h a l f b a k e r yA riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a rich, flaky crust
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Sarah Smith, Washington Correspondent
Judith Chalmers, reporing from the Cayman Islands
*lingering shot of frozen, burqa-clad corpse of Damian Grammaticas on the Ronne Ice Shelf* |
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The solution to this barbarism is very simple. The
price of one video beheading is 1,000 airstrikes. Drop
leaflets at the site of the bombing saying "The
preceding attack was in retaliation for the beheading
of so-and-so reporter." |
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If you want to communicate with somebody you
speak their language. Don't bother speaking latin to a
dog. |
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The beheadings and associated noise is ostensibly
directed at the US and Western Powers, but the real
audience is an internal one - the real message is
"look how strong we are, look how we stand in the face
of imperial might and act as we please" - that message
is marginally diluted by the key actors appearing in
veils and masks, but that is essentially what it is.
It is a message that says, "join us, we are strong, we
are bold - do not cross us, for we are also ruthless
and merciless and will enact our vengeance on anyone
who stands in our way". That's an important message to
give off when you're trying to hold a large area with
a relatively small force - you need to make the local
population so afraid of you that they allow you to
remain in control. So the West is the foil to this
posturing, but not its intended recipient. |
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Well, according to the messenger, the message was
specifically directed to the United States as a
deterrent to our engaging in air strikes against them. |
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Let's not spend too much time figuring out the
deeper meanings of some guy walking up to you and
punching you in the nose. You punch back or submit.
No amount of intellect will pull another option out of
thin air. Part of being clever is knowing the limits of
clever. |
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Hmmm. I kind of agree with you. Though I'm not sure
why you're being antagonistic - the response we need
to formulate might not be any different - but it is
important to know the reasons why a person or
organisation acts the way it does. To blindly
act otherwise is to be deliberately naive. That might
be very honorable, and easy to understand, but it
doesn't win conflicts. |
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//No amount of intellect will pull another option out
of thin air.// Lots of military history will take
issue with that. |
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I do take issue with some of your rhetoric, as much of
it is bollocks. But I get it, it's emotional. |
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//I'm not sure why you're being antagonistic// |
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I should probably put more smiley faces in my posts,
not meaning to be nasty, just respectfully
disagreeing. |
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//I do take issue with some of your rhetoric, as much
of it is bollocks.// |
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//Let's not spend too much time figuring out the deeper meanings of some guy walking up to you and punching you in the nose//
Well, if you are standing uninvited in his garden & pissing against his rose bush you probably deserve it.
Inappropriate metaphors rule OK.
As to the idea, I suspect that most experienced overseas correspondents already take measures to try & blend in with the locals but eventually they have to talk to people in order to do their job and there is no real defense for a lone individual (which is what they are, don't forget) against being ratted out by someone you trust or being systematically targeted by organised gangsters. |
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So.... the reporters deserved to get their heads
sawed off? |
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//Specifically//
//Well, according to the messenger...// This is just
naive - letting the messenger set the context of the
argument is unhelpful and gives an undue amount of
power to that messenger. Far better to apply rational,
critical thought to that question and see who benefits
- that's just normal day-to-day cynicism/criticism
that you apply to normal day-to-day interactions with
salesmen, tv-advertisements and any other
communications with self-interested parties. To
deliberately adopt a naive, trusting, face-value
approach can lead to problems. |
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//Let's not spend too much time figuring out the
deeper meanings of some guy walking up to you and
punching you in the nose// No, equally, let's not
allow ourselves to be kneejerked into any action that
might be helpful to our enemies either. |
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//You punch back or submit. No amount of intellect
will pull another option out of thin air.// Equally,
limiting your reactions to two options, and linking
your actions to surface-level jibes and provocations
means handing over a great deal of your power to
people who have the ability to bend and misuse it. |
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//Part of being clever is knowing the limits of
clever.// Agreed - this is a tautology - it does
however have nothing to do with the question at hand -
more importantly part of being clever is knowing how
not to be manipulated by parties who do not have your
best interests at heart. Part of being clever is
outplaying your enemies so that they defeat and
destroy themselves without any non-essential effort
made on your part. A key part of doing that is not
allowing them to set or control the agenda through
their chosen methods of propaganda - it's to counter
their efforts with your own so that they end up
spending more energy on achieving less, while you sit
back and win the strategy with minimal loss to your
own side. |
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// reporters deserved to get their heads sawed off? // |
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Pretty much the definition of a reporter, actually. |
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Very few of them justify the amounts of food, oxygen and alcohol they
consume. |
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Good, so what would a frightfully clever person who
can see beyond the simplistic "punch back or submit"
paradigm do when punched in the face? |
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Remember, another punch is coming in a few seconds
so might want to dazzle with cleverness sooner than
later. No flowery generalizations please, specific
