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thakil comments on Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread) - Less Wrong
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Of the sort that casebash assures us cannot exist? The imaginary competence of fictional rational heroes? Top human genius level?
No. These all amount to assuming a falsehood.
Another straw falsehood to set beside the first one. All of this rules out from the start any consideration of ISIS as they actually are. They are real people with a mission, no more and no less intelligent than anyone else who succeeds in doing what they have done so far.
There is no mystery about what ISIS wants. They tell the world in their glossy magazine, available in many languages, including English (see the link at the foot of that page). They tell the world in every announcement and proclamation.
"Rationalist", however, seem incapable of believing that anyone ever means what they say. Nothing is what it is, but a signal of something else.
I have not seen any reason to suppose that they do not intend exactly what they say, just as Hitler did in "Mein Kampf". They are fighting to establish a new Caliphate which will spread Islam by the sword to the whole world, Allahu akbar. All else is strategy and tactics. If their current funding model is unsustainable, they will change it as circumstances require. If their recruitment methods falter, they will search for other ways.
More useful questions would be: given their supreme goal (to establish a new Caliphate which will spread Islam by the sword to the whole world), what should they do to accomplish that? And how should we (by which I mean, everyone who wants Islamic universalism to fail) act to prevent them?
I recommend a reading of Max Frisch's play "The Fire Raisers".
"More useful questions would be: given their supreme goal (to establish a new Caliphate which will spread Islam by the sword to the whole world), what should they do to accomplish that? And how should we (by which I mean, everyone who wants Islamic universalism to fail) act to prevent them?"
I think this is an interesting question. If you want to create a new islamic state you could do worse than siezing on the chaos caused by a civil war in Syria, and a weak state in Iraq. You will be opposed by
1)local interests, i.e. the governments of Iraq and Syria 2)The allies of local interests. In the case of Syria, Iran and Russia, Iraq the US and Britain.
I think 2 is quite interesting because the amount other nations intervene will be due in part to how much their population cares. I would argue that the attacks on Russia and France represent a strategic mistake because in both cases it encouraged those nations to be more active in their assault on ISIS.
Arguably the best way to discourage international interests from getting involved is increasing local costs. Make sure that any attacks on you will kill civillians, try to appear as legitimate and as boring as possible.
Essentially, if I wanted to run an evil fundamentalist oppressive state I would look as cuddly as possible at first. In fact, I would probably pretend to be on the side of the less religiously motivated rebels, so I can get guns and arms. Then, when Assad is toppled, make sure that any oil I have is available. My model here will be to look as much as Saudia Arabia as possible, as they can do horrifying things to their own citizens provided they remain a key strategic ally in the region. Real politik will trumph over morality provided you can keep western eyes off of you.
The goal, always, would be to be as non threatening as possible to squeeze as much arms as you can out of western allies (and Russian allies too, if you can work it, but if you topple Assad you probably can't), which puts you in a position to expand your interests. Then you need to provoke other nations to invade you, so you can plausibly claim to be the wronged party in any conflict where the US feels obliged to pick sides.
Nobody set's out to run an
evil fundamentalist oppressive statebut certain people set out to run aevil fundamentalist oppressive state.Apart from that you ignore the fact of what it means to claim to be a caliphate. ISIS got a lot of power through the act of founding a self-proclaimed caliphate.
I'm a little confused by your first point (I guess you're pointing out a grammar/spelling error, but the only one I note is that you've used "a" instead of "an", and evil starts with a vowel so, no I don't understand that point).
You're second point is correct, I meant to mention that as a cost. By appearing more moderate I cost myself support. I've sort of hand waved the idea that I can just convince everyone to fight for me in the first place, which is obviously a difficult problem! That said I think you could be a little less obviously evil initially and still attract people to your fundamentalist regime.
Right I wanted to say:
The question whether or not to declare a caliphate is binary. Either you do or you don't. Then there's a host of obligations with declaring a caliphate.