[extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom

[Samantha Atkins]

On Feb 1, 2005, at 4:41 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>> It is rather difficult to evaluate general cultural conditions while
>> not sampling many cultural elements.  Do you disagree that there is a
>> high level of fear operational in our culture a this time?
>
>
> Any reactionary fear from 11Sept2001 has greatly dissipated, almost to
> background level for most people in most places.  What has changed is
> that most people are far more aware of yet another risk to life and
> limb, but most seem to treat it in the same way they treat airline
> disasters.  There have been at least a half dozen different things that
> have gotten the public all riled up in a tizzy of fear over the last 
> two
> decades, and the whole terrorism bit is just one of the more recent and
> substantive ones.  I will grant that in a big picture sense, the threat
> from Islamic radicals is a much nastier and more difficult problem than
> most of the other issues that trigger reactions of fear, so some fear 
> is
> warranted.


It is not the normal sort of fear that I had in mind.   It is the fear 
that has been in my opinion purposefully multiplied and built upon for 
various forms of manipulation and gain that I allude to.   Surely not 
everyone failed to notice the endless terror alerts, often for little 
or nothing, the grandiose charges without convictions, then endless 
mention of terror and terrorism in speeches, news, sales pitches for an 
amazingly wide breadth of things, to name only a few?

I don't agree that Islamic terrorism is one of the most substantial or 
much nastier fears.   It is far more likely that we will experience 
major dislocation and danger in our lives and large death tolls from 
economic collapse, "normal" war,  quite naturally occurring epidemics, 
even climate change than it is that we will experience such dislocation 
from terrorist attacks.   At the moment there is vastly more 
dislocation present in the world from our invasion of Iraq than from 
the acts of terrorists themselves.   So something seems a tad out of 
kilter.

>
> One significant difference between the nature of the threat of Islamic
> radicalism versus most other threats that come along into the public's
> consciousness is that the jihadi threat suggests significant changes to
> the default calculus of dealing with the usual risks.  For example, the
> impact of Islamic radicalism is far less random than most of the other
> "big threats" that cross the minds of the average person.

Apparently you have accepted the very carefully laid and well ground-in 
meme package of how nasty and central the threat of Islamic terrorism 
is.    While I could be wrong, I believe you have been had.    Oh, 
there is a real threat there.   Just not remotely of the  size and 
immediacy portrayed.

>
> For many of the other threat memes there is no intention to kill any
> specific persons, and so the primary solution is to simply get out of
> the way.  Most really big disasters are like this.  Not so with Islamic
> extremism.  It is the difference between getting hit by a stray bullet
> and getting hit by a bullet intentionally aimed at you.  Two very
> different strategies are required to protect one's self from both
> scenarios, and most people have never considered the latter one.
>


Intentions do not count for a lot when dead is dead and other threats 
are actually more immediate.   A generalized hatred toward the US 
growing out of a faiths scorn for the infidels plus a lot of other 
factors, does not translate to intention to kill specific persons 
easily except maybe our leaders.

Do you actually think it likely that an Islamic terrorist will do you 
in before anything else does?

- samantha