situation here. You said it's foolish to limit yourself to
two options, so you're punched in the face, you... |
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Running might be a good idea in that scenario. Or is that not manly enough for you? |
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//Running might be a good idea in that
scenario. Or is that not manly enough for you?// |
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So you'd be a total pussy and hope the bully doesn't
come back tomorrow. |
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Guess what. He's just tagged you as the perfect
person to punch in the face. Guess who's getting
punched in the face on a daily basis. |
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Ok, thank you for that. I think we're done here. |
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...dismember their punching arm with some kind of
mechanical ratchet device? |
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...capture the energy from their punch and redirect it
into the face of their spiritual leaders? |
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...duck out of the way so that their punch lands on the
last person who tried to punch you in the face? |
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The punch in the face analogy is flawed, as it assumes a symmetry of available force and no other external actors or influences. |
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As to the idea, I do like the image it conjours of row upon row of burqa-clad journos sat in the White House press room, or interviewing Wayne Rooney, voices rising from who knows where to ask whether he's happy playing right back in a 442 |
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Reduce them to paroxysms of laughter? |
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Well, I'd certainly like to see that tried anyway. It
would be a gutsy response, I'd give you that. |
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//The punch in the face analogy is flawed, as it
assumes a symmetry of available force and no other
external actors or influences.// |
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So that's what you'd tell the guy as you hit the
ground? |
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We're calibrating here, talking about general
attitudes about response to aggression. I'm trying to
get somebody to drop the thesaurus and say "I'd
defend myself." |
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I've got to run so I'll give the correct answer. If
somebody attacks you, you defend yourself. Really.
Even if you're clever. |
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Yes, I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise -
we're just saying that the best form of defence isn't
necessarily the obvious one. Sometimes the most
effective course
of action is no-action (maybe not in this case, and
maybe not in most cases - but sometimes, it could well
be). |
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Personally, I quite like the melt-with-acid option. |
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But
the point here is that there are options - closing
those
options down by suggesting that even thinking of them
is
being over-intellectual means limiting our actions
unduly - effectively tying our own hands (cue further
punch-in-the-face analogising). That in turn opens up
ourselves to manipulation
and gives power to our enemies. It's a very nice
argument to have in the pub, but it's not a viable
strategy to adopt in the real world. |
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Well I think we've wrapped it up here. If a mountain
lion attacks you, there are now at least 3 options: |
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c) consider that closed minded didactic tautology
opens ourselves to manipulation and gives power to
our enemies (then die) |
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Ok, gotta run. Thank you Zen, Doc and Cal. (really,
not
being a smartass, interesting debate) |
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You forgot d) consider that closed minded didactic
tautology opens ourselves to manipulation and gives
power to our enemies (then fight back) |
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Ok, not sure how to reevaluate this conversation now
we've added the complication of a mountain-lion, but
it could well be the case that c) isn't the best
option here - at least not initially anyway. However,
what if that mountain lion was a minor player in a
wider mountain-lion society and he'd just made a bet
with all the other mountain-lions that he couldn't get
in a fight with a human and lose. The details of that
bet might be such that if the human fought-back, the
other lions would all join in and take over the planet
in some awesomely planned lightning-strike event.
Meanwhile, if another faction of mountain lions had an
agreement with the lynx and possum coalition that
should any mountain lion kill a person they'd launch a
counter-offensive against the minor-mountain-lion
sect, utterly destroying them. And if the human
somehow aware of all this knew that by not fighting
back they might save all of human kind - what would
they do then? |
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What if, the humans had learned of these plots and
machinations, had sent in a person deliberately to
provoke such an attack and follow paths a or c,
causing the troublesome mountain-lion sect to be
utterly destroyed by both friendly mountain-lions and
possum/lynx coalitions, thereby extinguishing once and
for-all the blight of mountain-lion separatism. What
then? Is a single human life a price worth paying for
such a prize? |
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Who knows, the answers may not surface here today, or
even tomorrow - but out there they must be. You're
welcome Dr. |
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Ah ha! I lied, one last post just because it just
occurred to me I'm going running where there are
mountain lion warnings. |
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And the warning signs say "Do not hike alone" in this
area. |
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If you don't hear from you you'll know that in the age
old battle of claws vs opposing thumbs claws won this
round. |
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Shit, now I'm making myself paranoid. Maybe I'll just
go to the gym. |
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//row upon row of burqa-clad journos //
<Life of Brian> Are there any women here today?</Life of Brian>
Also, I see we've moved on from being punched in the face to being attacked by a Mountain Lion. When you went into this bloke's garden to piss on his roses did you, by any chance, walk past a notice saying 'Beware of the Mountain Lion'?
