Do you think that the Islamic State is an entity which will vanish in the future or not?
Nothing lasts forever, though religions (in a fairly general sense) last longer than most things.
To my mind, the interesting question is whether the Islamic State will be gone soonish. In the short run, it’s anti-fragile. It feeds on being attacked. On the other hand, it revolts every other institution which has a preference for normal human life.
It’s possible that the rest of the world will solve coordination problems so as to destroy IS by military attacks.
I like the idea that it will take inspiration—the development of a new religion or variant of Islam or alternatively some brilliant satire—to create something to move people away from IS. It’s pretty clear that mere decency isn’t motivating enough.
Do you think that their particularly violent brand of jihadism is a worse menace to the sanity waterline than say, other kind of religious movements, past or present?
I have no idea. I wasn’t there for the other religions.
Do you buy the idea that fundamentalism can be coupled with technological advancement, so that the future will presents us with Islamic AI’s?
I don’t think fundamentalists are good at innovation (have I missed something?), but they’re at least as good as everyone else at using innovations invented by other people. They may be better at it if they’re more motivated.
If there are AIs without a FOOM, there will be Islamic AIs, which is not the same thing as jihadist AIs. I think we can expect AIs from all the major religions and subdivisions of religions. If AIs are cheap (and I haven’t seen speculation on what AIs will cost), there will be AIs based on fringe and new religions as well.
Perhaps someone who knows more about Bahaism (without being one of them) could tell whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
Bahaism tries to be the next version of Islam, so for people who need religion in their lives it should be easier to convert from Islam to Bahaism, as opposed to Christianity. At this moment, Bahaism seems like a peaceful religion; which of course can be due to the fact that they are an oppressed minority at most places. But still, some peaceful memes could survive even if they would grow.
So, the strategy is that non-Islamic countries should support on their territory the Bahai preachers trying to convert all Islamic immigrants to their faith. First, more peaceful religion is preferable. Second, let’s give our enemies one more problem to care about, so they have less time to spend on fighting us.
Perhaps someone who knows more about Bahaism (without being one of them) could tell whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
Islam has a pretty effective internal system for suppressing religious innovation. Religious innovation in traditional interpretations of Islam carries the death penalty. Bahai is an interesting, very progressive religion in a lot of ways, but they are heavily persecuted throughout the Muslim world and cannot proselytize openly.
Bahaism isn’t the solution—if it were, it would have worked already. The same goes for Sufism, though it might be fair to think that the Sufis are working on the problem, but haven’t been able to exert enough influence yet.
Perhaps someone who knows more about Bahaism (without being one of them) could tell whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
I was raised Bahai and used to consider myself one when I was younger, before discovering rationality, so I will give my perspective. (If you’re wondering, I’m a white American just like many of you. If anyone else was Bahai and converted to atheism feel free to message me, it would be interesting to talk to someone else).
I don’t think this is a viable solution to ISIS, at least within any timeframe less than centuries. Converting people to a different religion is very hard, they’ve already been trying for the past 150 years, so they aren’t going to suddenly succeed just because we want ISIS to go away. An easier short term strategy might simply be to support non-radical elements within mainstream Islam, and support economic growth and education in the region, trying to prevent the populace of the area from being influence by the more radical elements. But that was probably a strategy to use prior to ISIS taking over large parts of the region. At this point the best strategy is probably to contain them and stop their military progress, and then wait for them to crumble and weaken internally.
If one did somehow succeed in replacing violent Islam with Bahaism or another peaceful religion, it would probably be preferable to violent Islam, as you noted. I don’t believe the religion will ever not be peaceful, since that is very much at the core of the religion. While Bahais are persecuted in the middle east (considered apostates by Islam), in most of the world they are not oppressed. (Over the course of many centuries however, anything could probably happen).
I do agree that peaceful religions are preferable, but I do worry that if they are successful it might create a greater opponent to rationality and transhumanism in the long term. Fundamentalist religions appear very obviously wrong to reasonable people, its not that hard to realize that evolution is true and that new earth creationists are wrong, for example. But it is much more difficult for a reasonable person to realize that religion is untrue when it claims to be allied with science, and tries very hard to not make claims that are disprovable. Many newer religions (created after the development of the scientific method) do this, and they promote the view that science and religion are not incompatible, that science is correct in everything we have discovered, but that God, souls, afterlife, etc, exist but cannot be tested by science (separate magisterium).
