7 ms·

tl:dr 100 pages: 1) People are fucking poor and hungry (extreme wealth inequalities) 2) Salafi/Wahhabi (Saudi) funding of islamism 3) Antediluvian hatred b

tl:dr 100 pages: 1) People are fucking poor and hungry (extreme wealth inequalities) 2) Salafi/Wahhabi (Saudi) funding of islamism 3) Antediluvian hatred between people (it goes, way, way, way farther back than Sykes-Picot)

berntb 10y ago
Thanks, will read after work. :-) It was surprising. From what I've read, people living for a long time in dictatorships are quite intolerant and hateful. (There were quite a bit of intolerance in East Germany after 1989, too. And examples from Eastern Europe are well known.) If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". Or maybe I am too liberal in assuming every culture will walk the same path as us. I doubt it. Until someone comes up with something that works better, liberal [edit: and ~ capitalist] democracy is the least bad alternative.
- pjc50 10y ago
  The general public aren't all that liberal even in the liberal west. It seems to be a question of security: the more secure people feel, the more willing they are to let others do their own thing. Whereas if their own economic or security situation is bad, they're much more likely to interpret difference as threat.
- tdkl 10y ago
  No, you're just naive in that a community ruled by religious narratives will suddenly jump to democracy. Look at age of enlightenment. They never had one.
  - douche 10y ago
    The age of enlightenment only came after a series of religious/civil wars that wracked Europe for hundreds of years, set brother against brother, depopulated and ravaged huge swatches of Germany, central Europe and France, and essentially broke the temporal power of the churches and the papacy. That's not the most pleasant blueprint to follow...
    - cstross 10y ago
      Correct. The Thirty Years War killed about a third of the population of the Germanies; the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (often erroneously called the "English Civil War" -- there were at least five wars, in England, Scotland, and Ireland) killed about 10% of the total population of the British isles. Those wars scared everybody who'd grown up in the affected territories off religious absolutism for a very long time -- at least, off religious absolutism by the standards of the time: things were still grim by modern standards -- and created an environment in which philosophers could develop the ideas and concepts of the enlightenment without being burned at the stake for heresy. The Arab world looks to be on the skids heading towards its own equivalent of the Thirty Years War right now. I just hope the eventual outcome is positive, and that they get to it faster and with less bloodshed.
      - berntb 10y ago
        I passed the small museum of Turda ("unfortunate name", as the Lonely Planet Guide put it) in Transylvania. Around when we were doing the 30 year war et al in Western Europe, the East Europeans of the area were writing edicts about religious tolerance. (Yes yes, a deplorable lack of fashion sense.) That example sadly seems unlikely right now. But since soon all minority groups are thrown out of the Middle East, there won't be anyone left to hate (except for those that move to Western Europe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Torda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Torda
    - tdkl 10y ago
      And yet that was the result. The price paid for it was enormous and it took time. The question is only if we're willing to repeat this in Europe again.
- autokad 10y ago
  it was that liberal philosophy that the administration thought it would be a great idea to destabilize and kill the dictators that created this hot mess. many of the dictators are either dead or crippled, and the world is awash in more terrorism than ever before.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  > If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". When will the West do that ?
  - berntb 10y ago
    Since you won't risk any problems for implying that the Western countries are oppressive dictatorships, that warps the culture to hatred of others -- I'd say the West have gotten a little bit on the way. :-) (assuming you live in the Western world.)
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Correlation doesn't imply causation.
hacker42 10y ago
It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.
- ihsw 10y ago
  Islam is unrelated to the emotional and intellectual deficits imposed upon victims of poverty and disenfranchisement -- not only that but I think there's a strong argument in that a task performed five times daily repeated ad infinitum doesn't cause cultural impairment, nor does the age of a given mandate. Furthermore, I think maximizing for "human potential" is a red herring -- the inevitable end-result is exercising control over a given population to exploit their human potential and TBH that sounds revolting. We should be given the freedom to live our lives out regardless of someone else's small and personal ambitions, including dedicating our lives to practicing Islam.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    Preventing women from driving, from being in public without family members, from touching others, from having other see their face etc. etc. is 100% part of the 'intellectual deficit' imposed by Arabic flavours of Islam. Islam is a religion, an ideology and a culture all blended into one. Parts of it are bad. But I don't think it's any of that. I think it's something simpler: there is nothing in the desert. It's really hard to build a civilization of nothing. Absent civilization, even if there is Oil in the ground ... the surpluses won't be managed effectively or fairly. I think that were the Arab world to be green and lush, it would be a better place, because civilization and power would have developed from an agrarian base ... which is more distributed, then higher level civic institutions can come into place etc. With desert+oil, basic and important institutions don't get a chance to form, and you have a Fedual system which depends on the intelligence and benevolence of the Feudal Lords, aka House of Saud, Qatari 'royal' family etc.
    - 10y ago
nailer 10y ago
Do you think Saudi will fall apart?
- douche 10y ago
  Of course it will. Someday, there won't be enough bread and circuses and sinecures for all of the extended offshoots of the House of Saud, and somebody will stir up popular, probably religious, discontent, or else a disaffected faction of the government/royalty will stage a coup. Besides that, it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars. They have been fighting a price war against US/Canadian oil production, burning foreign currency reserves, in the hopes of setting back the clock. Unfortunately, the break-even point in the North Dakota and shale oil fields keeps going down[1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2016/02/29/the-break-even-cost-for-shale-oil/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2016/02/29/the-break-eve...
  - nickik 10y ago
    The Saudis will eventually fall, but thats not gone be anytime soon. If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick. Just look at Saddam, he was not popular but managed to remain in power for a long time. The Saudis have more money, and a easier to repress, less divided population. The Saudis will be fine for a long time.
    - hx87 10y ago
      The stick has to be paid too--otherwise things don't go very well for those who wield it. Saddam at least had enough of a domestic economy to tax to pay for the security services, as well as a loyal extended family that actually did some of the grunt work, whereas it is doubtful the Saudis have either.
      - nickik 10y ago
        The Saudis are sitting on the largest reserves in the world. They are profitable at the lowest prices. They have money for the stick and the carrot in excess and will be so long as oil has relevance.
bko 10y ago
1 is a common misconception: > According to a 2008 survey of such studies by Alan Krueger of Princeton University, they have found little evidence that the typical terrorist is unusually poor or badly schooled [0] http://www.economist.com/node/17730424 http://www.economist.com/node/17730424

