what do you not understand? what can i be more explicit about? if "terrorism" is a problem, then it seems like it would be a pretty smart idea to look at the causes. is that better? i don't know how to make it clearer.
or are you asking me to answer the questions i raised? how on earth would i know? but either someone has done the work and found out, or the work could be done.
With sincerity, I'm not looking for a fight. Just a frank exchange of views.
I agree it would be nice to prevent Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism by understanding its causes, but that approach doesn't seem likely to work. My opinion, as above, is that the thoughts of suicide murderers will be messy, hard to understand, specific to individuals, and not terribly useful for preventing terrorism. This is because people are complicated, and because, legally and practically, suicide bombers are crazy. They're a threat to themselves and others.
I don't think there's any coherent argument against trying to understand the psychology of terrorism, but I find the enthusiasm for that course of action slightly ominous. This is an armchair discussion for me, and I suspect most people here, so the line between "Trying to Understand" and just wishing the problem would go away without our doing anything about it looks pretty thin.
That mindset has to be fought, in spite of the stupid posturing and overreaction after 9/11, because it's possible to overcompensate. If a bunch of murderous lunatics jump onto the world stage by killing a few thousand people and then claim they're the Next Great Existential Threat to the USA, it's not right to ignore them because they don't live up their own hype.
i agree that life is complicated. but, at the same time, i think there are more similarities than differences in the attacks so far. for example, i understand that engineers are way over-represented amongst bombers. i have no idea what that means, but if it's not some strange statistical fluke then it's evidence that there is some commonality.
and i don't disagree with what you're saying about lunatics jumping on a bandwagon. as far as i'm concerned that's quite possible - but that doesn't mean you can't ask questions about what makes bandwagons work. for example, completely random thought: if the usa became much more of a federation, and emphasised the role of central government much less, then perhaps "america" as a target becomes less attractive (much like people don't try to "attack europe" to anything like the same degree - and when it does happen it's interpreted largely as an attack on american allies).
maybe the above are really stupid ideas. it wouldn't surprise me - i thought of them in 5 minutes. but i am seriously starting to worry that no-one at all is brainstorimg about this where it matters.
another example, that got me a pile of downvotes in another thread, is american funding of israel. the usa pays a huge amount to israel and seems to be getting pretty poor value for money: the us president asks them to do something and they just laugh in his face. again this seems to be entrenched ideas (big government if you like) resisting market forces - wouldn't you get more security per dollar spending that money on better airport screening?
i'm rambling and drifting off topic here, but my more general point is that "america" doesn't seem to be thinking much at all. and i think there should be a lot more thinking - that includes but is in no way limited to the minds of terrorists....
edit: and to put that in perspective, i don't think it's sufficient to just bullshit (as i have done above). spend some money and study the problem. can't some kind of science be used here rather than the "armchair discussions" you mention? this is why i avoided putting forward ideas earlier in this thread - because i don't know the answers. what worries me is people are not looking for answers because they're not even bothering to ask questions, and/or they don't think answers can be found. if as much effort was put into the minds of terrorists as was put into the minds of consumers.... why is selling us crap that we don't need a science, but saving the world just a big debate?
I think a lot of the problem is that electorates "decide" via different algorithms than the ones used by individuals. Our brains choke off stupid and irrelevant thoughts. But in politics, every moronic idea under the sun will attract some little constituency who think it's the best. thing. ev4r. and who will shout about it at the top of their lungs to anyone who will listen. Sometimes, they even win everyone over. Other times, they're right.
And let's not even get started on our menagerie of paid and semi-professional shills.
why is selling us crap that we don't need a science, but saving the world just a big debate?
Maybe if we made debate into a science? There are better methods for aggregating information and making group decisions than the loud-as-you-can model we're using now. I've even done some thinking about how to build startups around
or are you asking me to answer the questions i raised? how on earth would i know? but either someone has done the work and found out, or the work could be done.
or are you just looking for a fight?