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posted by n1 on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:00AM   Printer-friendly

France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders after at least 40 people were killed in multiple shootings in Paris.

At least 15 people were killed near the Bataclan arts centre, where up to 60 people are being held hostage. Explosions and gunfire are reported.

Three people were killed in an attack near the Stade de France, with some reports suggesting a suicide blast.

Paris authorities have urged people to stay indoors.

Military personnel are being deployed across Paris.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/13/455943961/violence-reported-in-paris
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/world/paris-shooting/index.html

Update #1 [BBC updates]:

Scores of people have been killed in multiple gun and bomb attacks in Paris

At least 100 people are reported to have died inside the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris

Others died in attacks near the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany, and at restaurants

France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders

Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and military personnel are being deployed across the city

[...] Reuters. quoting an un-named official at Paris City Hall, says the current death toll in Paris is around 140.

Update #2:

According to the Paris prosecutor, of the four assailants who died during the sidge at the Bataclan, three committed suicide by detonating explosive vests. The prosecutor has warned that some of their accomplices may "still be on the loose".

[...] Here is what French president François Hollande told reporters outside the Bataclan concert hall just now: "To all those who have seen these awful things, I want to say we are going to lead a war which will be pitiless. Because when terrorists are capable of committing such atrocities they must be certain that they are facing a determined France, a united France, a France that is together and does not let itself be moved, even if today we express infinite sorrow."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:10AM (#262889)

    Yes, because other monocultures are just as violent. I remember just recently that terrorist attack in über-monocultural Japan... Oh wait, no I don't. Because monoculturalism is the solution.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:15AM (#262891)

    dude, I just started a new job and am really busy. get that monoculture the hell away from me.

  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by pe1rxq on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:17AM

    by pe1rxq (844) on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:17AM (#262893) Homepage

    Nothing bad ever happens in monocultures..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:25AM (#262900)

      Nothing bad ever happens in monocultures

      "Things I never claimed for $100, Alex."

      Also,

      >1995
      This was TWENTY YEARS AGO and nothing of note has happened since.

      Whoops! [wikipedia.org]
      Whoops! [wikipedia.org]
      Whoops! [wikipedia.org]

      That's just a few of the attacks this year.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @11:54PM (#263503)

        OK, so are you saying that having pluralistic society foments violence? Your examples are from France and the United States. What ought those countries to do to make themselves more like Japan or China? If there's to be a single culture, whose culture shall that be which prevails? What shall be done about those people who weren't raised in the dominant culture? Shall laws be enacted to encourage them to at least appear to subscribe to the winning culture? Shall they be segregated from the rest of society, whether in specially reserved lands or in prisons? Perhaps they could be sent back to Africa (assuming the African culture isn't the one chosen for the USA or France). Obviously the surest solution is to kill them, but that is somewhat at odds with the goal of diminishing violence. Even the non-lethal measures might be resisted—violently, even—by some as too harsh. I have the impression that conformity is highly valued in Japan and China, but less valued in France and the United States. The homogenization effort might be opposed even by those who won't themselves need re-education or expulsion.

        When I think of efforts to establish a homogeneous culture or populace, the USSR, South Africa during apartheid [wikipedia.org], Germany under the Nazis, and present-day Israel come to mind.

        In the USSR, members of the most popular religion, the Russian Orthodox church, were killed or imprisoned for their beliefs, and many Orthodox churches were closed and looted.[1]

        In South Africa, a minority of the population took away the citizenship and voting rights of the majority, and were banished to designated territories, the bantustans (one thing the bantustans had going for them was that they could have casinos—this reminds me of America).

        In Israel a similar thing has been done: the majority of the people have been stripped of their political rights and forced off their lands into designated territories, so as to create a state where a religious minority is in control.

        In all of those societies, there was tremendous violence as part of the homogenization efforts, and in the latter two, violence in opposition to homogenization.

        [1] http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/anti.html [loc.gov]

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:46AM

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Saturday November 14 2015, @12:46AM (#262921) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes [wikipedia.org]

    If we could segregate all people of different cultures, send them to different planets through wormholes, and then permanently close the wormholes so that interaction was no longer possible, maybe "everyone thinks exactly the same as everyone else, and considers everyone to be of the same tribe" would work okay ... in the short term.

    In the medium-to-long-term, it's still a shitty plan, because people naturally break themselves up into different tribes, and those tribes will go to war if the people making the decisions are mental midgets. The famous "chimp war" Jane Goodall observed was the result of a community breaking in two and the larger splinter group completely exterminating the smaller splinter group. This type of self-inflicted misery befalls humans as well when our leaders are as dumb as chimps. The only real solution is "make sure as few people as possible are mental midgets, especially those in leadership roles", where "not a mental midget" includes respecting all other people as full humans with the full complement of human rights. I guess you can call that philosophy multiculturalism if you want to.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:36AM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:36AM (#263024)

      includes respecting all other people as full humans with the full complement of human rights. I guess you can call that philosophy multiculturalism if you want to.

