This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think presumably the implication is that the FBI believes that ISIS truly does recruit online and that by re-routing some of the would-be terrorists to them, they are taking away "real" terrorists. This assumes that a) there is a finite number of people who would commit a terror attack for ISIS online (thus being a sort of zero-sum thing), and b) if the FBI doesn't help them, they will go to someone real who can. I think assumption A is probably fine, I don't really think that the FBI is somehow generating additional potential recruits by their actions, so a fixed pool generally seems to make sense. Assumption B is a bit trickier, but from a law enforcement perspective, is it truly worth the risk of ignoring potential terrorists because you're hoping that they aren't serious and that they will grow out of it or something? Furthermore, I don't have much sympathy to be honest for the so-called "false positives" in this kind of scenario. Even if you are (let's say) hoodwinked and egged on by the FBI to do things you don't want to do in actuality... nothing's really stopping you from just stopping these conversations? Unless their process violates assumption B (the honey traps somehow radicalizing MORE than a comparable "real ISIS" control group) I can't see this being a concern keeping many people up at night. It's not like going to a terrorist training camp is the kind of "whoopsie" that anyone could be suckered into doing.
The effort/skill gap between getting into honeypots and real ISIS recruitment is immense; consider the weakening to irrelevance of ISIS and the ease with which FBI can just place links into search results among many other things. All the people who fall into the gap are would be innocents if not for FBI intervention. But I view this method of law enforcement distasteful, violating the presumption of innocence and akin to running a statistical analysis and arresting everyone who fit the psychological profile of terrorists.
You're underestimating the power of attachment and coercion. At the very least getting into extended contact with a recruiter builds expectations. I have as much sympathy for the false-positives as much as I have for victims of entrapment.
The low barrier to entry that allows even a 16-yo to contact them is malicious. Those are the exact types of people to commit to the cause when presented with a seemingly viable avenue for action, and would've otherwise just moved on.
More options
Context Copy link
It also is probably a good idea to let actual wannabes know that the "recruiter" they are talking to might be an FBI agent. Clandestine networks can't work if participants can't be confident that they are actually clandestine.
Flood the zone with fakes, and then to the extent actual terrorist recruiters exist, they'll always be written off as fakes by potential recruits.
Not a bad idea. Imagine a future of fedposting bots, deployed very widely. You can test the loyalty of the citizen to the state in real time. Occasionally expose him to a proposal of terrorist activities. If he responds positively or doesn't report it to the government, he is targeted for punishment or remedial patriotic education, depending on the seriousness of the offense. You could pretty much snuff out all terrorist activity in the crib.
1984 was not intended to be an instruction manual! And this would be a perfect way to start terrorist activity in anyone who did not want to live in a totalitarian state. What would be considered "lack of loyalty to the state"? You really don't think that would suffer definition creep?
More options
Context Copy link
Well technically it would work I guess. But then you could also torture anyone suspected of disloyalty to the regime to death while forcing them to name accomplices. That also works quite well, but I don't think I'd want to live in a country where that was routine policy.
Exactly where to draw the line is a little tricky, but I think if we're routinely persuading malcontent teenagers to do just enough to get them convicted without them ever having spoken to an actual dissident group of some sort, and this happens say 10x more often than actual terrorist acts, we've gone too far in the direction of suppressing dissent.
Yeah, if we're talking "isolated 16 year old meets sympathetic listener online who subtly encourages him in the direction of jihad over two years worth of interaction", then the Feds could as easily have encouraged him to talk about wanting to shoot up his school, or rob a bank, or assassinate a state governor.
If they were really serious about preventing radicalisation or whatever, they'd have contacted his parents or mental health services when he was 16. Instead, they waited until he was 18 and legally adult before "surprise, you're arrested, you criminal terrorist master mind you!" That sounds a lot more like "keeping our numbers up" than "nipping terrorism in the bud".
Please, the Feds do not do assassination plots against state elected officials. It would be about KIDNAPPING a state governor, though what you do with her once you have her I don't know.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don’t think there is any reason to conflate lack of loyalty to the state with willingness to commit crimes, including aiding violent organizations in faroff lands. As far as we know, this guy was completely loyal to the state. Just as plenty of Americans who illegally aided the IRA during the troubles were loyal to the US.
Was the IRA an enemy of the US like ISIS is?
It was engaging in what it considered to be a war against the UK (the UK considered it to be sporadic violent crime, rather then war). If you accept the IRA's claim that it was waging war, then it was an enemy of the United States per article 5 of the NATO treaty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is oxymoronic. If you violate the policies and laws of the government, you are by definition disloyal.
To the government perhaps, but the government and the country weren't always considered one and the same. Civil war is usually patriots vs patriots.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's similar to my thinking, I would imagine that the justification is that they're clearing out the proverbial deadwood. This approach also has the added benefit of reducing the probability of these kinds of people forming their own groups and deterring smarter people from attempting to reach out and join/form their own groups.
I would say it's a sound strategy.
On the other hand, if you filter out all the dumb people, only smart people end up forming groups. Maybe you want the dumb people to join the groups because it'll make it easier to break the weakest link.
More likely you get no groups forming at all, as the number of smart people who also want to join or form radical terrorist groups in the US is so small that the odds of enough of them actually connecting with one another to make a meaningfully sized network are practically non-existant. The exception to this is when you have places where smart malcontents may end up naturally gathering, like universities, which you should be monitoring closely to break up any nascent networks in their infancy.
Clearly the FBI are good at their jobs, the kind of attacks that the modern US regularly faces are not ones conducted by organised groups, but are instead almost always lone wolves and lack any sort of staying power, usually being "one and done" terrorists.
More options
Context Copy link
It’s fairly plausible that the smart people join different groups, or follow strategies for joining the same groups which are calculated to have an ending other than being the one wearing the vest and shouting allahu akbar, and the dummies are never really trusted with much information anyways.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link