Non-IT News Thread
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Thankfully it is all Toronto and not the US in this case. Two or three just yesterday!
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@scottalanmiller Hard to expect much from a city that elected a crack head for mayor
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller Hard to expect much from a city that elected a crack head for mayor
Makes us feel a little better for razing it for you
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@scottalanmiller there are days when I lived there that I would have considered similar actions to be warranted en masse.
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@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender Your whole country was founded to do this. What's the plaque on the statue of liberty say again?
What if they were Irish Catholics and Protestants who were seeking refuge. They were busy for YEARS, no DECADES! blowing up each others children, torturing people with power tools and generally being really horrific.
The difference is that the Irish weren't reaching out to the rest of the world to grow your ranks in those countries to blow those countries up, at least not the rate that ISIS is. From my EXTREMELY limited scope, that happens almost solely in Ireland/United Kingdom, not Europe as a whole and definitely not over here in North America.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But I think the number that are here is a red herring. Unless bringing them in from the outside changes how many are here already, in which case does it modify it up or down?
I think the belief is just that, it will change the number that are here for the worse. They will come here and recruit, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender Your whole country was founded to do this. What's the plaque on the statue of liberty say again?
What if they were Irish Catholics and Protestants who were seeking refuge. They were busy for YEARS, no DECADES! blowing up each others children, torturing people with power tools and generally being really horrific.
The difference is that the Irish weren't reaching out to the rest of the world to grow your ranks in those countries to blow those countries up, at least not the rate that ISIS is. From my EXTREMELY limited scope, that happens almost solely in Ireland/United Kingdom, not Europe as a whole and definitely not over here in North America.
There are two major universities in the US that sprung up connected with that "far away" conflict. Today even people who attend them (and like AJ who roots for one without even knowing what their mascot is) often don't realize that they are going to "faction" colleges. They fly religious war colours without thinking. But that war spread quite a bit outside of their region and while we think of it as an Irish conflict, that was just a localised conflict within a bigger one. Just like how the French and Indian War was just the American view of a huge European conflict.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But I think the number that are here is a red herring. Unless bringing them in from the outside changes how many are here already, in which case does it modify it up or down?
I think the belief is just that, it will change the number that are here for the worse. They will come here and recruit, etc.
And I'm not saying that that isn't true, although I'd argue that I find that incredibly unlikely and far more likely to do the opposite - that we would soften them by giving them something to lose and a reason to avoid violence, but just that the opposition argument had made seemed like it was "if this one is large, does this other one matter."
If the concern is "they come here and the violence grows through recruitment" I agree that that is a real thing to worry about happening. But I also say that I think it is a trivial number compared to the huge number that we encourage by giving them nowhere to go. Recruitment is hard in the US, it is easy in Syria.
The thing is, when in Syria, these kids have nothing to lose. So why not join ISIS, save themselves from being murdered, protect their families and maybe get something out of it too? They've got nothing to lose. But if the US takes them, suddenly joining ISIS doesn't gain them something, it costs them something. The tables turn.
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I'm not worried about those coming over that aren't already part of ISIS, I tend to agree with you. Those that are fleeing for their own safety, etc aren't that likely to come to the US and then decide that they want to join ISIS (actually children who are pulled away from a parent who stayed behind as part of ISIS would be the opposite, I think they would have a higher propensity to want to join mommy or daddy in ISIS, but how much higher propensity, who knows?)
It's the infiltrators. They are coming here solely for the purpose of bolstering their ranks, either here or over there. The news has several teens or older (I'll call them kids) who are being arrested trying to go to Syria and join ISIS. If those kids were able to stay here and get local help to be jihadists.... yeah no thanks.
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The solution I would really like to see enacted, but clearly we obviously can't seem to make possible, these millions of people who are fleeing... why aren't they overthrowing these asshats? it's just easier to leave and make it someone else's problem than stay and fight against those you clearly don't agree with because you're fleeing instead of fighting with/for them.
This is a horrible situation, I have no clue how to move forward.
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@Dashrender it's just like any other country... the government (or those in power) have more guns and bombs than the citizens, which makes a revolt pretty impractical.
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@Dashrender I think these people are worth the risk.
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So let's switch topics... What should be done in Syria and other countries where ISIS is doing it's badness? what could/should be done so these people can stay there instead of fleeing?
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@Dashrender well, the whole country is blown apart and littered with weapons so.... short of a massive ground invasion I don't see them just going home.
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@Dashrender said:
So let's switch topics... What should be done in Syria and other countries where ISIS is doing it's badness? what could/should be done so these people can stay there instead of fleeing?
History suggests that staying there isn't an option. Homes are gone, food supply is gone, bombs are falling, no hospitals, no schools, no way to carry on business or get life's necessities... no hope. If we could magically win the war, stabilize things and rebuild their country overnight it would start to help. Short of that, there isn't much to be done. They need places to live, a means to live.
It's a great idea, but I can't think of any hope short of a massive evacuation.
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@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender well, the whole country is blown apart and littered with weapons so.... short of a massive ground invasion I don't see them just going home.
Right, because Korea and Vietnam showed us that ground invasions will improve things
What we know is that the US is very bad at this kind of warfare and is very likely to lose that war. -
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender well, the whole country is blown apart and littered with weapons so.... short of a massive ground invasion I don't see them just going home.
Right, because Korea and Vietnam showed us that ground invasions will improve things
What we know is that the US is very bad at this kind of warfare and is very likely to lose that war.I never said it was a good idea lol - just answering "what might it require"
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender well, the whole country is blown apart and littered with weapons so.... short of a massive ground invasion I don't see them just going home.
Right, because Korea and Vietnam showed us that ground invasions will improve things
What we know is that the US is very bad at this kind of warfare and is very likely to lose that war.We don't have the stomach as a country to win the war!
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@Dashrender said:
what could/should be done so these people can stay there instead of fleeing?
Lets look at historical context...
What could we have done for the Jews to let them stay in Germany during World War II? Clearly winning the war in the first year would likely have fixed nearly all of that. But we are well into the "concentration camp" era to be comparative. Once things have gone that far, I can't think of any historical conflict where even with hindsight we would have a clear means of fixing something like this.
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@Dashrender said:
We don't have the stomach as a country to win the war!
Damn true. I think that's probably a good thing.
