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Manuel Ricardo Torres Soriano, professor from the Politic Sciences, Public Law and Administration Department at Universidad Pablo de Olavide, who specializes in jihadist terrorism analysis, insurgent forces and radical movements, has published an article titled "Five terrorist dystopias," together with the University of Barcelona's professor Mario Toboso Buezo. The report aims to determine what will be the leading motivation for terrorism by the year 2040? Investigators single out technophobia as a leading cause for terrorism in the future.
The study has been published in the International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs, and sets out a methodology based on the analysis of scenarios through the narrative description of five possibilities that consider the interaction of five trends: the technological advances of biomedicine, the emergence of new ideologies, climate change, structural unemployment caused by complete automation, and the constant growth of the cities.
What will be the motivation for terrorism by 2040?
[Source]: Pablo de Olavide University
[Abstract]: Five Terrorist Dystopias
How much should we believe their premise that technophobia will be the major cause of terrorism after 20 years?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:03AM (4 children)
With people living potentially forever using anti-aging therapies, designer babies including ones created with gay parents or no parents, more comprehensive sex change operations (including gene therapy, organs grown from cells, etc.), and possibly artificially intelligent life forms ("strong AI"), there will be plenty for the god-fearing to rail against. They could easily adopt a position that people who are on the path to busting past age 120 while being indistinguishable from 40-year-olds have turned into soulless demons and targets for killing.
"Structural unemployment caused by complete automation" is a good reason, and even if we do adopt a UBI #Yang2020, it could mean that lots of frustrated, unemployed, but sufficiently funded men have the free time and energy to create and obtain bombs and guns, which they will use against the enemies of G-Man Christ.
The discovery of alien life is another good one. It doesn't have to be a Dyson swarm discovery or an alien spacecraft landing on the White House lawn. Just atmospheric spectroscopy data and direct imaging confirming a vegetation analogue on some exoplanet will do. That will cause a resurgence in UFO/alien cults. Imagine how many Heaven's Gates will pop up after NASA announces the discovery of alien life, something that could happen by the 2030s.
There was some [wired.com] reporting [theguardian.com] on anti-nano/biotech eco-luddite terrorism in Mexico a few years ago. I'm not sure if that has gone anywhere since 2013 but you could expect to see more of that as those kinds of technologies make a bigger impact on people's lives.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Troll) by takyon on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:08AM (3 children)
Oh, and an obvious one specific to the U.S.: comprehensive gun control will lead to comprehensive terrorism.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)
Well, it'll probably be called terrorism in the initial stages but it'll be called a civil war after a while.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @08:02PM (1 child)
yeppers. if these seditious scum just pass an "assault weapons" ban that doesn't "grandfather in" previously purchased firearms (requires people to turn their existing banned guns in) they will have started the 2nd civil war. i don't want it to happen, but i'm preparing to make my point well understood if it does happen.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:07PM
Especially since they consider anything but bolt action, lever action, and revolvers to be assault weapons.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Troll) by driverless on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:05AM (4 children)
Getting rid of His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Doctor Donald Trump, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the American Empire in General and Washington in Particular, after he cancels the 2024 election, and all elections following it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:09AM (3 children)
Not if he keeps eating at McDonald's.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:51PM (2 children)
Damn, that was a pretty good one. Newly unbanned mod point for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday June 09 2019, @03:24AM (1 child)
Aw come on, my Idi Amin reference has gotta be worth at least one upmod as well :-).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 09 2019, @05:40PM
Nah, the unexpected is a key part of humor. Comparing Trump to a real person that nobody likes doesn't make the cut. Now if you'd gone with President Skroob, you could have glommed on to the funny of Spaceballs and that would have been another matter entirely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:12AM (22 children)
Monotheism is the core source of Evil on this planet, for very long time.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:48PM (11 children)
I rather expect the distribution of religion to become more "mono" and less "poly" if the middle east continues to be a breeding ground for Muslim fanaticism (and I expect that, too.)