This is a harder premise to show to be true than those of fundamentalist religions, and still lead to the ultimate problem of people accepting death, not seeking to end death and aging, and believing that no matter what happens, nothing truly catastrophic will happen to humanity, leading them to ignore existential risks. (Though the sequences are still effective in refuting these ideas as well, imo).
On the other hand, maybe more liberal religious ideas are actually easier to break people out of than fundamentalist ones? I am not sure. While they don’t tend to be militant like ISIS, they still oppose transhumanism and thus must be defeated in order for us to build a world without death.
whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
The answer is no. Actually, the answer is “Oh dear Lord, this is the same as asking whether you could bloodlessly win a war by sending a lot of balloons with smiley faces across the front lines”.
Bahaism tries to be the next version of Islam
No, not really, it doesn’t. It’s a small religion, an offshoot of Islam, but so are many others in the region. It’s peaceful for the same reason contemporary Judaism does not proselytize—that’s how a minority survives in a hostile world. Any particular reason you prefer Bahais over, say, Alawis? Alawis are actually fighting ISIS at the moment...
Any particular reason you prefer Bahais over, say, Alawis?
No. I just haven’t heard about them before. I guess in every situation we should support the more peaceful alternative that is already there, so the preachers are genuine.
I guess in every situation we should support the more peaceful alternative
I don’t think so—pacifism fails rather badly. Sometimes you just need to kill the bastards.
But if I may ask a general question—what led you to offer a suggestion in the area about which you know practically nothing? This isn’t snark, I am really curious. You probably wouldn’t offer advice on how all the surgeons in the world should operate, so why did you take it upon yourself to suggest changing religions for a billion people?
what led you to offer a suggestion in the area about which you know practically nothing? … You probably wouldn’t offer advice on how all the surgeons in the world should operate, so why did you take it upon yourself to suggest changing religions for a billion people?
I thought that saying “perhaps someone who knows more … could tell whether … might be a way to …” was a sufficient disclaimer.
If I had an idea about how all the surgeons in the world might operate better (e.g. trying tools from materials with different physical properties, having other surgeons watch the operation on video in real time and offer advice when asked by the main surgeon, etc.), yeah, I might ask in the same way whether someone had thought about it.
Indeed, it is humorous to suggest this as a solution. You have now created a task that is probably about as hard as defeating aging of creating a friendly AI. (Well maybe not quite as hard but close!)
To my mind, the interesting question is whether the Islamic State will be gone soonish. In the short run, it’s anti-fragile. It feeds on being attacked. On the other hand, it revolts every other institution which has a preference for normal human life.
Which institutions are those, though? The Western world in general of course, but parts of the Moslem world do not share those preferences, even leaving aside IS itself. This is a major part of what the struggle is about.
For example, I have read somewhere that Saudi Arabia is benignly disposed towards IS. The Saudis do not say this in public, of course, and being an absolute autocracy do not need to say anything to anyone. I have heard someone on the radio say that Boko Haram was encouraged and assisted by certain Nigerian politicians trying to build their own power base, which is one reason it can abduct children by the hundred and nothing effective is done about it.
Boko Haram was encouraged and assisted by certain Nigerian politicians
Nigeria is composed of three people/tribes: the Christian Yoruba in the south-west, the Christian Igbo in the south-east, and the Muslim Hausa in the north. They periodically fight—e.g. in the late 60s they had basically a civil war when Igbo tried for independence (see Biafra) and were suppressed.
Boko Haram is based in the Hausa north and Hausa don’t like the more powerful and richer southern Christians.
I like the idea that it will take inspiration—the development of a new religion or variant of Islam or alternatively some brilliant satire—to create something to move people away from IS. It’s pretty clear that mere decency isn’t motivating enough.
No, the problem is that the West has been slowly rejecting the very concept of decency over the past century.
I’m willing to grant that I’ve been seeing a slow-moving war on empathy in the West, but I don’t think that’s the reason Daesh has been influencing people.
That’s not what I was talking about. I mean how over the past century anything decent has been rejected as at best bourgeois, and at worst sexist and homophobic.
