Fun analogies about houses on fire are no replacement for empirical evidence.
2. You pay lip service to the historical antecedents of the mostly terrible state of the Mulsim world. You and your ilk would have us believe that they're "just bad", or have a violent culture, or it's the Koran (despite all the books having horrific calls to violence). The Wonderful West would NEVER have visited barbaric violence on them, would we? In fact, we have never really let up since colonization, producing a perfect breeding-ground for hate and extremism with a combination of endless resource wars and pre-empting any local choice by installing our puppets. This isn't MC PC, this is history. The Wonderful West has been keeping the region in the stone ages, stealing the resources that might allow them to develop, and lighting their children on fire for years - but WHY DO THEY HATE US??? I don't get it!
As you point out over and over, we're Fucking Great! WHY don't they LOVE US!!!!
Part of stopping radical Islam is changing our policies toward the ME. As great as we are.
3. This is the best though:
"Okay, so Islam is really bad; now what do you want to DO about this problem?" If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that rhetorical question, I'd be as wealthy as an Arab Emirate...
This would imply that you don't know know what a rhetorical questions is. But you seem to be educated (English degree I'm guessing from your good writing and poor logical construction + lack of empiricism), so I don't think that's the case. Why would I be asking this rhetorically? Why would anyone? The problem is, your answer is embedded in everything you write, but you don't want to own it due to you cowardice.
You guys paint this picture of a an existential threat to civilizatio, but then want to stop short of making any recommendations? Not your job? The house is on fire!!!!! But, I'm never said we need water....
Intellectually, you are a fucking coward. All of you that push this horseshit. You and your ilk want to imply internment, genocide, and world war are the only hope (after all, you JUST TOLD us that our very survival depends on them), but then you want to walk away from it. Disgusting. I envy you, because I feel life without the feeling of shame must be quite liberating. You advocate for the murder of millions through war or worse on a blog about how OTHER PEOPLE are barbaric. I'm sure the irony IS lost on you.
I don't know what's worse, the lowly state of your evidence that Islam is an existential threat to the West or your cowardice in not owning the logical conclusions of that poorly evidenced argument. Wrapping it in this humanities intelligentsia is a close third, that's for sure.
Steve12 wrote:
"1. You completely exaggerate the problem of radical Islam to the West. I see no evidence cited by you (et al. making similar claims) that makes your point that we will have a world war in 10 years, that Sharia is coming to America, etc. Europe clearly has a problem, but the notion that it's an existential threat is without evidence. It's in fact, silly. Fun analogies about houses on fire are no replacement for empirical evidence."
Let's take this sentence by sentence:
"You completely exaggerate the problem of radical Islam to the West."
This claim of Steve's is certainly possible; but of course it would have to be demonstrated to be persuasive.
"I see no evidence cited by you (et al. making similar claims) that makes your point that we will have a world war in 10 years..."
One reason why Steve has seen no evidence of this claim -- that "we will have a world war in 10 years" -- is that I've never made such a claim. As far as I know, I don't set any specific date for the escalating carnage that I think will happen; though I do think it is likely that probably before the 21st century is over, the West will be reduced to such widespread violent disorder by Muslims as to cause a general breakdown in social order, even of our civilization. Whether the West could survive after that point I think is dubious.
However, my thoughts on a third "world war" have been articulated in a few essays, most directly "Asymmetrical World War", where I note that Islam is already at war with the world, and has been for 1,400 years, though the West for various complex reasons can't see this. It's a curious world war, where only one side knows it's at war. (In previous centuries, notably the millennium from the 7th to the 17th centuries, it seemed the West had little difficulty recognizing that Mohammedans were at war with them and trying to conquer them.)
So Steve is off to a great start; already right at the beginning strawmanning me.
