Sam Harris Continues the Discussion on Muslim Profiling

The way I see it, you put more effort into inspecting the groups that are shown more likely to commit acts of terrorism. That means having the people who catch terrorists all putting their numbers together and figuring what the “average terrorist” looks like. Are they male or female? Black, white, middle-eastern, asian? What age?  What income level? Do they fly economy or business class?

Then you have a majority of your screening be based strictly on those demographics. Say, 70 or 80 percent. The rest should be done as truly random screening, because if terrorists catch on to which demographics you target, they’ll start sending people who don’t match that.

Of course, this might result in racial profiling if, say, 80% of convicted terrorists attempting to use planes are young bearded middle-eastern Muslim men. But then don’t blame the TSA, blame the young bearded middle-eastern Muslim men for creating a true stereotype.

“… the fact that so many commenters have a hard time responding to him
without letting their emotions (and gut reactions) get in the way shows
that he has touched a nerve.”

But the question requires an emotional response. Sam Harris is just not getting the particular emotional response that he has when he ponders this question. The likelihood that any of those options are in fact a terrorist are slim to none.

Profile young bearded men and they will send older shaved men. Profile older shaved men and they will send women. You can’t really win the game this way.

“Is he wrong?”

Yes, he’s wrong. And anyone that hasn’t understood that, and why, by now is either not paying attention, or not discussing this in good faith.  The fact that Sam Harris seems to be ignoring all the calm, reasoned, well referenced responses explaining why he’s wrong, and instead focusses entirely on folks simply (but not, it would appear, inaccurately) calling him a racist, makes it look like it’s the latter.
The inevitable smackdown from Bruce Schneier should be entertaining though.

He conveniently left the bible off that list.

 Instead, he’s continuing an interesting discussion.

aka ‘digging his heels in’. Just like on the torture question, he refuses to admit that he is wrong.

So you like Sam Harris because he doesn’t shy away from controversial topics and does not back down from him critics.

You must also Luke Glenn Beck, you jackass.

Nah, it seems most of my fellow atheists would rather just call him a racist and be done with the discussion. I disagree with Harris on profiling, but I am more incensed by how my fellow non-believers just want to write him off as a racist. 

What if he is acting nervous and hiding things, and the thing he happens to be hiding is a Quran? What type of profiling is it then?

C’mon, Harris. Anyone can see how much of a false analogy that is–only one of those books motivates behavior or political opinion. How about we replace the other three with (b) the Bible, (c) the Communist Manifesto inserted into the pages, and (d) a book/pamphlet supporting eco-terrorism. Or we could swap any of those three with the Quar’an, and they would be the most suspicious of the four books Harris proposes. It doesn’t have to do with the fact that the individual is Christian, Muslim, ecologically-friendly, or Communist–if any of these individuals simply carried their literature, there would be little reason for additional suspicion. I say “little” because anyone who is more strongly devoted to a particular cause would be more likely to draw suspicion than someone who is not.

 Exactly.

I imagine that I’d allow him through the line, no further questions asked.  If he was a true fanatic Muslim, he wouldn’t take a Qu’ran along with him to blow up an airplane.  That would destroy the Qu’ran.  If he’s not a true fanatic Muslim he shows the good sense not to alarm his fellow passengers by allowing them to see him with his holy book, a degree of concern inconsistent with terrorist plotting.  Look, I”m an atheist, and I have at least three Qu’rans in my house (and a couple dozen Bibles in different languages).  I don’t suspect myself of wanting to blow up an airplane.  There are a whole lot of Muslims in the world, and only a tiny handful are terrorists.  Profiling people because of their religion is irrational as religion itself.  

Now if he’s got a copy of Dianetics, I’d watch out for him.  🙂

Harris’ argument here can easily be refuted mathematically using elementary probability theory, but it is also so asinine that doing so isn’t really necessary.  A more interesting thing to take from this example is that Harris wants to create a world in which Muslims would be afraid to take a copy of their holy book on an airplane.  That has nothing to do with anti-terrorism and everything to do with anti-Muslim bigotry.

But you must understand that by profiling young bearded men it makes it harder on “them.”  It’s not victory-in-a-can, it’s just a step towards making the tactics harder for success.  Women are just less likely to go kill themselves, on all demographics (men have higher rates of successful suicide attempts across the board).  It makes it harder on the truly typical young male jihadi  to find a substitute for themselves (like many of their women really want to sacrifice their lives because their men tell them too.  Only a few (relative to men) would willingly do so.

This is tactics, you do what will most likely guarantee you success, and often make the best of bad decisions.