Eventually, one of the major powers will get tired enough of it to really mean to do something about it instead of just using it as an excuse to fluff military business interests. This is most likely to come about when enough of the rich and powerful's investments get savaged. For instance, a terrorist nuclear attack on a first world city would almost certainly do it.
There are all kinds of scenarios that could lead to a reduced threat middle east, or even just way fewer Muslims, not all of them nuclear. Pretty much guaranteed to be a mess, though. For instance, if no one was willing to buy petroleum products from them any longer. No money equates to a vastly diminished ability to project power on any scale.
Religion itself won't leave us unless genetic engineering can fix the cognitive issues [fyngyrz.com] that open the door to it. I think it's also likely that some kind of economic fix for suffering and have-not-itis would help at least somewhat.
But... it is looking more and more like the environment is going to be much more of an issue than terrorism before this century gets very much further along. At least here in the USA, legislators have proven intractable on actually getting off the dime. If the predictions for "it's gone too far" dates are even close, there's almost no time left to actually implement a fix. Barring some yet-to-be-discovered "easy" technological remediation, anyway.
--
Dark humor is like medical care.
Not everyone gets it.
(Score: 4, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:36PM (8 children)
Mideast and no money is a worse nightmare than just losing the ability to project power. Saudi Arabia is grossly overpopulated. I mean, GROSSLY. The land at their disposal cannot possibly support all the people they have living there. When the oil money dries up, the shit is going to hit the fan. They emigrate, they go to war, they get charity from the world, or they starve, in droves. The same problems will be experienced in other mid-east countries, but I think Saudis will be worst hit.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:51PM (7 children)
I don't think oil will "run out". It just gets expensive. As long as we can afford to grow, then we keep buying it.
However, the temperature is increasing. That seems pretty dismal when it's already 50 deg out there.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:09PM (6 children)
It's possible we're just getting old. I wouldn't think anything at all about playing, skateboarding, or riding my bike thirty miles in these temperatures when I was a kid.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday June 09 2019, @07:18AM (3 children)
They're talking Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 09 2019, @05:45PM (2 children)
Yeah, I know. It was just another day for me to ride my bike fifteen miles down to the beach (and then another 15 miles back) in 95F with 80% humidity back when I was 14-15. I wait until the sun's nearly down to mow if it's over 85 and the humidity's over 40% nowadays. So, it seems like it's increasing a whole lot more than it actually is was my point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday June 09 2019, @06:14PM (1 child)
135F is a lot more then 95F, doesn't have to increase to be killing people that are stupid enough to ride their bike 30 miles.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @10:25AM
My point wasn't the temperature. It was the apparent increase as you age.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday June 10 2019, @01:39AM (1 child)
Are you older or just larger? When you were a kid, you had more surface area relative to your volume, so maybe it was easier to eliminate excess heat. Unless heat dissipation isn't the concern here. Maybe you just need to get back in practice [webmd.com]?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @10:26AM
Little bit of both but nothing drastic. I'm a lot more out of shape than I am out of shape if you know what I mean.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday June 09 2019, @09:55PM (1 child)
The middle east will continue to be a breeding ground for Muslim fanaticism for as long as the US decides to keep making them.
Every time you guys bomb a wedding you kill a bunch of women and children and you turn the men into terrorists.
Stop doing that and they will stop their nonsense too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Monday June 10 2019, @12:51AM
With the 9/11 attacks available basically forever to drive the agitprop, you can pretty much count on the middle east being mined for every military dollar that can possibly be extracted on a continuing basis. As I said, until/unless they actually do serious damage to the interests of people in power here, there's no reason for the rich and ethically retarded to stop the drive to keep bombing them, invading them, and etc.
They'll chalk it all up to the many varied aspects of terrorism theater they have enjoyed inflicting upon our citizens, and the dull and rah-rah crowd, of which we have many, will continue to back them all the way.