Still on Steve's #1:
When Steve complains that I "completely exaggerate the problem of radical Islam to the West", he is defining such "complete exaggeration" as claiming that in 10 years "we will have a world war". As I already noted above, I've never said this. A "complete exaggeration" of a problem -- particularly one as complex as Islam -- is not a clearly definable thing, and it's vulnerable to subjective opinion. So before we would discuss this, we'd need a metric we have agreed upon. Secondly, my interlocutor would need to familiarize himself with the mountain of data out there and the ocean of dots requiring a "mental pencil" (as Hugh Fitzgerald puts it) to connect about this problem of Islam. Determining whether Steve has familiarized himself with this mountain & ocean of data & dots would be difficult and would probably take a long time, since the recounting of the sheer litany of it takes time -- i.e., the list of Islamic atrocities and sly duplicity is just too long to summarize. One way to begin to do this would be to give Steve spot-quiz questions -- such as "What happened twice in Kenya in 2016, and why is it relevant to our assessment of the problem of Islam?" That's just an example; I can't of course do that here and now, because I can't trust Steve to resist the temptation to Google. I.e., these kinds of data need to be already known now, and already knowing them shows the degree of familiarity the person has with the problem (how far along he is on the LCPOI -- the Learning Curve of the Problem of Islam). There are probably 100 such questions that should be asked, before one engages in earnest discussion with the Steves of the West.
"Europe clearly has a problem, but the notion that it's an existential threat is without evidence. It's in fact, silly."
Steve is asserting as apodictic certainty what is just his opinion and/or subjective impression (and he's provided no metric by which we can determine if his opinion is even persuasive).
"Fun analogies about houses on fire are no replacement for empirical evidence."
My metaphor of the house on fire was not meant to be empirical evidence for substantiating, or strengthening, my overall general claim of the magnitude of the threat of the global revival of Islamic jihad. Instead, my metaphor of the house on fire was meant to elucidate a specific sub-problem in this nascent dispute-cum-debate: namely, how two people, when beginning to delve into discussion on a problem, need to come to some sort of agreement on what the nature of the problem is, and if they disagree, to come to a mutual understanding of just how they disagree, so that there won't be further misunderstandings (and further straw-men) as they get deeper into the discussion.
You can express all of your ideas fully with 1/3 of the words you use. Very tedious to read. Your stye can’t make up for your poor arguments.
“This claim of Steve's is certainly possible; but of course it would have to be demonstrated to be persuasive.”
The claim that Islam is an existential threat to the West is yours. Burden on you, can’t ask me to prove a negative (basic logic). You revisit this again later, ditto for that assertion.
“One reason why Steve has seen no evidence of this claim -- that "we will have a world war in 10 years" -- is that I've never made such a claim. “
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-future-history-of-world-war-3-or-4.html
“…the list of Islamic atrocities and sly duplicity is just too long to summarize.”
No refutation needed. Just quoted it because it speaks for itself. A long list of Mulsim atrocities (which of course exist) wouldn’t be evidence that they’re an existential threat anyway. I can assemble many “long” lists of bad things many different groups have done, and none of that would speak to whether they were an existential threat to any given civilization. Absurd.
This isn’t a literary critique where whatever hits your mind is correct.
As an aside, I’m also a scientist who made the mistake of reading your essays on evolution. Holy Shit! I’ll say this - you don’t let an almost complete unfamiliarity with the state of evidence get in the way of your pontifications. That’s admirable. You’ve made many of the same mistakes re: this issue, where your inability to use empirical data to make your points is clear.
I also like how you ignored the West’s deeds completely, despite my having written much about it. Bravo sir! If I were you I wouldn’t have waded into that minefield either. The Wonderful West is morally superior and that’s that. Enough with this evidence BS re: our atrocities toward Muslims. You see, when you have a very nice UNIFORM, killing children is OK. That’s just math!
"As for Steve's #2 and 3, he belabors a monstrous strawman, that I imply genocide and internment (but am too cowardly to say so explicitly); even after he found my "Iron Veil" essay which in detail profers another way than genocide, internment, or genocide and internment (namely, total deportation)."
This addresses 2? Not in the least, as I point out above.
HA HA! Your “Iron Veil” idea is to relocate the billions of Muslims in the world to camp-territories. By force. I’m sure that won’t result in a world war, right? No, that’ll go quite smoothly I’d think.
Why don’t we just terraform Mars and put them there? That’s about as realistic, and would probably kill about as many people.
So they’re an evil existential threat to civilization, and the Iron Veil is a less violent and barbaric solution. How could one get the impression that you’d be in favor of internment (which the Iron Veil is a form of…), war, or genocide? I mean, really?!?
Wow. You are the epitome of intelligentsia, with your stylish sentence construction and empty ideas. But the intellectual cowardice to pull back at the last moment from the obvious conclusion that all of your ideas lead to, simply by refusing to give it explicit voice, is the fucking worst.
