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ChristianKl comments on Are we failing the ideological Turing test in the case of ISIS? (a crazy ideas thread) - Less Wrong Discussion
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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".
I don't think that's an accurate description. Fighting Western troops in Dadiq is important to ISIS because the Koran says that it's supposed to happen. The Koran does constrain the range of possible strategies.
The Koran inspires ISIS in their supreme goal. If something in it can be matched to current events and opportunities, ISIS will milk that to the full, but I doubt that the Koran constrains them from any direction they may choose to prosecute their struggle.
No. It also requires ISIS to do things like providing free housing and free healthcare to people in it's territory and a host of other choices.
The Koran requires ISIS to do whatever ISIS decide that the Koran requires them to do. Thus it is with all religions. It is impossible to apply a document more than a thousand years old and not interpret it, however much the religion itself may literally cling to the exact letter of the text.
Not really since the legitimicy of ISIS relies on them being perceived as a legimite caliphate and their own followers think they have a duty to dispose of an ISIS leader who wouldn't run according to the Koran.
Their followers consider the Koran to be pretty clear about the fact that a caliph has to provide free housing and free healthcare to the citzens of the caliphate.
It's also prevents high level ISIS personally to voice that they doubt that the prophecies are true.
ISIS declared the caliphate when an internal faction argued that that if the precursor organisation doesn't declare a caliphate they don't fulfill their Islamic duty.
I don't think that passing around verses of the Koran is the way to have a conversation like this. I hold my opinion based on the analysis of the Atlantic article.
In this case we are talking about the scenario where an ISIS leader would say: "In the past we thought the Koran prospribed free healthcare about know we don't think so anymore."
It certainly is, because the primary sources are better. It's just that you can't do that. That's fine, but don't claim that arguing on the basis of a single article in popular media is the correct way.
I don't consider Western discussion of the Koran by reading the Koran in the absence from reading how people read the Koran to be fruitful in general. The original text also isn't in English.
I could easily put a request for the passage someone on stackexchange and likely get an answer within a day if I would think that piece of information would matter for my reasoning.
Why do you consider yourself to have enough expertise to pass judgment on such matters? Provided by "Western discussion of the Koran" you don't mean pub rants along the lines of "the bloody Muslims want to kill all infidels because Koran tells them to".
You don't say...
In the past I did had a bit of contact with Berlin politics surrounding how our city deals with Islam. I think there's a case where I influenced the words used to talk about an issue in our newspapers.
Over the years I also read various different sources. Among them Sayyib Qutb's Milestones gave me a good perspective.
There are area's where I have more expertise than talking about Islam but I have decent priors that I know something about the issue.