I understand your point — and agree with it in fact — but the fact is, this country's economic engine leans pretty heavily on our military adventurism. Barring someone solving it for us (which probably no one could actually manage... we really do have a huge military capability), or the middle eastern fanatics making such a mess that they can no longer tolerated at all, I expect the status quo to be maintained to the tune of many boozy toasts to the robust jingling of "defense" industry investments.
There's no question that we meddle. I think the only mistake some people make is the assumption that the powers-that-be here don't know it isn't meddling, pure and simple, and meddling designed to agitate at that.
--
I believe there's a person out there for everybody.
My person happened to be five cats.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:42PM (1 child)
Why monotheism? Is there any proof that polytheistic societies don't produce religious lunatics and wars? Most ancient societies in Europe and the Middle East were polytheistic, and they didn't lack wars. To the contrary, polytheism opened the door for wars against the "bad gods" who might (supposedly) be favoring other cities/nations. Note that even the Jewish Torah is nominally polytheistic in the sense that it acknowledges the existence of other gods in many places (notably in the 10 commandments: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" implies that there are other gods). That didn't stop the Jewish people from waging wars and committing atrocities upon their enemies.
Or are you really just wanting to blame Christianity and Islam for "the core source of Evil"? Well, then I suggest you might look at the 20th century. Hitler wasn't doing what he did for religion. Stalin wasn't killing millions of people to promote monotheism. Atrocities committed by other Communist nations generally weren't done in the name of monotheism. Few of the greatest genocides of the past 100 years were committed to promote monotheism (or even a specific religion at all).
I'm by no means giving religion a "pass" -- there's a lot of bad stuff committed in the name of some "god." Sure. But I think maybe what you really mean is that tribalism (usually promoted by a core ideology) is the core source of Evil. That core ideology and tribe may be organized around a religion and a single god, or around multiple gods, or around some other political or economic or moral ideology that has little to do with religion.
Religion is a tool used by bad people to do bad things. They can certainly do really bad things without it (using other tools to promote a tribalistic "us vs. them" perspective), as the last century has shown clearly.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 09 2019, @08:44PM
Polytheisms *do* produce religious fanatics who are violent. Just nowhere nearly as many of them. And their goals are generally a bit different. The followers of Dionysus were (sometimes) murderous fanatics. But not on a grand scale. The Buddhist wars were actually more political than religious. Etc. Even Kali worship, while fanatic, violent, and murderous, is wan when compared to Charlemagne converting the heathens. And he was relatively mild compared to many. (I think that Charles Martel probably killed more people, but his war was political. Of course, all wars are political, but Charlemagne was anti-non-Christian, and wouldn't have happened [in that form] without the religious intolerance.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:49PM (4 children)
Along with the many other core sources of evil on this planet such as money, treating humans as objects, and generally just being an asshole - to name a few mentioned here on SN in recent years.
My take is that we'll get terrorism mostly from two sources, long term unresolved grievances that come to asymmetric warfare, and ideological ones - fixing the problems of the world by killing people and breaking infrastructure.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:55PM
Killing bad guys and failing to fix infrastruture. What's the diff?
Sounds like a middle of the road Republican platform.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday June 08 2019, @07:52PM (1 child)
Don't forget social disruption by state actors.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 08 2019, @09:32PM
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 09 2019, @08:51PM
Sorry, money is not a core source of evil. The correct attribution is "the love of money", and the more correct general form is "greed". When money is just accurate accounting, then it's not evil, merely factual. The way power structures use the need for money is another matter. But that can be reframed as a kind of greed.
Consider whether interest should be a sin. There are valid arguments either way.
If you want to reduce this "source of evil" down to the real core, it's a fox wanting to eat a rabbit that's objecting (by trying to run away). Of course, the rabbit wanted to eat the clover, which couldn't run away.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @07:22PM (1 child)
No, it's not. The root of all evil is fear of "the other". Pick whatever you want for "the other", be that religion, skin colour or shade, nose shape, head shape, language, 'culture'.... doesn't matter. As long as people can separate themselves into groups, they will fight "the other" because "the other" is always at war with them and they must protect themselves with pre-emptive attack.