What a small person you are. Stand up and be counted for chrissakes.
Steve quoted me --
“This claim of Steve's is certainly possible; but of course it would have to be demonstrated to be persuasive.”
-- and wrote:
The claim that Islam is an existential threat to the West is yours. Burden on you, can’t ask me to prove a negative (basic logic). You revisit this again later, ditto for that assertion.
At the very least, the "burden" is equally on both of us; but Steve of course thinks he's right and I'm wrong -- without justifying his claim. How am I different from him (in this regard)? Because I made my claim first? That's childish.
Again Steve quoted me --
“One reason why Steve has seen no evidence of this claim -- that "we will have a world war in 10 years" -- is that I've never made such a claim. “
-- Then offered this link to one of my essays apparently to dispute my protestation:
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-future-history-of-world-war-3-or-4.html
Good God, can Steve not tell that entire essay is an imaginative exercise of a future book review by a fictitious scholar? The fact that I'm quoting a "Prof. Pomegran" whose review is dated "2101" should have alerted him to take off his literal-minded cap and put on his imagination cap while reading. The "future history" I'm imagining is not meant to be my literal belief in what is actually going to happen; I was just outlining one possible scenario. It could have been 20 years, not 10; or 30, or 40, or 50... etc. The minute details are not the point of such an exercise; the overall gist, of a war against the West, is the point, fleshed out imaginatively for rhetorical purposes with some entertainment value. I suppose some would recommend that I post explanatory warnings at the top of such essays for dunderheads like Steve. If it's true that this kind of "for dummies" explanation is necessary in such styles of communication in our general discussion about this issue, then that's one more reason why the West is doomed.
Again Steve quoted me --
“…the list of Islamic atrocities and sly duplicity is just too long to summarize.”
-- then wrote:
"No refutation needed. Just quoted it because it speaks for itself. A long list of Mulsim atrocities (which of course exist) wouldn’t be evidence that they’re an existential threat anyway."
Well, a long list may, or may not be evidence that they're an existential threat. Again, we'd need a metric to understand why one of us says it is, and the other disagrees, and from there move on in the conversation. But apparently Steve wants to stay on the level of, "You're full of shit and I'm right" without any justification or evidence at all. The long list, by the way, is not merely quantitative, but has many qualitative facets; both need to be assimilated to appreciate the force of the data.
"As an aside, I’m also a scientist who made the mistake of reading your essays on evolution. Holy Shit! I’ll say this - you don’t let an almost complete unfamiliarity with the state of evidence get in the way of your pontifications. That’s admirable. You’ve made many of the same mistakes re: this issue, where your inability to use empirical data to make your points is clear."
Steve seems unable to read material as it's presented; my 3-part essay about evolution was mainly an exposition of Evolution Theory in its philosophical dimension -- as I was careful to say more than once in the essay.
[to be continued]
[continued from previous]
"I also like how you ignored the West’s deeds completely, despite my having written much about it."
Yes, Steve wrote "much" about it, but all of what he wrote was just bald, emotive assertion without any evidence; he didn't even bother to cite the usual canards of the "millions of Muslims America murdered in Iraq" (which, of course, ignores the two crucial factors that a) we were there to help Muslims and protect them from the "Tiny Minority of Extremists" who were making their lives hell; and b) that Muslims indulging in suicide bombings and other attacks are the ones responsible for most of the carnage Muslims have been suffering in Iraq).
"HA HA! Your “Iron Veil” idea is to relocate the billions of Muslims in the world to camp-territories. By force. I’m sure that won’t result in a world war, right? No, that’ll go quite smoothly I’d think."
Billions of Muslims? The total population is 1.5 billion. The population of Muslims requiring relocation are a small portion of that (how many Muslims in the West?). Of course it will unfortunately trigger violence; but only if they violently resist getting the fuck out. Steve is obviously basing his emotional reactions on his different assessment of what the nature of the problem is. Hence what I wrote in my first response to him, concerning the importance of two people discussing the problem to come to some mutual understanding of what the nature of the problem is, and how they might disagree on this -- before they embark, galloping merrily with hostile zest as Steve has been doing to leap over to deeper, more complex facets of the problem.
"So they’re an evil existential threat to civilization, and the Iron Veil is a less violent and barbaric solution. How could one get the impression that you’d be in favor of internment (which the Iron Veil is a form of…), war, or genocide? I mean, really?!?"
