I despair at those who believe otherwise.
We'll never be able to stop those that abuse religions and causes for political gain, but we can starve their number of "soldiers" by not giving impressionable people more reasons to hate a country.
I believe the solution is to look inward (as I've already, "do no harm"), rather than to condemn outwards.
And yes, I'm willing to concede the naiveté of my viewpoint.
Those attacks done "in the name of islam" create islamophobic reactions from people. Media spreads this islamophobia further, to people who just trust whatever they see on TV. The climate grows to marginalize muslims further. The ones closest to the edge, who were surrounded by violence in the past (war climates) and are now surrounded by hatred from the country they live in, end up knowing only violence and seeking to be understood by their own violence.
The cycle of terrorism. We enable it. What can you do once you understand it? Tell other people? You'll be silenced. You'd get shit on on facebook. Attacked on twitter. Downvoted on reddit. HN is still a sane place but what % of the population does that really represent? Can it even make a change? And it's not like you wouldn't ever get downvoted here. There's a lot of people who believe in the direct "more immigrants = more terrorists" idiocy.
Today is such a fucking depressing day. Having to worry about my sister, my brother, my guild mates and on top of that seeing the attackers get exactly what they want: more fear. More knee-jerk reactions.
Let it fucking end...
0: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/salafismus-als-jugendkult...
I think that the level of HN is rare online but offline things are much better (at least, in my experience).
> And it's not like you wouldn't ever get downvoted here. There's a lot of people who believe in the direct "more immigrants = more terrorists" idiocy.
So talk to them and stand your ground. Sure there will always be jerks but don't let that stop you from trying and who cares about the occasional downvote.
> Let it fucking end...
Yes, please. But I fear that won't happen in my lifetime, maybe in yours depending on your age. This took decades to fuck up it will take decades to restore and a completely different approach.
Maybe you choose your surroundings better, but one of the reasons I like hanging out here is because I can experience some semblance of sanity that, from my point of view, GenPop is lacking. I know few people who try to understand what's going on, but rest just repeat whatever they read on the news.
> Yes, please. But I fear that won't happen in my lifetime, maybe in yours depending on your age. This took decades to fuck up it will take decades to restore and a completely different approach.
Yes, please. But let it please not end in the collapse of what we've achieved as humanity. That's what I'm afraid the most - that at some point those tensions will explode and bring down civilization with them. The world is a fucked up place, but we're at the point in history in which we must fix it, not reboot it.
You'd be really surprised. Your point is a valid one, but one I seldom see brought up - most people are just worried that for every 100 immigrants there's a couple of actual terrorists in the lot... Mostly because nobody's told them how stupid that notion is.
Oh some people try. Hell, I told that to many people myself. People don't care about things like actually being reasonable. Instead, they're afraid and are looking to rationalize it.