Does that get highlight the problem? Labelling "religion" as this reason is just going into the same mouse trap we lay for ourselves throughout history.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:00PM
Fear probably explains why the philander lies to their spouse, but it doesn't explain why their relation got into trouble in the first place. Bigotry is only one sort of evil. There are many others.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 09 2019, @11:22AM
There. FTFY.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @11:47AM (31 children)
Man! People dream up the wildest shit.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Informative) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:17PM (2 children)
Money, yes, but very often religion is used as cover.
Look at ISIS. Thanks to the decision of the W administration to disband the Iraqi military after the Second Gulf War, you had a very large number of unemployed senior level commanders in an area with lots oil and a vacuum of law and order. There is no way ISIS would have held as much territory for as long without experienced leadership, money, and the promise of more money in the future.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:36PM
very often religion is used as cover.
Yes, as a small supermarket is a front for the mafia bosses in the back room.. Or a jewelry store used as front by drug cartels.
And religion makes a fine recruiting tool for the grunts But business is business. And terrorism, like religion, is also a tool of business.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:02PM
That's only because The Red Menace petered out with the fall of Soviet Russia. The rich and powerful needed a new bogeyman with which to scare the sheep, so instead of Communists hiding in our midst, trying to take our freedoms, they trotted out Terrorists. Conveniently more generic than Communists, they won't have to be replaced if a country falls. Equally nebulous, like the dreaded Commies, the new bogeyman is still after us to take away our precious freedoms, so the government (largely controlled by the rich & influential) continues to erode them in order to protect them. Sadly, the sheep continue to fail to see the irony of that.
Religion is too vague a threat. More and more of us are no longer illiterate peasants, easily cowed by threats of angry invisible sky wizards, but if some shadowy group might be threatening out freedoms, why that just can't happen; no restricting measures are too extreme in the name of protecting freedoms.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:51PM (5 children)
I guess people will disagree, but terrorism is a business all the way up and all the way down [businessinsider.com]. We can forego all the emotional baggage.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday June 08 2019, @01:45PM (2 children)
Not sure what you mean by business, but terrorism is simply a war tool where relatively poor man or organization have a reasonable chance to win against a much more resourceful one.
The goal could be anything.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:24PM
I recall a documentary a while back, on Al Qaeda itself I believe, that was revealing how that the overwhelming majority of man-hours spent by the organization was raising money.
The grunts didn't know or care much about the "grand vision" - some might enjoy getting riled up at the sermons, but mostly they were working a job in order to get paid. Mostly fundraising, sometimes through violence. And it seems unlikely that the people at the top, through whose hands all that money was flowing without any oversight, would not rapidly come to see it as a lucrative personal empire, even in the unlikely event that they genuinely did originally found the organization to advance their declared ideals.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:34PM
Please, "poor people" have to make deals too. They need mercenaries, weapons, and all the usual support equipment.
Wars and revolutions are not financed by "poor people". There's always the banker standing behind them.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 09 2019, @05:17PM (1 child)
You're absolutely too absolutist on many issues. That will eventually pin you into a very extremist mindset. Even though money and greedy bastards are almost always involved with mass violence, the reasons for the violence are often rooted in real world problems. At the very least money is required for survival so right there you have a valid reason, basic survival.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 09 2019, @06:21PM
You're just ignoring the evidence, and giving credence to mass media propaganda.
Don't be so silly. If a guy can make 40 times as a fighter than he can baking bricks in the sun, which occupation do you think he's gonna take?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:53PM (21 children)
It ain't money and never was. It's plain old ordinary human tribalism from a tribe that can't hope to win a head-to-head war. It's been happening like this since humans have been humans, just with different weapons.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:19PM (20 children)
Primitive tribalism is an exploit to make money. If it weren't for the money, they would still be flinging their poo and livestock, and anything else within reach. Terrorism is a global commodity, bought and sold on the open markets, just like oil and orange futures, and anything else put up on the board.