I believe at times judging others on some details, without knowing who they really are, is required when safety is threatened.  I believe these judgements should be painstakingly monitored and scrutinized, and at as many times as possible be made by more than one or two individuals so as to challenge confirmation bias.

He’s already refuted several claims quite definatively don’t be so sure Bruce will produce the smackdown you are hoping for.   Of course, you are not aware of this because you have not read the original article.   For example, it is absolutely false that the Israelis do not use profiling.   Not only do they do religious profiling they do racial profiling.   http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/in-israel-racial-profiling-doesn-t-warrant-debate-or-apologies-1.261075

But you must understand that by profiling young bearded men it makes it harder on “them.”

No, because now you’ve given them something specific to do to reduce the chance of inspection.

Nonsense.   The Amish and Jains are strongly devoted to a cause and don’t go around blowing up planes.   Mainly because their “cause” doesn’t extoll the virtues of martyrdom, and religious violence.

That article is scant on details, but weighed against a number of other sources that describe Israeli profiling, I’m not ready to call it ‘racial profiling’.  I think what probably happened is that 
Tuval was using an English phrase loosely and not thinking of the distinction.

Sorry, he did come up with a defense:

6. It would also allow terrorists to find another path through security—such as recruiting 80-year-old women from Okinawa to do their suicidal dirty work 
…
Bruce Schneier appears to be very fond of #6, and I trust we will hear more from him about how terrorists can successfully game any system that profiles. But I don’t buy this argument, at least not yet, for reasons that we will probably discuss. 

No, I don’t think Bruce will change his mind.  I’m sure he’s read Bruce, and I don’t think there’s much Bruce can add to what he’s already said on profiling.

To play devil’s advocate, what if after a brief, incomprehensive search you can’t find anything else on him that may arouse suspicion, aside from his behaviour? People have been questioned/searched further on behaviour alone. Do we run the risk of letting suspicious people go for fear of being accused of religious profiling just because they are carrying a Quran, when in actual fact they could be a danger? The Quran shouldn’t necessarily influence them more in the direction of a further search, but it also shouldn’t influence them in the other direction either.

Heck if we actually know someone is a Muslim by some other means, then we should probably suspect them for NOT carrying a Quran.

If there’s any merit to Sam’s argument, then it must focus on things one cannot change.  Beard, clothing, and what you carry are all things you can change and terrorists surely will to reduce scrutiny.

The only bit that remains is whether or not an 80-year-old-woman from Okinawa can be a terrorist (or terrorist mule).

I see a great movie plot here where terrorists kidnap an 80-year-old-from-Okinawa’s great-grand daughter forcing the 80-year-old-from-Okinawa to carry a bomb onto a plane.  

Oh, and there are additional economic costs on the terrorists in finding willing white jewish 8 year old kids strong enough and willing enough to use box cutters to get into paradise.     Using profiling reduces the available pool of suitable suicide bombers too.   

Sam called for religious profiling, and guys like PZ Myers pull out the race card and call it racial profiling.   You find such straw man arguments “rational”.  

Fact is that certain ethnicities are near monocultures of Islam precisely because they have persecuted and/or religiously cleansed their cultures to that point.    If you are able to ethnically distinguish a Saudi Arabian native there is  a very high probablility that he/she will be a Muslim.     So yes, in certain cases you can tell what a Muslim “looks like”.

Yes, there are exceptions, and one would need to use other clues in those cases, on a case by case basis.   The question then is it more costly.    Is it more costly to train people to detect  and than the savings one gets from the reduced number of searches required.      There isn’t neccesarily an obvious answer, and it all depends on the proportion of travelers, etc.   What it isn’t is racism.

Why don’t you move to a country where they control controversial topics, like North Korea.   Oops, you probably don’t have the right skin complextion for that Marxist paradise.   Not ironic at all about how here in the West Marxist studies invented political correctness and in all the totalitarian regimes inspired by Marx they really don’t allow much controversy.     Happily Harris doesn’t respect PC boundaries.

That guy was protesting overpopulation.  Wouldn’t you profile Erlich worshipers instead?     That is unless he was just a lone nut job, in which case you’d expect profiling not to be of much value.

What don’t you understand about the fact that doing something specific is harder?  

Why, do you think there is a history of Christians finding inspiration in the bible for blowing up passenger jets?    I very much doubt Harris, an atheist, would pass up such an opportunity to score points.    