I think seer and Nancy are using two different definitions of “decency.”
“modesty and propriety”
vs.
“polite, moral, and honest behavior and attitudes that show respect for other people”
Also, if we take google’s usage-over-time statistics, the big drop in usage of the (English) word “decency” happened in the 1800s: http://bit.ly/1D5ZF55
I was using the word because Nancy introduced it into the discussion. From the context, the practical meaning is “decent” as perceived by a more-or-less typical person in most of human history.
Nothing lasts forever, though religions (in a fairly general sense) last longer than most things.
To my mind, the interesting question is whether the Islamic State will be gone soonish. In the short run, it’s anti-fragile. It feeds on being attacked. On the other hand, it revolts every other institution which has a preference for normal human life.
It’s possible that the rest of the world will solve coordination problems so as to destroy IS by military attacks.
I like the idea that it will take inspiration—the development of a new religion or variant of Islam or alternatively some brilliant satire—to create something to move people away from IS. It’s pretty clear that mere decency isn’t motivating enough.
I have no idea. I wasn’t there for the other religions.
I don’t think fundamentalists are good at innovation (have I missed something?), but they’re at least as good as everyone else at using innovations invented by other people. They may be better at it if they’re more motivated.
If there are AIs without a FOOM, there will be Islamic AIs, which is not the same thing as jihadist AIs. I think we can expect AIs from all the major religions and subdivisions of religions. If AIs are cheap (and I haven’t seen speculation on what AIs will cost), there will be AIs based on fringe and new religions as well.
Perhaps someone who knows more about Bahaism (without being one of them) could tell whether promoting Bahaism might be a way to stop violent Islam.
Bahaism tries to be the next version of Islam, so for people who need religion in their lives it should be easier to convert from Islam to Bahaism, as opposed to Christianity. At this moment, Bahaism seems like a peaceful religion; which of course can be due to the fact that they are an oppressed minority at most places. But still, some peaceful memes could survive even if they would grow.
So, the strategy is that non-Islamic countries should support on their territory the Bahai preachers trying to convert all Islamic immigrants to their faith. First, more peaceful religion is preferable. Second, let’s give our enemies one more problem to care about, so they have less time to spend on fighting us.
Islam has a pretty effective internal system for suppressing religious innovation. Religious innovation in traditional interpretations of Islam carries the death penalty. Bahai is an interesting, very progressive religion in a lot of ways, but they are heavily persecuted throughout the Muslim world and cannot proselytize openly.
Sikhism had already tried it, and Muslims didn’t like it one bit.
Bahaism isn’t the solution—if it were, it would have worked already. The same goes for Sufism, though it might be fair to think that the Sufis are working on the problem, but haven’t been able to exert enough influence yet.
I was raised Bahai and used to consider myself one when I was younger, before discovering rationality, so I will give my perspective. (If you’re wondering, I’m a white American just like many of you. If anyone else was Bahai and converted to atheism feel free to message me, it would be interesting to talk to someone else).
I don’t think this is a viable solution to ISIS, at least within any timeframe less than centuries. Converting people to a different religion is very hard, they’ve already been trying for the past 150 years, so they aren’t going to suddenly succeed just because we want ISIS to go away. An easier short term strategy might simply be to support non-radical elements within mainstream Islam, and support economic growth and education in the region, trying to prevent the populace of the area from being influence by the more radical elements. But that was probably a strategy to use prior to ISIS taking over large parts of the region. At this point the best strategy is probably to contain them and stop their military progress, and then wait for them to crumble and weaken internally.
If one did somehow succeed in replacing violent Islam with Bahaism or another peaceful religion, it would probably be preferable to violent Islam, as you noted. I don’t believe the religion will ever not be peaceful, since that is very much at the core of the religion. While Bahais are persecuted in the middle east (considered apostates by Islam), in most of the world they are not oppressed. (Over the course of many centuries however, anything could probably happen).