Deportation with no intent to harm, unless they violently resist, is obviously not genocide. It in fact will be the most humane, least bloody way out of this problem. It's not impossible; it only won't be done because the West is unable to wake up to the horrors of Islam in time. I no longer expect the West will save itself. It's all academic to me at this point. My heart broke after Paris (the Paris attack of Nov. 15). I'm just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic now.
"Wow. You are the epitome of intelligentsia, with your stylish sentence construction and empty ideas. But the intellectual cowardice to pull back at the last moment from the obvious conclusion that all of your ideas lead to, simply by refusing to give it explicit voice, is the fucking worst.
What a small person you are. Stand up and be counted for chrissakes."
Steve has been spiralling onward and upward into this emotionalism all along, and now it has reached a fever pitch of verbal savagery. If Steve thought that he would get any response at all by jabbing his thumb into my chest in hostile, abusive buttonholing, he must be delusional. If, however, he only meant to abuse me while pretending to engage in an critically inquisitive conversation, I have been returning the favor, by no longer really conversing with him, but only referring to him in the third person as a specimen symptomatic of why the West will be destroyed by Muslims eventually.
“Yes, Steve wrote "much" about it, but all of what he wrote was just bald, emotive assertion without any evidence”
At some point I just have to stop and accept your concession. Colonialism is an emotive assertion? Western governments securing the Saudi’s is an emotive assertion? The Shah in Iran? The Iraq war? Have you not heard of these and needed some citations?
Good grief. This is your whole deal and you’re not particularly good at it…
“Billions of Muslims? The total population is 1.5 billion. “
Now I have to explain math to you? That would be billions….
“Of course it will unfortunately trigger violence; but only if they violently resist getting the fuck out. “
HAHAHAHAHAH!! You’ve dedicated your life to telling us these are violent subhumans, but your solution of literal worldwide quarantine will work great if those same people don’t get violent. OMG, this is great. You can’t be this daft. You’re fucking with me now, right?
“Steve has been spiralling onward and upward into this emotionalism all along”
Besides the fact that “emotionalism” isn’t really a thing, your 2 cent point that somehow assertions gain or lose rational value based on whether the person making the assertion has a working limbic system and feels emotion is a pretty dumb point. Probably not worth calling out at this point. But look, there I’ve gone and done it.
“If Steve thought that he would get any response at all by jabbing his thumb into my chest in hostile, abusive buttonholing, he must be delusional.”
a. You have responded so…
b. Awwww… Is the genocidal maniac feeling a little hurt? I feel bad now. I’ll Fedex you some milk and cookies.
“If, however, he only meant to abuse me while pretending to engage in an critically inquisitive conversation, I have been returning the favor, by no longer really conversing with him, but only referring to him in the third person as a specimen symptomatic of why the West will be destroyed by Muslims eventually.”
Ohhhh YES!!!! YOU got me, I gotta admit it here. Referring to me in the third person…wow. I may not make it through the day now.
This is self caricature.
"Good God, can Steve not tell that entire essay is an imaginative exercise of a future book review by a fictitious scholar? The fact that I'm quoting a "Prof. Pomegran" whose review is dated "2101" should have alerted him to take off his literal-minded cap and put on his imagination cap while reading."
No, I got it. You're a fucking coward hiding behind all of these literary devices. You do that A LOT. Between this and the fact that your stated plan would bring INEVITABLE world war ipso facto of your own assertions about Mulsims (as pointed out above), I feel pretty secure that I'm right on target in saying that your fomenting for genocide. You're just too much of a pussy to come out and say it, ergo Dr. Pemegran and the rest of the nonsense. "The house is on fire!!!!! But I never told anyone to get any water...."
"Well, a long list may, or may not be evidence that they're an existential threat. "
But it's the first thing you reached for for evidence (read: it's all you've got)
"Again, we'd need a metric to understand why one of us says it is, and the other disagrees, and from there move on in the conversation. But apparently Steve wants to stay on the level of, "You're full of shit and I'm right" without any justification or evidence at all. The long list, by the way, is not merely quantitative, but has many qualitative facets; both need to be assimilated to appreciate the force of the data."