Sorry, I was so distracted I missed the real point.  The cost to terrorists to find people in the target group is inversely proportional to the savings obtained by not screening that group.  So it’s expensive to find 80-year-old-Okinawan-females to be terrorists.  We don’t save a whole heck of a lot by skipping the screening of them either.  The bigger the pool we skip, the bigger the pool the terrorists draw from.

Ok, let me rephrase that.

No, because you’ve given them an attractive cost benefit trade-off.  They can do something more expensive, and skip screening.

Sure it depends on the actual cost, and the ‘value’ of skipping screening, but the point is it’s not a full gain for ‘our’ side.  For the cost you are applying to them, you are giving up the chance that they can accept that cost and better bypass your system.

 You seem to jump from using boxcutters to make a plane into a guided missile to blowing up passenger jets, any reason why?  (No undertones, just a question.)

The simple fact is that post-9/11 no-one is going to be able to take over a jet from outside the cockpit so the only damage that can be done is to blow it out the sky.  This is probably best/easiest achieved by being on board with the explosive as it makes the explosive much simpler (manual trigger) and the timing much more accurate (better in mid-air over a city than on the runway) but post-9/11 there have been major advances in intelligence gathering (the FBI have email!) as well as passengers being much more wary of suspicious behaviour onboard.

So, we currently have limited damage that can be done by a successful terrorist, security services better able to find, track and intercept terrorists, more alert staff and passengers onboard and an actual risk factor of being killed in a terrorist attack on an airliner smaller than dying in a malfunctioning aircraft.  And none of this is due to profiling or enhanced airport security since 9/11.

Rather than using logic to ask for a massive reduction in pointless, intrusive security measures, Sam instead advocates a policy of dubious efficacy that will infringe the rights of many people and lead to a systematic profiling of people based on race (high-school educated TSA officials not using their authority in accordance with their prejudices?)  Sam, and his proposal, may not be strictly racist but in its implementation you can bet it most certainly will be.

That all depends on how many people are in the group that does not get profiled.    One can either a population with lots of 80 year old Okinawan females, or one can have lots of other people that are not in the profiled group.     Considering that Muslims make up around a few percent of the population that amounts to enormous savings.  The savings  isn’t purely in the number of screeners that one needs to hire but also in the time wasted for the passengers.

One doesn’t need to “skip” the rest of the pool.   One still can profile them in other ways.    Like asking if they packed their own bags, and using random checks. 

You profile members of Al Queda, and advocates of terrorism by not letting them travel by plane at all regardless of race or nationality,  Saudi nationals get extra inspection regardless of affiliation,  people who look like Saudi nationals with Icelandic passports are checked,  Icelandic nationals who look the part get only random checking,  etc.

If you find that the terrorist adapt then you adapt.

Personally the idea that we check people for fingernail clippers after we have installed properly secure doors on the cockpits is ridiculous.   It’s ridiculous even without cockpit doors.   

Considering that Muslims make up around a few percent of the population that amounts to enormous savings.

We’re not looking for Muslims since, we’re looking for people who look like they could be Muslim, which includes Sam Harris and most of Malaysia.

Not matter what number you pick, it’s still a trade-off.  As you save more by screening fewer, you increase the odds that a terrorist can bypass your screening.

If you find that the terrorist adapt then you adapt.

So, after they blow up a plane, we adapt again?

Personally the idea that we check people for fingernail clippers after we have installed properly secure doors on the cockpits is ridiculous.

Ya, no argument there.  In fact most of our restrictions are senseless, in particular since there’s no consequence for attempting to take on a prohibited item.  All they do is make me toss my water bottle.  So I keep trying until they miss it.

 That’s only true if recruiting all groups is equally easy, thus the cost of finding a candidate is proportional to the rarity of the kind of person.

That doesn’t seem likely to be true.

There may well be groups that have many members who flies, and thus would be costly to search, yet are *also* on the average hard to recruit for suicide-missions.

 Doesn’t the Koran explicitly say to NOT do what suicide bombers do? Specifically killing oneself and killing noncombatants?

That would be like profiling Christians because… hang on, I’m sleepy, but there must be something the Bible says to not do that it doesn’t also say is okay somewhere else…

Lesson of the day.. if you are going to commit some kind of crime, carry a Quran with you then you can simply claim religious profiling and not be responible for anything for you right?

Usually when you’re in a hole the best thing to do is stop digging.

Not specifically. There’s as much to inspire one to die while fighting jihad as there is for not killing yourself. You then take your pick which seems to be more important and interpret it the way you need.

I also think it’s fascinating to watch the number of people who claim “logic” and “reason” on their side so confidently and use it like a magic shield to dismiss Sam’s arguments. I was initially thinking he might be wrong (without committing), but I’ve barely heard a sensible, targeted reply against his position.