berntb 10y ago

Thanks, will read after work. :-) It was surprising. From what I've read, people living for a long time in dictatorships are quite intolerant and hateful. (There were quite a bit of intolerance in East Germany after 1989, too. And examples from Eastern Europe are well known.) If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". Or maybe I am too liberal in assuming every culture will walk the same path as us. I doubt it. Until someone comes up with something that works better, liberal [edit: and ~ capitalist] democracy is the least bad alternative.

pjc50 10y ago
The general public aren't all that liberal even in the liberal west. It seems to be a question of security: the more secure people feel, the more willing they are to let others do their own thing. Whereas if their own economic or security situation is bad, they're much more likely to interpret difference as threat.
tdkl 10y ago
No, you're just naive in that a community ruled by religious narratives will suddenly jump to democracy. Look at age of enlightenment. They never had one.
- douche 10y ago
  The age of enlightenment only came after a series of religious/civil wars that wracked Europe for hundreds of years, set brother against brother, depopulated and ravaged huge swatches of Germany, central Europe and France, and essentially broke the temporal power of the churches and the papacy. That's not the most pleasant blueprint to follow...
  - cstross 10y ago
    Correct. The Thirty Years War killed about a third of the population of the Germanies; the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (often erroneously called the "English Civil War" -- there were at least five wars, in England, Scotland, and Ireland) killed about 10% of the total population of the British isles. Those wars scared everybody who'd grown up in the affected territories off religious absolutism for a very long time -- at least, off religious absolutism by the standards of the time: things were still grim by modern standards -- and created an environment in which philosophers could develop the ideas and concepts of the enlightenment without being burned at the stake for heresy. The Arab world looks to be on the skids heading towards its own equivalent of the Thirty Years War right now. I just hope the eventual outcome is positive, and that they get to it faster and with less bloodshed.
    - berntb 10y ago
      I passed the small museum of Turda ("unfortunate name", as the Lonely Planet Guide put it) in Transylvania. Around when we were doing the 30 year war et al in Western Europe, the East Europeans of the area were writing edicts about religious tolerance. (Yes yes, a deplorable lack of fashion sense.) That example sadly seems unlikely right now. But since soon all minority groups are thrown out of the Middle East, there won't be anyone left to hate (except for those that move to Western Europe). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Torda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Torda
  - tdkl 10y ago
    And yet that was the result. The price paid for it was enormous and it took time. The question is only if we're willing to repeat this in Europe again.
autokad 10y ago
it was that liberal philosophy that the administration thought it would be a great idea to destabilize and kill the dictators that created this hot mess. many of the dictators are either dead or crippled, and the world is awash in more terrorism than ever before.
SixSigma 10y ago
> If/when the Arab world get rid of the dictators controlling the media and education gets better, they should become more "normal". When will the West do that ?
- berntb 10y ago
  Since you won't risk any problems for implying that the Western countries are oppressive dictatorships, that warps the culture to hatred of others -- I'd say the West have gotten a little bit on the way. :-) (assuming you live in the Western world.)
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Correlation doesn't imply causation.

