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OrphanWilde comments on [Link] A rational response to the Paris attacks and ISIS - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (275)
What terrorists want is irrelevant. "Don't play into enemy hands" is irrelevant. The entire discussion is irrelevant.
The correct response to enemy action is the response that furthers your own ends. It doesn't matter what effect this has on your enemy, good, neutral, or positive; your long-term ends matter.
"The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy's cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this." A particularly relevant quote from Musashi, used by Eliezer on at least one occasion in the sequences.
Avoiding doing what the enemy wants is mere parrying. Stop mere parrying, and cut.
If you are a rational player, then you were already doing that before the enemy action. So the correct response is to keep doing what you were already doing.
(Of course you also update on the enemy action, and maybe this could change your strategy. However, I don't think there is much to update on now. The fact that ISIS has a few suicidal volunteers is not new.)
We should update on ISIS having an increased desire to attack Western cities.
...and do what?
Put more resources into fighting ISIS.
Oh, you mean the, ahem, leaders of the free world should update. I s'pose. I'm not used to thinking of "we" as "me and Obama".
This makes me want a super-upvote, that subtracts four karma to award five. Yes, this, exactly.
I have just given you 25% of what you want by upvoting Viliam's comment and downvoting yours.
[EDITED to add:] I would not otherwise have voted either comment up or down.
I appreciate it! (No, seriously.)
Yup, very much agreed with OrphanWilde on this one.
Yes, this, exactly this!
There is an interesting argument that the Western countries have lost the capability. Europe leads the way and the US is now following it.
Not the capability in a technical sense, but the will. Not offending the Muslims who arrived in the last few decades seems to be of much higher importance to many politicians, than anything else.
Yes. Notice the important part in the quote in the grandparent post: "the primary thing is ... your intention to cut the enemy".
So, figure out why that is and fix it. I suspect a large part of the problem is pseudo-rationalists like Gleb arguing that "fighting terrorists is playing into their hands".
LOL. How about this: you go tell Cthulhu he's swimming the wrong way, and I stay here and watch X-)
Very much agreed. As I say in the op-ed:
We would first have to agree on what "cutting the enemy" would actually mean. I think liberal response would be keeping our society inclusive, secular and multicultural at all costs. If that is the case than avoiding certain failure modes like becoming intolerant militaristic societies and starting unnecessary wars could be considered as successful cuts against potential worse world-states.
Now that is liberal perspective, there are alternatives, off course.
Nobody who says "at all costs" means "at all costs". It's a way of avoiding a discussion of what costs are worth paying and what paying them will look like.
Thank god I've seen someone else that thinks this! I was so infuriated by people saying "stop playing into their hands" as if this is supposed to be some silver bullet in this discussion.