      That's not multiculturalism at all, it's entirely orthogonal. Human rights means treating people equally under the law and recognizing they have certain inalienable rights. This doesn't mean you have to cater to their cultural sensitivities or desires. It's entirely possible to respect human rights while having a system of government and laws which makes life unhappy for minorities, such as by mandating a particular language for official use, by mandating holidays the majority likes and ignoring the minority's wishes, etc. As long as the minorities have the same rights and there isn't some kind of segregationist system (separate restrooms, blatant discrimination, etc.) going on, then their human rights are being respected while multiculturalism is not.

      The problem with multiculturalism is that some cultures simply are incompatible with other cultures. A culture which demands its religion be forefront and in charge of the government is never going to get along with a culture which values secularism, for instance (nor will it ever get along with a culture where religion is officially suppressed, as in China).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @08:21AM (#263129)

        If culture X demands that religeon be forefront,
        and culture Y (with different religeon) does as
        well, then they too can't get along. Such cultures
        simply can't get along with **anybody** else.

        Permanant containment is not a viable long-term
        solution to the problem. Attempting to do that
        will only prolong the extermination of the more
        wimpy culture. Only non-wimpy cultures survive.
        Hint: your's is wimpy if it prohibits genocide.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:50PM (#263383)

          In today's news: conflicting cultures conflict when inhabiting the same space, unless they're willing to resolve their conflicts, such as by sharing that space without imposing on each other; who'd have thunk it?

          Metaculture should be obvious, but we're quickly discarding everything we learned during the Enlightenment, and many other cultures never had those ideas in the first place (though one assumes they will arise at some point in more or less any culture that permits it).

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 16 2015, @01:22AM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 16 2015, @01:22AM (#263811)

          Permanant containment is not a viable long-term solution to the problem. Attempting to do that will only prolong the extermination of the more wimpy culture.

          First off, why the hell are you writing in 80-character-wide lines? You look stupid doing so.

          Secondly, how the hell is permanent containment *not* a viable long-term solution? As long as everyone stays on their side of the border, there's not a problem if the cultures conflict. As long as the "wimpy" (i.e. refuses to commit genocide according to you) culture maintains a strong border and refuses to allow immigration from the place with an incompatible culture, there's no problem.

  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:12AM (#262951)

    > I remember just recently that terrorist attack in über-monocultural Japan... Oh wait, no I don't.

    Is terrorism your only barometer? Of all the violence in 1st world countries terrorist attacks are a minuscule component. To base your conclusions on such reductivist analysis is simple-minded. Just because no one is blowing up the Ainu in japan doesn't mean they aren't subject to enormous amounts of suffering and oppression.

    Meanwhile look at Iraq and Syria - monocultures with hundreds of thousands of causalities from terrorist and other forms of violence.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:40AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 14 2015, @02:40AM (#262992) Journal

      You've been modded "insightful" - but I would say that your insight is somewhat limited. Neither Syria nor Iraq is a monoculture. Both countries have been subject to outside influences for millenia. Both countries are home to multiple cultures, including Yazidi, Kurd, Orthodox Christian, Shia, Baathists, Bedouin, and more. Things have been complicated in recent centuries by the invasion of European powers, and the discovery of oil.

      It would be more accurate to say that Syria and Iraq are the natural results of multiculturalism.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:10AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:10AM (#263009) Journal

        Shh, Runaway, all Ay-rabs look the same and are the same, dontcha know

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:21AM (#263042)

        > Neither Syria nor Iraq is a monoculture.

        Thanks for taking my bait. You are of course correct. Similarly no country on the earth is a monoculture. Not even the cited case of the Japan is such with the native Ainu and the Zainichi for example.

        Therefore drawing the conclusions about the benefits of monoculture is typical racist thinking - conclusions based on a superficial reductivist understanding and barely a passing familiarity with the complex details of the situation.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:33AM (#263053)

        Its kinda funny you consider baathists [wikipedia.org] to be a cultural group. I guess to a wing-nut conservative like you democrats are a cultural group too.

        Just goes to prove my point about you only having a superficial knowledge of what the fuck you are talking about. As is always the case with racists.

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:48AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:48AM (#263062) Journal

          Dopeheads are a subculture - socialists are a subculture - neonazis are a subculture - even feminism has become a subculture here in the US. And, yes, Baathists are every bit as much a subculture in the mideast as the Yazidi are. Iraq was ruled by a Baathist for several decades, after all.

          Or, did you think that only a religion can define a culture or subculture? The diet? A style of clothing? By what standards do you define culture? Are guns and other weapons required to defing a culture?