Sorry, I'm getting a bit facetious now. On a
more serious note...
//So.... the reporters deserved to get their heads sawed off?//
That's not what I said, was it. And, frankly, I'm offended that you would imply that I did. I was drawing attention to your metaphor, as you well know.
//If somebody attacks you, you defend yourself.//
Depends. No, really, it does. Search the interweb for 'Kent State Shootings' and take an example from modern US history. |
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Well, if you punch a mountain lion in the face, it's pretty likely to attack
you. Mountain lions are not by and large given to pensive moments
while they consider the full implications of closed minded didactic
tautology. They're much more likely to rip out your throat and then eat
large portions of your musculature before settling down with a full
stomach for some serious philosophy and metaphysical speculation. |
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// Don't bother speaking latin to a dog // |
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No ? Two thousand years ago, in Italy, pretty much everone spoke
Latin to their dogs. Today, in Russia, most Russians speak to their
dogs in Russian, and as far as they are capable, the dogs understand
and respond. We don't think that's a good analogy. |
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So, this punching-the-mountain-lion contest ... is this going to be a
cage fight, or in an arena, or what ? If it's in the woods, you're going to
need lots of cameras to catch all the action. |
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I tend to agree that there's always more than two
options. |
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1) submit (stop the airstrikes) |
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2) Retaliate.
2a) (hit them 1000:1) randomly bomb
territory
and infrastructure they control. If someone
bombed you then gave you a leaflet blaming it on
the actions of the xxxx party would you me more
upset at the bomber or the xxxx party?
2b) Carefully only attack military targets.
2c) Send in assassins to go after the leaders
in
hopes that the troops will disperse once the head
is cut off. |
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3) Ignore them. For the punching analogy: if a 3
year old comes up and punches you in the thigh,
in some cases pretending they don't exist and that
they didn't punch you is the best action. Having a
US journalist killed is bad, but the damage to the
USA by that act is pretty small. These terrorist
have killed thousands more people who were more
innocent than the reporter, so if the USA goes
nuts over this, it seems like we have a very self
centered attitude. What if we just honor the
reporter as a hero who died in the pursuit of
truth. Treat it no differently than we would a
reporter who died from Ebola while reporting on
the epidemic. Don't even acknowledge the
terrorists as anything more significant than a
natural disaster or disease. |
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4) Run away. In the case of a fist fight there are
many good reasons to run. If you're completely
outmatched, but you happen to have a gun hidden
in your ankle holster, you may be able to use it if
you get some separation. Alternately you may be
able to lure your attacker into a situation where
you have more advantage. In some cases, just
running away is good enough. If it's a random
mugging in a part of town where you rarely go, it's
perfectly logical to just save yourself and leave
teaching the thugs a lesson to someone else. |
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Why not take all the videos released by the
fundamentalists, overdub them in very silly squeaky
voices (with a few judicious changes to the content)
and re-release them (the videos, not the
fundamentalists)? |
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I'm sure that, if every video they released was greatly
overshadowed by some embarrassing parody, they'd...
well, at least they'd be annoyed. |
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Max, I seem to recall that technique was used by the Thatcher govt. in re Sinn Fein. |
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What [Max] said. I guess laughing _at_ them is yet
another alternative similar to ignoring them.
Although if you do that to a three year old hitting
you, it will likely cause them to continue hitting
even harder and harder until they wear themselves
out or injure themselves. |
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// I seem to recall that technique was used by the
Thatcher govt. in re Sinn Fein.// |
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Are you sure that wasn't Spitting Image? |
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//I'm not sure after hacking off someone's head
"That's the way to do it" would actually help.// |
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It's probably not going to help the person who's head
has just been hacked off. Howevertheless, if the
overdubbed videos were sufficiently demeaning, and
if (and I'm sure Mr. YouTube can do this) they were
the only versions to be found online, then perhaps it
would remove one of the incentives to hacking off
the next guy's head. |
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I'm thinking the voice should maybe be an Arabic
John Inman. Maybe with a little Village People
playing in the background. |
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What I would like to do and I don't think we've tried that hard is to show them exactly what Islam is. Get some badass cleric who knows his Qur'an inside out to engage with them in a shouting war. Expose them as the hypocrites they truly are. Confuse those who want to join with another badass message. When they engage in the shouting match, then they get all flustered and expose themselves somehow. Attack the religious core with its own inconsistencies and flaws. |
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Then show them some badass capability of the American military. Publicize exactly what we can do. |
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lets-all literally in the title [-] |
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//lets-all literally in the title// Although not
literally in the literal sense of literally. |
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And the blue reporters? So sad. |
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This was probably baked the movie in Carry on Spying
but I no longer don't have a time machine to rewatch
it. |
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Does that mean you do have one, or will acquire one in the future past? |
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