Yeah, there are the local lone wolf nutcases, but they are mostly in the States. All the international shit is under high finance.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:44PM (19 children)
Nope. Still ain't about the money. Money gets involved because it's handy but it's about "their tribe" versus "our tribe" from start to finish.
Obligatory car analogy: Cars aren't produced to use gas. They're produced to move people. Gas is just a convenient tool for making that happen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 08 2019, @08:16PM (18 children)
They're produced to move people. Gas is just a convenient tool for making that happen.
So are terrorism and money. Terrorism is provoked by people who want to make money or other personal gain. You are wagging the dog. The fanaticism is just a convenient tool to get somebody else to do it cheaper than a professional mercenary.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:11PM (17 children)
You've still not explained how the fundamental reason for conflict in the first place is anything other than tribalism. The how is irrelevant when you're trying to argue the why.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:47PM (15 children)
Tribalism doesn't mean conflict. Throughout world history, different tribes have been able to get along just fine, even while sharing land, resources, and inter-marrying.
Inter-tribal conflict only comes when those with power in one tribe demonise another tribe. This is often instigated by the ruling class of one tribe because they want something another tribe has (land, resources, jobs, etc.).
Tribalism is never the cause of a conflict, it's just an easy way for rulers to raise an army.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday June 09 2019, @05:48PM (9 children)
Bull. Shit.
When you have tribalism you always, always, always have strife. It may not always rise to the level of war but it damned sure rises to the level of war a hell of a lot more often than intra-tribal disagreements. Marking someone else as "other" is already halfway to demonizing them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 09 2019, @06:27PM (8 children)
Marking someone else as "other" is already halfway to demonizing them.
And it's very profitable for those in the business of demonizing the "other". Provocation for profit is a thing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @10:32AM (7 children)
Which is an ancillary feedback mechanism not the root force. I know you want to be right but you're not going to be on this. It's not an ideological issue but a factual one and no amount of debate is going to turn two into three.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 10 2019, @02:40PM (6 children)
So, you're saying that we are no more advanced than an amoeba?
*I can accept that*
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @02:53PM (5 children)
Are amoebas tribal? I'm pretty sure it takes at least a modicum of intelligence to understand the concept of "us vs them". But, yeah, in some aspects most humans aren't much more evolved than wolves. If you don't at least consider whether you want to override an instinct or not before acting on it, you really can't claim anything in the way of sentience behind the action.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 10 2019, @03:20PM (4 children)
Are amoebas tribal?
Extremely, in a different simpler fashion, they will attack any perceived threat, including other amoebas. They try to dominate their environment like every other life form. If they had opposable thumbs they would rule the galaxy.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 11 2019, @12:08PM (3 children)
Er... tribalism implies plurality. Tribes of one are contraindicated.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:48PM (2 children)
Sure ok whatever. I already showed you how money can easily overcome any of your tribalism with links and everything. People will quickly jump to the tribe with the biggest paycheck. Economy "trumps" tribalism.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:17AM (1 child)
You've shown how it does that for an unknown minority of individuals. You've not once shown its efficacy on a tribal scale.
If tribal bonds were that weak, there would have been no Cubs fans to cheer them when they finally won the Series.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 12 2019, @03:00PM
You've shown how it does that for an unknown minority of individuals.
Sorry, it will work for anybody. Treachery, betrayal is everywhere. With money the tribalism goes right out the window.
I doubt there is a single player on the team that's from Chicago, and if somebody pays the fans enough money, they'll switch right over to the White Sox, or even the Cardinals (perish the thought!) If tribalism were such a big thing, where would be no lights in Wrigley Field.
Your 19th century stereotypes don't work here.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 09 2019, @09:11PM (4 children)
In a way, you're right, but not really.
If people aren't arguing over resources, they can often get along even with substantial difference. But when two people want the same resource, then there's generally no way of solving that without invoking an external force. And if the two people who are arguing run tribes, those tribes are likely to fight.