          I suppose that you would claim that the USSR had no culture.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:17AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:17AM (#263074)

            It's revealing how you've turned the word "culture" into something so all encompassing that it has no meaning at all. You've completely contradicted your position about monocultures by making up a definition for the word "culture" that is so generic that it is impossible to have a monoculture because any group of people can be divided up by your arbitrary lines.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:57AM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:57AM (#263151) Journal

              That's life, Sweety Pie. New York city culture is distinct from Los Angeles culture, which is quite distinct from the culture of Chicago. And, the country side of the United States hosts a thousand little pockets of other distinctive cultures. Ever been to south Texas? Would you confuse the poeple there with New Yorkers, or even Houstonians?

              People don't all fit into your concept of what life is like. In fact, I suspect that no people fit into your world view.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:26PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:26PM (#263278)

                > That's life, Sweety Pie.

                Lol. You think you are such a wise scholar of the human condition but you can't recognize your own "culture" - old ignorant white bigot.

                For you "multiculturalism" is just another thing for you to rant about - feminists, socialists, dopeheads - those are cultures to you. What a fucking joke you are. That is indeed life -- bigots gonna bigot.

                • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:46PM

                  by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:46PM (#263285) Journal

                  You do realize that some of the other contributing members of this board are envious of my fan club. Please, spread the love a little. Others deserve the recognition. I do love having my own fan club, but there are others just as deserving.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:55PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:55PM (#263291)

                    Oh, poor little runaway is feeling persecuted. How terrible for you. Like all bigots, at heart you are just a whiner who thinks he's been singled out.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:07AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:07AM (#263007) Journal

    It's generally advisable to google first before asserting something like this. Aum Shinrikyo [wikipedia.org], native Japanese apocalyptic cult that had recruited chemical engineers and others and amassed hordes of weapons and developed chemical weapons. They aimed big, releasing sarin in the Tokyo subway, hoping to kill tens of thousands. They only managed to kill two because there's more to dispersing chemical agents than meets the eye. I was living in Japan at the time, and it was incredibly shocking to Japanese because those chemical engineers and scientists had graduated from Kyodai (Kyoto Daigaku--Kyoto University) and Todai (Tokyo Daigaku--Tokyo University), which are the Princeton and Harvard of Japan, where the elite of the elite are educated there.

    But there you go, a very monocultural society, for many the definition of a monoculture, giving birth to a very nasty, highly motivated terrorist group.

    Or, you could pivot to Europe if you don't find East Asia particularly compelling and talk about Germany, another extreme monoculture (at least at the time), that gave birth to die Rote Armee Faktion, which was a terrorist group that was still active when I studied in Koln in high school in 1989. All German terrorists, targeting Germans. Or take the Italians, if you don't accept Germans as a good example; the Italians had Brigate Rosse, all Italians, targeting Italians. Or you could take FARC in Columbia, or the Shining Path in Peru. There are many other examples of lesser or greater "purity" according to the monocultural filter.

    Still think monoculturalism is the answer to terrorism?

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:08AM

    by gnuman (5013) on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:08AM (#263069)

    Oh wait, no I don't. Because monoculturalism is the solution.

    This is a very stupid comment for one very good reason - the world is multicultural. Unless you want the human race to go out in a blaze of glory, of course.

    People do bad things because they are indoctrinated to be bad people, not because of their "culture". Germans are not "bad people", but look what happened under Hitler. Myanmar Buddhists are not bad people either, but there is strong evidence of ethnic cleansing of local Muslim populations. Almost every nation and culture has plenty of examples - we are all equal in how bad we can be. So we all either stop behaving like assholes and stop doing bad things and start tolerating each other, OR, might as well set off WWIII now and have most of the world be inhabitable for anyway. Monoculturalism of nil is certainly most peaceful.

    And there is always going to be idiots with weapons bent on going out in a blaze of glory. It will never be possible to stop them 100% of the time, even if we live in a literal jail. The best way to fight extremists is to unite everyone against them. But if you allow the extremists to divide you instead, like your opinion seem to indicate, then the struggle is lost already and the extremists won. The more polarized a city/nation/region/world/whatever becomes, the more extremists are created - don't be one of those.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:27PM (#263279)

      the world is multicultural

      If only we could keep the individual cultures contained in geographically defined areas of some kind. Wouldn't that be great? Maybe even build a nice wall to keep others out.

      • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:15PM

        by gnuman (5013) on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:15PM (#263332)

        If only we could keep the individual cultures contained in geographically defined areas of some kind.

        And how do you think that would work? One person cannot marry another because they are in different "culture"? One person cannot live as they want, because that would be different from "their" culture?

        Your "culture" doesn't define who you are - you define who you are. Your life is your own, not your "culture's".

        • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:00PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 14 2015, @10:00PM (#263471)

          Newsflash: I was making a joke, dum-dum. That comment was referring to a thing called 'borders', which are the confinement of what is commonly called a 'country'.

          A 'country' is a place of people with a shared heritage and culture. Of course, that's only if you don't open your 'borders' to anyone who wants to poz your neg hole. A country with open borders cannot exist, at least not for long. A country with open borders will be conquered by whoever wants to.