It now seems like much more fun to defend him because out of the woodwork come a swathe of ridiculous, emotional arguments from people claiming to be reasoned, logical skeptics.

Please don’t bother using the word “reason” or “logic” in a sentence, if you can’t employ it at the same time. It requires arguments to be countered and not simply “dismissed”.

Actually I think I misremembered what plans were divulged.    None the less he practiced and taught a kind of group punishment like the Nazis used.

Just because they didn’t think of it first, doesn’t mean they can’t copy it!

You’d also be stupid for thinking a Muslim wouldn’t lynch you since christians thought that up first too.

I can only say that the hysterical response to Sam Harris over the last week has successfully highlighted his criticism of how the secular community tends to treat Islam with a much softer touch than the way in which we treat Christianity.

For instance: I’ve seen plenty of atheists defending the passages of the Koran which they say condemns violence towards innocents.

When was the last time atheists went around defending the passages in the bible which condemn violence? Do we atheists usually go around reciting Jesus’s words of love and peace as opposed to the insane stupidity contained elsewhere in both the old and new testaments?

I think not.

I didn’t say that I saw atheists defending the violent passages of the Koran. I said the opposite: I’ve seen atheists defending the Koran by citing non-violent passages which state that it would go against Islam to sanction the killing of innocents. There is a big difference, so please read my comment again. =)

I never said, nor did Sam Harris, that the Koran is the only “holy book” of violence.

But let’s be real for a moment: suicide bombing has been mostly a Muslim phenomenon. The reasons are varied and have been argued ad nauseam (literally – please let’s not argue it again). But does that matter? Does it matter when you just get down to the results? The results are that the highest risk of suicide bombers in the world, by far, are Muslim terrorists. Slice, dice, and spin it however you want but that’s just the plain fact. I’m not just talking about airliners but about suicide bombers in cafes, schools, plazas, bars, discotheques, restaurants, and any other public venue there is. When it comes to suicide bombings, outside of Tamil Tigers (in a very specific place which 99% of us will not be visiting), you’re talking about Muslims. End of story. There is no “But” there.

It’s like when I talk about abortion clinic bombers: I’m talking about Christians. Ok? I don’t go around saying “You know, those bombers are so terrible, but Christianity really doesn’t condone this sort of violence. Why, it says so right here in these passages and I think it’s racist to talk about profiling Christians who are protesting near abortion clinics or doctors.”

I wouldn’t say that because it’s bloody stupid to say that. If I did say that, it would be because, for a variety of reasons, I don’t want to offend Christians – because they’re a minority, or they’re sensitive to the point of wanting to riot with more violence and killings in response to my words. Either way, the fact is that we treat Christians differently than we treat Muslims.

If Sam had come out and started talking about profiling Christians approaching abortion doctors and abortion clinics, I can guarantee you that the bullshit from our community would have been far less pronounced. And why is that? Because most people in our community are “uncomfortable” with  *their* own perception of what a Muslim is. Sure, they talk up a big storm about how so many races, colors, and creeds make up the “Muslim” community, but deep down they’re thinking one bloody thing: “Arabs”. Or, to put it another way: “Brown skinned people”. And you know, that just makes people queasy when you start talking about criticizing them for their “indigenous” beliefs.

I’m sorry, but that’s a racist stance. Absolutely nobody has come out and said that this is what they think, but it’s so patently obvious in their reaction. Sam might as well have said something akin to “Let’s profile black people” in the way that people have reacted to him. They’ve acted as if he’s declared that we should profile an entire race.

Well, he hasn’t. But that reaction is so clearly misguided, so unfounded on what our community often declares they believe to be the truth, that it deserves a big bloody knockdown in the public sphere.

I’ve been accused of the same thing countless times: racism. Racism, because I don’t think of the Koran as a great book full of wisdom from an “indigenous” people whose ways, I was told O so often, I would only understand if I knew them a little bit better. Yes, that’s what racists get told when they say they don’t like certain races, and that’s how I get treated when I criticize Islam.

Well, I have news for you: I’m not a racist. I don’t think of Muslims as “brown skinned people”. Islam is a religion – a color blind religion, but with incredibly strong ties to Arab supremacy, both in language, culture, history, and tradition. If anything, Islam is partly “racist”. My criticism of it is not. My criticism of it is founded on the results of over a thousand years of Muslim history in the world, in the exact same way that my criticism of Christianity is founded upon everything in history including the Crusades, the Inquisition, and even the Holocaust. I treat Islam with the same die-hard sledgehammer which I use to knock idiotic Christian Fundamentalists around; the same scorn; the same utter bewilderment that people can believe and have “faith” in something so utterly bloody stupid.