I do agree that peaceful religions are preferable, but I do worry that if they are successful it might create a greater opponent to rationality and transhumanism in the long term. Fundamentalist religions appear very obviously wrong to reasonable people, its not that hard to realize that evolution is true and that new earth creationists are wrong, for example. But it is much more difficult for a reasonable person to realize that religion is untrue when it claims to be allied with science, and tries very hard to not make claims that are disprovable. Many newer religions (created after the development of the scientific method) do this, and they promote the view that science and religion are not incompatible, that science is correct in everything we have discovered, but that God, souls, afterlife, etc, exist but cannot be tested by science (separate magisterium).
This is a harder premise to show to be true than those of fundamentalist religions, and still lead to the ultimate problem of people accepting death, not seeking to end death and aging, and believing that no matter what happens, nothing truly catastrophic will happen to humanity, leading them to ignore existential risks. (Though the sequences are still effective in refuting these ideas as well, imo).
On the other hand, maybe more liberal religious ideas are actually easier to break people out of than fundamentalist ones? I am not sure. While they don’t tend to be militant like ISIS, they still oppose transhumanism and thus must be defeated in order for us to build a world without death.
The Protestants didn’t stop Catholicism. Nor did any of the minor branches of Protestants stop the mainstream branches.
The answer is no. Actually, the answer is “Oh dear Lord, this is the same as asking whether you could bloodlessly win a war by sending a lot of balloons with smiley faces across the front lines”.
No, not really, it doesn’t. It’s a small religion, an offshoot of Islam, but so are many others in the region. It’s peaceful for the same reason contemporary Judaism does not proselytize—that’s how a minority survives in a hostile world. Any particular reason you prefer Bahais over, say, Alawis? Alawis are actually fighting ISIS at the moment...
No. I just haven’t heard about them before. I guess in every situation we should support the more peaceful alternative that is already there, so the preachers are genuine.
I don’t think so—pacifism fails rather badly. Sometimes you just need to kill the bastards.
But if I may ask a general question—what led you to offer a suggestion in the area about which you know practically nothing? This isn’t snark, I am really curious. You probably wouldn’t offer advice on how all the surgeons in the world should operate, so why did you take it upon yourself to suggest changing religions for a billion people?
I thought that saying “perhaps someone who knows more … could tell whether … might be a way to …” was a sufficient disclaimer.
If I had an idea about how all the surgeons in the world might operate better (e.g. trying tools from materials with different physical properties, having other surgeons watch the operation on video in real time and offer advice when asked by the main surgeon, etc.), yeah, I might ask in the same way whether someone had thought about it.
Indeed, it is humorous to suggest this as a solution. You have now created a task that is probably about as hard as defeating aging of creating a friendly AI. (Well maybe not quite as hard but close!)
Which institutions are those, though? The Western world in general of course, but parts of the Moslem world do not share those preferences, even leaving aside IS itself. This is a major part of what the struggle is about.
For example, I have read somewhere that Saudi Arabia is benignly disposed towards IS. The Saudis do not say this in public, of course, and being an absolute autocracy do not need to say anything to anyone. I have heard someone on the radio say that Boko Haram was encouraged and assisted by certain Nigerian politicians trying to build their own power base, which is one reason it can abduct children by the hundred and nothing effective is done about it.
Nigeria is composed of three people/tribes: the Christian Yoruba in the south-west, the Christian Igbo in the south-east, and the Muslim Hausa in the north. They periodically fight—e.g. in the late 60s they had basically a civil war when Igbo tried for independence (see Biafra) and were suppressed.
Boko Haram is based in the Hausa north and Hausa don’t like the more powerful and richer southern Christians.
No, the problem is that the West has been slowly rejecting the very concept of decency over the past century.
We are hardly limited to having only one problem.
I’m willing to grant that I’ve been seeing a slow-moving war on empathy in the West, but I don’t think that’s the reason Daesh has been influencing people.
That’s not what I was talking about. I mean how over the past century anything decent has been rejected as at best bourgeois, and at worst sexist and homophobic.
I think seer and Nancy are using two different definitions of “decency.”
“modesty and propriety” vs. “polite, moral, and honest behavior and attitudes that show respect for other people”
Also, if we take google’s usage-over-time statistics, the big drop in usage of the (English) word “decency” happened in the 1800s: http://bit.ly/1D5ZF55
In that statement, what exactly do you mean by “decent”?
I was using the word because Nancy introduced it into the discussion. From the context, the practical meaning is “decent” as perceived by a more-or-less typical person in most of human history.