OTOH, there are also degrees of conflict. The Maori are alleged to have eaten their fallen foes. In other places the "wars" sound no more violent than football games. But both are examples of using tribalism to decrease the "human worth" of the opponent. So the tribalism didn't *cause* the wars, but it made them easier to instigate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @10:35AM (3 children)
Lacking tribalism, the wars would not have occurred at all. You cannot have a war without another tribe to be the enemy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 10 2019, @02:43PM (2 children)
Sorry, people can be provoked purely for profit also. Offer enough money to kill a guy, and they'll do it, even if it's direct family.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 10 2019, @02:57PM (1 child)
We're talking war here not actions of an individual and that argument does not scale well at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday June 10 2019, @03:23PM
Even easier. Those guys are always switching sides for a bigger paycheck. ISIS made cutbacks, and a whole bunch went over to Al Qaeda and other competing forces. Money, for a starving man, easily overwhelms tribalism.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 09 2019, @12:05AM
It's easy for outsiders to provoke conflict with propaganda and the occasional murder. Such is the business model of the arms merchants and resource extraction on the cheap. Nobody does this shit for free.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:07PM (4 children)
History shows that you can make people believe anything. So it doesn't matter much what the motivation of terrorists will be, there will always be those who will feed them the right twisted logic to make them go berserk. Humanity is not the pinnacle of kindness that many believe it is. It contains a lot of potential evil as well, which can surface anytime.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:18PM (3 children)
Sure, there will always be terrorism. But if automation causes skyrocketing unemployment with UBI used as a band-aid, then we could see a lot more of it. Big social changes are also happening in a relatively short amount of time, and that tends to piss people off.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:54PM (1 child)
Or even worse, if automation causes skyrocketing unemployment without UBI used as a band-aid.
--
I'm just going to flip this omelette and...
I'm having scrambled eggs.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:39PM
With or without the band-aid, I see a population reduction in the future.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:56PM
Yeah, a lot of the more strident progressives refuse to see this at all, which is why having conservatives around as a moderating force is useful in all cases. Yes, even when the progressives are trying to progress towards something desirable to everyone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:17PM (6 children)
The worlds first techno terrorist and the one who predicted this would happen 20 years ago. Shame on you Manuel Ricardo
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:21PM
Who? Guess he was the unibomber rather than the unabomber.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:25PM
The full paper cites the Unabomber and that Mexican group I mentioned in my comment:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday June 08 2019, @04:26PM (3 children)
Oops, didn’t RTFA. Sorry, AC, you’re right.
The Unabomber Manifesto actually makes a few good points here and there, mainly by calling attention to the fact that the rate of modern day technological change has far, far outstripped the pace of natural human evolution, and that as a result, a lot of people are poorly adapted to Industrial Society. I don’t buy into the conclusion that the way to fix this is through cowardly acts of violence, however.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @06:49PM (2 children)
Violence shouldn't generally be the go-to answer for much of anything. It should almost always be reserved as an option of last recourse. But it should be reserved for such instead of being discounted. Letting someone fuck yourself and those you care for over because you refuse to fight isn't noble, it's cowardly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @08:07PM (1 child)
che guevara would disagree with you. only revolutions with a violent wing ever succeed i believe was the just of it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:13PM
Well of course he would say that. If violence wasn't warranted against the enemy, how could it possibly be warranted against your own people when they don't toe the line or you just need a convenient scapegoat? That would have utterly ruined any chance of building a socialist or communist utopia, with as much blood as is needed to lubricate the wheels of social justice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:50PM (2 children)
In this case, it's the former that rules. No science here.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Saturday June 08 2019, @12:55PM
Politics is a science the same way economics and religion are sciences. 😊
--
But, Your Honor, the light had dopplered to green.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:58PM
Offtopic pointed at your sig: I'm a Harpo man myself. The hold my leg gag makes me laugh no matter how many times I see it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:08PM
It'll all be terrorism in the Iot.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:27PM (1 child)
A lot of what they do suggest seem to be a matter of definition. They are fleshing out what could have just been summed up really as Politics and Technology.
