[ExI] Islamic extremism

[hkhenson]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-harris9oct09,0,3734484.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics

The outspoken former Dutch legislator deserves the protection her 
country promised before she ran for parliament.

By Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie
October 9, 2007
As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men 
guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and 
compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive 
today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout 
the world. The details of her story bear repeating, as they 
illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of 
Muslim extremism in the West.

snip

It's worth taking the link and reading the rest, but there is no insight to:

"How poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim 
extremism in the West."

Sam and Salman, it's not just the West, we humans are poorly equipped 
to deal with any kind of extremism anywhere in the world.

We don't even understand why Muslim extremism has become a more 
serious problem over the last 40 or 50 years.  The situation is 
analogous to the pre-germ theory times when humans were poorly 
equipped to deal with infectious diseases.

In fact, you can make the case that solving infectious diseases is 
part of what led up to Muslim extremism.  Reducing child and infant 
mortality is a good thing only if accompanied by enough birth control 
to keep the population out of foreseeing a "bleak future," i.e., the 
population growth stays below the economic growth.

Keith Henson