You know what? Creationists are fools and idiots. People who accept “Jesus” as their savior are deluded sheep. People who even try to define what we need “saving” from are knaves.

The same goes for those Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and the West Bank. They’re morons. They live in this 18th century world of some sort of ghetto-mentality which is an entire culture within one of the most isolated bubbles which I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing several times for myself.

And guess what: Muslim fundamentalists, or even just “believing” Muslims are the same: Morons, idiots, and bloody stupid. They’re deluded people who grew up knowing nothing else and should, if only they knew it, get the hell away from this stupid way of thinking.

I’m not going to shy away from saying that. And I’m not going to stop saying it. I’m going to keep bitching about how the secular community, by and large, is entirely hypocritical in their approach to Islam. They defend the Muslim community at every turn, saying that it’s a good community and that the Koran isn’t the poison that some people make it out to be. Guess what? I don’t give a damn. The Bible isn’t filled with poison either, but we treat it as if it is, because that is the result which most concerns us.

Go on philosophizing about how Christians can turn to suicide bombing, or even religious Jews – hey! I won’t even argue with you. They could, in some cases, do this. But until now, it’s been a mostly Muslim phenomenon. It doesn’t mean that there haven’t been the occasional Christian or Jewish “martyr” (Baruch Goldstein comes to mind), but the acts are so rare that it doesn’t make an entire trend. Islamic suicide bombing *does* make a trend, and it’s a bloody trend we should be careful about. And the day that you start getting a trend in Christian or Jewish, or even Hindu suicide bombings all over the world, I’ll start screaming that we should watch them carefully as well and figure out a way to stop it.

Until then, I’m going to deal with every day reality instead of wishing it weren’t true because it makes me suddenly “uncomfortable”.

I just want to apologize for writing such a long piece. It got out of hand. =) Don’t read it if you don’t want to read a whole dissertation on my views.

Well, actually, I wrote before that I wasn’t entirely sold on Harris’s idea either. =) I think it’s worth the conversation but I don’t know how practical it is in an every day setting. I wrote last week on here as well that I wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea, or that it would even work.

But I also wrote that I wanted the conversation and to see the reaction which stems from it. Harris has been making this point for years, and always to the scorn from the community. But I think he’s right that it is a major issue. Whenever he starts talking about the dangers of Islam, the room falls quiet. It’s a mistake on our part as a community which I think that he, and I, and some few others, wish to rectify.

It’s called “taking your chances.”  It’s a gamble to send people on planes who with the right kind of knowledge/equipment can use that environment to cause harm to others.

And you REDUCE THE CHANCES OF THAT HAPPENING by not taking chances with certain people, and the argument that Middle Eastern looking men are worth profiling.  There are losers, and I applaud you for having the empathy for those who would have no desire to hurt others but happen to fit the profile.  But there have been other losers, people who have lost even their lives because of people who wish suffering on others.

I don’t want anyone to lose, but if some people have to lose a sense of privacy or some other feeling of violation to on the small small chance stop an actual VIOLENT act, it’s worth it.  I wonder if many here, who are concerned about the feelings of those who would be profiled, are not empathizing with victims of airline terror attacks, who could have benefited from profiling.

I’m starting to see this as an issue of: are many instances of insulted feelings/inconvenience losses worth more than  relatively very few instances of harm/violence and suffering.

I have a strong sense of empathy towards those who have lost someone or been hurt by terror attacks perpetrated by believers in Jihad.  My intuition there sways my conscience towards those people, away from those whom, while bravely defending the dignity of passengers, are really not keeping anybody from being physically harmed.  That is the ultimate desire here, not to boss people around.

I applaud you for having the empathy for those who would have no desire to hurt others but happen to fit the profile. 

Then you have misunderstood my argument entirely.  I’ve never said anything here about empathy or ethics or morality.  That stuff may come into it, but my argument is based solely on the efficacy of profiling.  My position is that profiling (basing how much screening you apply to someone based on what they look like or what they’re carrying) is less secure.  That’s it.  You can disagree with me, but if you think my argument has anything to do with not hurting anyone’s feelings, or being fair, you’re countering the wrong argument. 

I wrote a blogpost about his original statement.

http://sketchsepahi.com/blog/archives/1453

Since Sam still hasn’t offered any “profile” on how exactly to recognise Muslims merely by glancing at them, I feel perfectly justified in standing by my blogpost.