That you're full of shit, I have plenty of evidence for that. That Mulsims are not an existential threat, well that's not possible Hesspy. Maybe you didn't understand my reference above about it being impossible to prove a negative?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
"Steve seems unable to read material as it's presented; my 3-part essay about evolution was mainly an exposition of Evolution Theory in its philosophical dimension -- as I was careful to say more than once in the essay."
Ahhh, philosophy. Science for people who are too lazy to do math. Not always true, but for every Dan Dennett there's 1000 people writing this sort of bullox.
You had to get into the science to get into the philosophy, and you got it almost entirely wrong. On of the posters correctly points this out to you,and you defend your nonsense. Your whole bit about speciation is a massive straw man of current evidence and theory.
But it becomes OK to get the science wrong if you're speaking in the "philosophical dimension"? Like much of what you write, that doesn't mean anything. That's not a thing. You don't get some sort of license to misrepresent what common descent is because your stuck in the "philosophical dimension", like you're fucking Zod or something.
You're the kind of person who doesn't want to study hard, but wants to pontificate. Your intellectual laziness is surpassed only by your intellectual cowardice (yes, that's still #1)
Steve quoted me --
“Billions of Muslims? The total population is 1.5 billion. “
-- then wrote:
"Now I have to explain math to you? That would be billions…."
Half a billion is not a billion. One would need at least 2 billion to speak of "billions" in the plural.
(Not to mention that in colloquial rhetoric, when one says "billions", it's not outlandish -- and even might be reasonable (particularly with a speaker/writer who already has shown himself to be not entirely hinged) -- to assume the speaker/writer is vaguely waving his hand in the direction of 3 billions or more.)
I think technically you might be right about the billions thing! I concede. Though colloquially people certainly say 'billions of people' when referring to 1.5 billion people, as you point out. Thank god for small victories!
The rest is exactly the kind of nonsense prose-over-meaning horseshit on which you humanities ass holes thrive. You are the poison fruit of liberal arts education without proper science training. Postmodernist schlock that one can invent truth out of the whole cloth of one's mind.
And I'm just bored of it. You answered none of my points. You never really defend any of your assertions. It's just bloated sentences that converge on a call to unspeakable violence, followed by cowardly denials of said calls.
You. Are. A. Coward. When you go to sleep, remember: you're a bullshit artist, and a coward. Repent (intellectually of course). It's not too late.
Now,some advice: DELETE MY POSTS! You look like an idiot here to everyone but you. Trust me on this one.
If you leave them up, STAY ANONYMOUS. Again, TRUST ME ON THIS....
Steve wrote:
"You answered none of my points."
It's hard to find an actual point in Steve's stream unhinged invective. It's just one crap-attack of anger and hostility after another against me, all generalized and vaguely shot through with venom, with no contact on solid ground of specific argumentation in response to my points, and to the essays I wrote which he claims to have read. The only reason I hesitate to think it might be our old friend "Philip Jihadski" (aka "Joe Blow") -- whom he is increasingly resembling as he spirals out of emotional control -- is that it makes me shudder to think there are two such people in the universe.
"It's hard to find an actual point in Steve's stream unhinged invective."
Except for my point that the burden of proof for existential threat is on you (unanswered), that the effects of colonialism + modern meddling are part of a causal model that CAN change and CAN make a difference (unanswered), and my point that relocating the number of people you propose is unrealistic and will lead to WWIII (unanswered)...
You're right.
Nothing but "unhinged invective".
HA HA HA!!! Keep trying.
Steve wrote:
"Except for my point that the burden of proof for existential threat is on you (unanswered).."
I addressed that already. As I implied more than once, it can't be reasonably "answered" without getting into a mutual discussion about the data (the "long list" of the Jihad of the Sword in our time), which involves an agreed-upon metric. Instead of responding to this, and beginning that discussion, Steve merely either reasserts his blunt, unproven and vague position that there is no "existential" problem or he rudely badgers and berates me like a barbarian -- or more often, he does both.
"...that the effects of colonialism + modern meddling are part of a causal model that CAN change and CAN make a difference (unanswered), and my point that relocating the number of people you propose is unrealistic and will lead to WWIII (unanswered)..."