Politics isn't a new one since it has almost always been a source of violence and terror in one way shape or form. Biomedicine and automation (robotics, AI etc) are just different aspects of the technology branch. Call it Neo-luddites or whatever you will or wish.
Climate change, or Green/Eco-terror, does sound plausible. It has happened before but I guess they could ramp that up if/when they feel that standing around talking about the planet dying just isn't enough anymore. That said I never quite understood it as an idea. They want us to be more eco-friendly by killing and destroying thus forcing us to create replacements that will probably impact the planet in a worse manner. OK ...
What is clearly mission here is GOD. GOD is always a great source of terror and I don't see anything that would change that in the next 20ish years or so. Why didn't GOD make the list? It's hardly a form of new ideologies.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 08 2019, @03:07PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:41PM
See subject.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday June 08 2019, @03:57PM (2 children)
I suspect with the death of legacy mass media, terrorism will mostly go away.
The point of hijacking an airliner in the 80s was getting continuous coverage interrupting planned entertainment viewing on the three TV networks for hours at a time, and this wide reach is what made a major op worthwhile. I mean, would anyone know who the PLO was in the 80s without major media cooperation?
In (almost) 2020, some dude hijacks an airliner, CNN will continue its rant about Russians controlling Trump, millions of women scrolling facebook jealous of other peoples nonsense, dudes on pornhub scrolling past the weirdo stuff thats being heavily pushed to see the hotties they really want, kids watching game footage on youtube, why bother hijacking an airliner because nobody gonna know or care.
Now old fashioned genocide and invasion and riots will still be a thing like the old days, its not like we're gonna live in peace. But the glory days of baby boomer wall to wall continuous media coverage of terrorism leading to more terrorism to get more coverage are pretty much over.
I think we kinda saw the last major "boomer era media frenzy supporting increased terrorism" around 9/11.
Interesting analogy with aircraft jetliner crashes, in the 80s you HAD to watch that because the media would interrupt the three networks for continuous coverage reporting, well, essentially nothing, just kinda real-world disaster movie type stuff, cheap thrills. Thats kinda done now, too much diversity in media consumption patterns for better or worse. If you told a kid in 2020 that "back in the old days" if a jetliner crashed, the entire frigging nation watched disaster pr0n coverage for an hour on all TVs because thats all the media there was to consume in the old days... they wouldn't believe you, probably, LOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @07:35PM
I hope the same goes for controversy porn. As boomers (and older) die, we can finally stop pressing the tired old hot-buttons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 09 2019, @08:06PM
to which the KEY was: major media cooperation.
Take the recent madness in New Zealand. Their stuff.co.nz "news" website still has a dedicated section about the attack. No doubt Stuff is owned and operated by an Islamo-Communist alliance with maybe a token white-faced Kiwi at the "head", dunno. But they keep on keeping on whining about it, on and on and on, day by day. Meanwhile there have been cases where the cops have raided legit gun owners - in one case pointing loaded weapons at a 12yo, and in another taking rifles because of a boarder's past, but then returning other firearms to that very boarder (while not returning the gun owners firearms). Its all circus as some idiots just used an AR-15 in a gang-related shootup and another fool was taking potshots at golfers just this weekend. Oh, and the gangs have openly said FU to handing in their guns and the cops/govt shrug and carry on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @05:38PM
same like always: unhappiness with the people in power and a feeling of being overwhelmed by the size of "the machine".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @10:16PM
Opposition to mandated proprietary software.
(Score: 1) by jmc23 on Thursday June 13 2019, @02:07AM
USA invented 'terrorists', it will continue to use 'terrorists' to terrorize people into giving up freedoms.
Meanwhile, the people the USA has oppressed and/or whose resources are desired by the USA will continue to be the scapegoats.