Either Sam is advocating racial profiling, or Sam thinks that Muslim terrorists dress the part. In either case he’s wrong.

As any security expert will tell you, using profiling increases the available pool of suitable attackers. Expending resources on examining a sector of people based entirely on external attributes means that you take resources away from examining people without those external attributes. Any smart would-be evildoer will quickly find out what kind of person airport security tends to leave alone, and start sending that person.

If you recall, the latest attack on the US air infrastructure didn’t even bother with people; they just sent parcels. It’s only a matter of time before they start attacking the security queues instead of the aircraft.

Patty Hearst. Just saying.

In my case it is, mostly because arguing the ends vs. the means will never get us anywhere, but costs, I think, can.

We can easily come up with numbers for cost (dollars and time) and with some difficulty come up with some rough estimates of benefit (terrorist attacks averted?) but even though Sam assures us it can be done, I’m not sure how to measure Muslim butthurt.

btw, Bruce Schneier’s response is up http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-trouble-with-profiling

I think he missed one point (probably deliberately) sheep that spend all their time looking for wolves risk the chance of ignoring bears.

Conservative?   The IPCC ridiculously claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt be 2035.     On top of that claiming that it would reduce runoff.   Both are idiotic claims if you know the processes and rates involved.

The computer models have consistently overestimated warming, to the point where James Lovelock just did a mea culpa on his global warming alarmism.  

Claims were made about Hurricanes that turned out to be completely wrong.   Claims were made that British children would never see snow again.   So on and so forth.

I’m not advocating “holding back”.   It is your very economic ignorance that makes you think that way.    I’m objecting to pushing uneconomic technologies that actually cost more in natural resources than they save.    How can you tell?   Because they are not cost effective.    Ethanol is classic in this regard and burns more fossil fuels than it saves.

Yes, not only space exploration but colonization will happen on it’s own when it makes economic sense.      Instead of wasteful sideshows being put on by the government.   Like going for manned space flight prior to unmanned.

I didn’t say Islam was a race, but don’t let that stop you.

Oh fuck then I guess we shouldn’t ever take any approaches because they will automatically learn the methods and do something different.  That’s just a silly argument.

Yep, a combination of profiling on many different factors including race, national origin, religion, etc.   Which is exactly what is being suggested.     No hands off on any approach.

Math isn’t what separates us.

If Bruce’s guest post doesn’t sway you, then nothing will.  I’ve given this a lot of thought over the last 11 years.  I honestly think most kinds  of profiling are bad for security, for the reasons Bruce lays out.  I felt that way before I first read any of his arguments on it, but he did add to my reasons and solidify them.

 No. By screening some people less, you get time to screen other people -more- given finite resources.

If those other people are more likely to be guilty, this will lead to you catching -more- terrorists, not less.

I gave you a “like” even though I disagree with some of what you said. =)
Thanks. 🙂

I did like your comment, too. There was a lot in there, and I only felt moved to respond to a small part of it.

However, as somebody who recently moved
from France to Israel (for work in the tech sector), I don’t exactly
have to go far to risk a suicide bombing.
Fair enough.

The emphasis on suicide attacks is an interesting one that’s worth thinking about.

First off, were I killed or injured by a terrorist, I can’t see it mattering to me or my family if it was a suicide attack or not.

Secondly, I can’t help thinking that in retrospect, some group was eventually bound to take up suicide attacks in a big way in the post-Cold War era. The Cold War was predicated on mutually assured destruction, where if you attacked the United States or Western Europe, you risked your country being destroyed. If you think of that as a selection pressure, then after the Cold War, inevitably some group would evolve which didn’t have a country to destroy, and didn’t fear being destroyed anyway.

It’s entirely an accident of history that the foreign fighters associated with the Mujahideen happened to be the best place to become that group at the right time in history: they were already high off what they saw as a victory, and sufficiently well-funded.

If it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else.  Hell, if the Tamil Tigers had won their war, they might be exporting it to the rest of the world. And then Sam Harris would be talking up the Hindu threat, advocating profiling Hindus in airports, and talking about how the Hindu scriptures are uniquely placed to breed suicide bombers.

“However, I think that some of your words are slightly misplaced. I don’t think that Sam Harris says that the Islam is uniquely placed to breed suicide bombers.”