Hmmm, looks like a "burden of proof" problem, since according to Steve's childish game, anyone who asserts something first must supply evidence for their claim. I've seen no evidence for his claim about "colonialism + modern meddling" being "part of a causal model" causing the current problem of Islam, nor any substantive argument supporting his opinion that this "causal model" "can change and can make a difference". Even if we waive this childish obligation of a "burden of proof", I still don't have much to "answer" other than a broad, vague assertion about "colonialism + modern meddling" -- an important related topic I would be glad to discuss with someone who can control his emotions and be civil (who, it's clear by now, Steve is not).
"and my point that relocating the number of people you propose is unrealistic and will lead to WWIII (unanswered)..."
Again, I addressed this. What civil and mature people do when they present a point, then the other person responds to it, is then deepen the conversation by quoting various parts of their respond and point out where the response fails to adequately address the point; and along with this, incorporate into this process follow-up questions. Instead, Steve just badgers and berates me like a barbarian, and he's gotten increasingly more savage as this exchange has gone along. There is something strangely wrong with someone who thinks he can keep this up and actually foster a reasonable discussion. Either Steve is strangely challenged psychologically, or his only goal is to attack me and he's only pretending to try to have a discussion about this, or he's a troll. There is no fourth explanation for his behavior.
Lists cannot establish whether they're an existential threat. Their CAPABILITY can. THAT is what you have to establish. Quite obvious.
>"Hmmm, looks like a "burden of proof" problem, since according to Steve's childish game, anyone who asserts something first must supply evidence for their claim."
No. You cannot put someone in the position to prove a negative. Simple logic. We call it falsification in science . Has nothing to do with order. You can look things up on your own you know.
>" I've seen no evidence for his claim about "colonialism + modern meddling" being "part of a causal model" causing the current problem of Islam, nor any substantive argument supporting his opinion that this "causal model" "can change and can make a difference". "
>"Even if we waive this childish obligation of a "burden of proof","
Karl Popper? Bertrand Russel? What you call childish is a well established principle in science and basic logic. You can't ask me to prove that Mulsims are NOT an existential threat to Western Civ. That cannot be done because YOU CANNOT PROVE A NEGATIVE, so the burden falls on the claimant. I didn't make this up. It's VERY well known. Google it. I have no idea how you do not know this, even without a science background.
>I still don't have much to "answer" other than a broad, vague assertion about "colonialism + modern meddling" -- an important related topic I would be glad to discuss with someone who can control his emotions and be civil (who, it's clear by now, Steve is not).
Your "out" when I'm making more sense than you is to simply say I'm emotional. It's sad really. You have no answer for me, so you say you can't answer because I'm emotional. Very well then.
I asked you to answer for your claims and my counter claims. Quite simple really. You have done neither (in all fairness you cannot), and you pretend that you don't know what answers to give despite me listing them out several times. E.g., you sound like a grown man on your podcast, but you're traipsing about with these wild fantasies re: quarantining 1/5 of the world's population. You know that can't be done! You know that's nonsense. Part of this is schtick. You want attention for saying absurd things, like a child does. Level with yourself. Unless your posting from a mental hospital you know that's not possible.
In short, your points are indefensible and mine are obviously so.
A society is ripe for extremism and charlatans when, over the course of hundreds of years, their political will is taken away, their resources are taken away, they're slaughtered en masse, and they are left in a lowly state. Of course they hate the people who did that to them!
This is common sense, and it is not unique to Muslims. Of course they're committing atrocities. This is what happens when you shit on people for too long and their culture starts to devolve.It's not right, of course. They're killing people who had nothing to do with their gripes, but it's still the cause.
They're just fucking people. For good and bad.
We need to kill the people who would do us harm, of course, and change our policies. That's actually defensible, and actual policies can come from that. Kill all of them (which you imply but are too much of a coward to state explicitly) or put them in "quarantine" is unrealistic, childish nonsense. You may as well build a wooden rocket in your back yard and insist you'll ride it to the moon. Go take a long look in the mirror and grow up.
"The boy who cried wolf" comes to mind. After 8 posts this "Steve12" character has deposited above, where he's badgering, buttonholing & berating me amid a hostile tissue of red herrings and vague politically correct platitudes, I will simply not read his latest, 9th post. He can continue to post until his face turns blue, but I will no longer read him. He had his chance to be civil and proceed in an actual mature discussion of these complex issues. He blew it.
I accept your concession defeat. In all fairness your points are all absurd, and this puts you at a serious disadvantage in an argument.
I know your still reading.
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