Terrorists aren't as inhuman and single-minded as you've been essentially brainwashed into thinking. They have the same motivations as most other human beings. In many cases the "harem of virgins" is a Western ruse, and really they are looking out for their family that often benefits from significant "bereavement" payments.
It's interesting how many Western movies include the heroes essentially committing suicidal acts. That's commendable. Terrorists...well they're just irrationally crazy!
Further, to carry out a terrorist plot the actors usually need substantial support by people who aren't as...committed (see: Osama himself). Syria, for instance, was often considered a major sponsor, or at least facilitator, of terror, but since the Afghanistan war they've been one of the most committed to making sure terrorism is stopped. There are a lot of such middlemen who have selfish reasons to ensure that terrorism does not occur.
I find the concept, though, that nuclear weapons are only sought because of some sort of incorrect illusion of their effectiveness to be simply shocking. Does anyone really believe that? Does anyone really believe that even at the most "pessimistic", a nuclear weapon would be at least a thousand times more effective than anything any terrorist could dream up?
"Terrorists aren't as inhuman and single-minded as you've been essentially brainwashed into thinking. They have the same motivations as most other human beings."
As a whole, this is true of the leadership. This is virtually true by definition because being that inhuman and single-minded is incompatible with leadership and anybody who tries fails as a leader. Unfortunately, the way they lead is to fire very very potent memetic weaponry around with relatively wild abandon and they do unfortunately end up producing True Believers in quantity. We know this, because a suicide bomber almost by definition has to be a True Believer, and suicide bombers definitely exist. I would tend to agree that most terrorist leadership would rather use the nuke as a stick to beat people with rather than fire it but I am uncomfortable with the scenario in which one or more True Believers come to believe that their leadership are actually traitors and in their True Belief fire the weapon anyhow. Terrorists build their structures around some very toxic and volatile belief structures and we are justified in being very concerned about the combination of that and nuclear weaponry. Perhaps not "terrified" but certainly a matter of justifiable international concern. (I would reserve terrified for 5-15 years in the future when biological warfare becomes easy enough for them.)
You are right.You always have the puppets (the ones that are brainwashed and usually die in their own actions) and then the puppet masters , the ones that organize and send the other to die and they keep for themselves the talk and the ideology they usually don't follow. Well like all the politicians in the world they tell you to do things they usually don't. i have not seen many politician in the first line of nothing except parties and restaurants.
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Terrorists aren't as inhuman and single-minded as you've been essentially brainwashed into thinking. They have the same motivations as most other human beings. In many cases the "harem of virgins" is a Western ruse, and really they are looking out for their family that often benefits from significant "bereavement" payments.
It's interesting how many Western movies include the heroes essentially committing suicidal acts. That's commendable. Terrorists...well they're just irrationally crazy!
Further, to carry out a terrorist plot the actors usually need substantial support by people who aren't as...committed (see: Osama himself). Syria, for instance, was often considered a major sponsor, or at least facilitator, of terror, but since the Afghanistan war they've been one of the most committed to making sure terrorism is stopped. There are a lot of such middlemen who have selfish reasons to ensure that terrorism does not occur.
I find the concept, though, that nuclear weapons are only sought because of some sort of incorrect illusion of their effectiveness to be simply shocking. Does anyone really believe that? Does anyone really believe that even at the most "pessimistic", a nuclear weapon would be at least a thousand times more effective than anything any terrorist could dream up?
"Terrorists aren't as inhuman and single-minded as you've been essentially brainwashed into thinking. They have the same motivations as most other human beings."
As a whole, this is true of the leadership. This is virtually true by definition because being that inhuman and single-minded is incompatible with leadership and anybody who tries fails as a leader. Unfortunately, the way they lead is to fire very very potent memetic weaponry around with relatively wild abandon and they do unfortunately end up producing True Believers in quantity. We know this, because a suicide bomber almost by definition has to be a True Believer, and suicide bombers definitely exist. I would tend to agree that most terrorist leadership would rather use the nuke as a stick to beat people with rather than fire it but I am uncomfortable with the scenario in which one or more True Believers come to believe that their leadership are actually traitors and in their True Belief fire the weapon anyhow. Terrorists build their structures around some very toxic and volatile belief structures and we are justified in being very concerned about the combination of that and nuclear weaponry. Perhaps not "terrified" but certainly a matter of justifiable international concern. (I would reserve terrified for 5-15 years in the future when biological warfare becomes easy enough for them.)
It only takes one True Believer.
You are right.You always have the puppets (the ones that are brainwashed and usually die in their own actions) and then the puppet masters , the ones that organize and send the other to die and they keep for themselves the talk and the ideology they usually don't follow. Well like all the politicians in the world they tell you to do things they usually don't. i have not seen many politician in the first line of nothing except parties and restaurants.