hacker42 10y ago

It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.

ihsw 10y ago
Islam is unrelated to the emotional and intellectual deficits imposed upon victims of poverty and disenfranchisement -- not only that but I think there's a strong argument in that a task performed five times daily repeated ad infinitum doesn't cause cultural impairment, nor does the age of a given mandate. Furthermore, I think maximizing for "human potential" is a red herring -- the inevitable end-result is exercising control over a given population to exploit their human potential and TBH that sounds revolting. We should be given the freedom to live our lives out regardless of someone else's small and personal ambitions, including dedicating our lives to practicing Islam.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Preventing women from driving, from being in public without family members, from touching others, from having other see their face etc. etc. is 100% part of the 'intellectual deficit' imposed by Arabic flavours of Islam. Islam is a religion, an ideology and a culture all blended into one. Parts of it are bad. But I don't think it's any of that. I think it's something simpler: there is nothing in the desert. It's really hard to build a civilization of nothing. Absent civilization, even if there is Oil in the ground ... the surpluses won't be managed effectively or fairly. I think that were the Arab world to be green and lush, it would be a better place, because civilization and power would have developed from an agrarian base ... which is more distributed, then higher level civic institutions can come into place etc. With desert+oil, basic and important institutions don't get a chance to form, and you have a Fedual system which depends on the intelligence and benevolence of the Feudal Lords, aka House of Saud, Qatari 'royal' family etc.
  - 10y ago

nailer 10y ago

Do you think Saudi will fall apart?

douche 10y ago
Of course it will. Someday, there won't be enough bread and circuses and sinecures for all of the extended offshoots of the House of Saud, and somebody will stir up popular, probably religious, discontent, or else a disaffected faction of the government/royalty will stage a coup. Besides that, it is a regime, and really, a nation, that is entirely predicated on petro-dollars. They have been fighting a price war against US/Canadian oil production, burning foreign currency reserves, in the hopes of setting back the clock. Unfortunately, the break-even point in the North Dakota and shale oil fields keeps going down[1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2016/02/29/the-break-even-cost-for-shale-oil/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2016/02/29/the-break-eve...
- nickik 10y ago
  The Saudis will eventually fall, but thats not gone be anytime soon. If the carrot does not work anymore, they have the stick. Just look at Saddam, he was not popular but managed to remain in power for a long time. The Saudis have more money, and a easier to repress, less divided population. The Saudis will be fine for a long time.
  - hx87 10y ago
    The stick has to be paid too--otherwise things don't go very well for those who wield it. Saddam at least had enough of a domestic economy to tax to pay for the security services, as well as a loyal extended family that actually did some of the grunt work, whereas it is doubtful the Saudis have either.
    - nickik 10y ago
      The Saudis are sitting on the largest reserves in the world. They are profitable at the lowest prices. They have money for the stick and the carrot in excess and will be so long as oil has relevance.

bko 10y ago

1 is a common misconception: > According to a 2008 survey of such studies by Alan Krueger of Princeton University, they have found little evidence that the typical terrorist is unusually poor or badly schooled [0] http://www.economist.com/node/17730424 http://www.economist.com/node/17730424