He most certainly has. This is his exchange with Scott Atran in 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VWO6U6248c

At 2:30, Sam claims that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is proof positive that Islam is more violent (or at least more prone to spawning suicide bombers) than Christianity is. When Atran provides a very careful explanation of why his comparison fails, Sam waves it away and moves onto his next talking point.
Re Buddhism – are you kidding me? Harris has a long history of special pleading and excuses on behalf of Buddhism. Hell, at 2:50 in the same video, he asks “Where are the Buddhist suicide bombers?” – then he repeats a story about Buddhist monks who were tortured and forgave their captors. He then claims that NO devout Muslim would do the same.
It’s not just this video, either, it’s part of a very long rapsheet Sam has amassed in which he has disingenuously singled out and targeted Islam and Muslims. There is no question where he stands on scripture. These are his words:
“Yes, the Bible contains its own sadistic lunacy—but the above quotations can be fairly said to convey the central message of the Qur’an—and of Islam at nearly every moment in its history. The Qur’an does not contain anything like a Sermon on the Mount. Nor is it a vast and self-contradictory book like the Old Testament, in which whole sections (like Leviticus and Deuteronomy) can be easily ignored and forgotten. The result is a unified message of triumphalism, otherworldliness, and religious hatred that has become a problem for the entire world. And the world still waits for moderate Muslims to speak honestly about it.”
He believes that Islam is uniquely violent, a threat to democracy and incompatible with Western values in a way that Christianity and other religions are not.
He also jumped on the crazy train in opposing the “Ground Zero Mosque,” sang praises for bigoted assholes like Terry Jones, who he says are the only people allowed to speak “honestly” about Islam, and more or less assigned collective blame to all Muslims for what happened on 9/11.
This profiling bullshit is not an isolated case. It is the latest in a long list of reasons of why many atheists who believe in rational and intellectually honest assessments of the issues are not taking Sam seriously.

I’ll just reply here to both your comments. =)

First: I disagreed with the Ground Zero Mosque hoopla. I actually wrote in LGF comments several times about it (which I can dig up if you like – I post under the name of Summer). I said that as an atheist, I do not wish to see any more Mosques go up on principle, but that I could not see a legal argument against it and that it was their right. I said that I wasn’t happy about building a new mosque, but I wouldn’t side with those rabid anti-Muslim hate mongers. I disagreed with Sam Harris about it. It was a while ago but I will dig up my comments if you wish. I just don’t have too much time atm. But I am on record saying that I thought it should be built if that is what they wished, and that the scum that were backing the anti-Mosque protests were not something I would ever side with out of moral principle alone.

On Pat Condell: I don’t usually post links to his videos. I used to, but it was a long time ago. The more he’s opened his mouth, the more I’ve disagreed with many of his political stances (not, however, the Arab-Israeli politics which I do, in part, agree with.) However, I’ve also posted (on LGF and a few other places over the last couple of years, actually) that I no longer want to post links to his videos because of the people he sides with. They may be “pro-Israel” outwardly, but I think that they are entirely wrong in their associations, thoughts, and philosophies in general. In fact, I think that they do great damage to Israel by supporting it. Israel doesn’t need friends like those and most Israelis I know don’t listen to them. For example: When Glenn Beck came to “support Israel” in Jerusalem a few months ago (I was here at the time), literally almost nobody showed up. It was a complete disaster for him. I couldn’t have been more pleased. They were hoping for thousand, and they got less than a hundred. It was great to see his hopes dashed.

On Pamela Geller and Spencer: I’m extremely well known on LGF, since a very, very, long time, on my ripping them a new anus in public. Since Charles at LGF is the one which made this feud the most well known of all, it’s easy to look up there in most of his posts about them. I regularly crop up and call them out for what they are: bigoted, insane, assholes who side with Nazis. I’ll have nothing to do with them and I’m well known for saying so loudly and many times over and over again. (My Sarah Palin impressions there are very known as well, thank you very much. =) )

On Sam Harris and Buddhism: I’ve seen a few debates where he says that Buddhism can be twisted into suicide bombing, mentioning the Kamikaze pilots of WWII. I don’t have time to find the relevant videos (I know there’s more than one) right now, but here’s a transcript from The Science Network:

http://thesciencenetwork.org/media/videos/295/Transcript.pdf

“The Buddhists are being mistreated by the Chinese in Tibet. Buddhism doesn’t have – it’s possible
to get Buddhist violence, and we had Buddhist violence in World War II, Zen Buddhism was very
flexible in helping to inspire the Kamikaze pilots, Zen Shinto national war ethic, but it’s harder to
bend Tibetan Buddhism into a death cult. We don’t have Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers
blowing themselves up on Chinese buses. It’s not, it wouldn’t be impossible, but it’s much less
likely, and it’s less likely because of what they believe.”

He’s said the same thing in other interviews/discussions as well.

By the way, I don’t always agree with Sam Harris, as I’ve said, but I don’t think he falls into the Pamela Geller camp. I think it’s just more that he’s unafraid to criticize things and take on controversial subjects for the debate.

Again: if you wish, I will get you my own quotes on these subjects if you don’t believe me. I’ve been on record for years against the haters. I’m not a hater of Muslims. I don’t like Islam, and I’ve made absolutely no secret of it. But I have stood up against those who demonize Muslims.

“But I have stood up against those who demonize Muslims.”

And I will give you credit for that.

However, we have many people within the atheist community who are still part of this problem. No, Harris is not in the Geller camp. He is, however, an enabler, by giving them a kind of credibility that they don’t deserve (spreading hate is not “speaking honestly”) and siding with them on key issues like the Mosque. I am glad you agree that he was wrong on this.

To me, this behavior is pretty good reason not to take him seriously. However, the even larger reason is that he’s simply not an intellectually honest interlocutor when it comes to many of these issues. The Atran exchange is a pretty good illustration of his tendency to rely on oversimplifications and talking points, tossing aside inconvenient facts and evidence because they don’t fit with his agenda. Yes, he’s very well-spoken and presentable, but his arguments are generally no better than those of the average cable news talking head.

So that would make your original comment read, “…  so obscuring it would not be very much proof we should be upset with this person.”

Again, we are not profiling them because we are “upset with them”.

“Got through a hefty chunk of it, did not radicalize.”

Straw man argument.  I’ve read it too.  I’ve read Mein Kampf and the Little Red Book.    Didn’t radicalize me.   Mainly because I though it was bullshit.

Do you really think you are making an argument here?   Would you claim that Mein Kampf is not responsible for any violence because you happened to read it and it made you giggle?   The number of people who have read Mein Kampf and personally gassed a Jew is vanishingly small also.

Why do you think that ratio is so small?   Could it be natural instincts not to kill oneself, and a whole host of other factors, like not actually reading the Qur’an even though you carry one around just to name one?

“It hence does not seem likely that the Koran itself causes that. ”

Yeah and lighting doesn’t cause forest fires because of the vast quantity of lighting strikes in comparison to fires.  Not. 

How do you explain all the “martyrs” who explicitly quote the Koran and Mohammad as inspiration for their acts, and all their relatives and community members who praise them for killing innocents in the name of Islam?  Heck, some Islamic countries give out rewards to suicide bombers.

” If the book itself had a propensity to inspire lethal violence in people, there would be too many terrorists for the world to possible handle.”

Terrorism is only one strategy of violence.  One that requires quite a bit of self sacrifice, money, and proximity, wouldn’t you say?  It also requires a certain amount of faith that we won’t take retributive action.  All the violence on the borders of Islamic countries, their persecution of non-Muslims (and Muslims of different sects) within their countries, their violence against women, gays, same sex couples who don’t abide their archaic rules,  their historical violence (even in their supposedly most enlightened periods), the polls where they support violence, etc.   seems to me perfectly consistent with what I read in the Qur’an.

Mere lack of proximity of non-Muslims to those billions of Muslims is enough to explain why levels of violence are not higher.    It’s like how much combustion you get an oxidizer.    At low concentrations of oxygen it is hard to start a fire, at a 50/50 mix you get lots of combustion,  when the quantity of fuel to oxygen is low the level of reduced merely by the lack of victims.  Of course it is more complex than that.   For instance, Islam allows non-Muslims to buy their way out of being molested violently. 

I read his post and he screwed up the math.  He made other errors in argumentation and merely asserted particular claims with no supporting data.

Well they missed both shoe and underwear.  But preventing isn’t catching.  We can’t know how many successful attacks there would have been if we hadn’t set up The Grand Ol’ Bolshoi Hall.

FWIW, I was being sarcastic about the TSA preventing the previous terror attack. The point is, the TSA is set up to stop threats which won’t be used in the future.

Yes, the TSA (and, in general, any drag-net checkpoint/screening programme) has caught no terrorists. Every terrorist who has been caught in the last 10 years was caught by careful detective work.

That is true.  I stand corrected.

Sorry I didn’t get back to you.

  I don’t see the benefit of following multiple strategies.  Harris forwards profiling so that unlikely suspects
(i.e. frail elderly and toddlers) don’t get bothered.  The benefits of screening everyone is that it is arguably safer and less racist.  Combining methods  bothers everyone and is arguably racist, without a great increase in security.