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[Link] Op-Ed on Brussels Attacks

-6 Post author: Gleb_Tsipursky 02 April 2016 05:38PM

Trigger warning: politics is hard mode.


"How to you make America safer from terrorists" is the title of my op-ed published in Sun Sentinel, a very prominent newspaper in Florida, one of the most swingiest of the swing states in the US for the presidential election, and the one with the most votes. The maximum length of the op-ed was 450 words, and it was significantly edited by the editor, so it doesn't convey the full message I wanted with all the nuances, but such is life. My primary goal with the piece was to convey methods of thinking more rationally about politics, such as to use probabilistic thinking, evaluating the full consequences of our actions, and avoiding attention bias. I used the example of the proposal to police heavily Muslim neighborhoods as a case study. Hope this helps Floridians think more rationally and raises the sanity waterline regarding politics!

 

 

EDIT: To be totally clear, I used guesstimates for the numbers I suggested. Following Yvain/Scott Alexander's advice, I prefer to use guesstimates rather than vague statements.

Comments (52)

Comment author: James_Miller 02 April 2016 06:57:52PM 9 points [-]

Consider two theories:

(1) Our "angry rhetoric, intimidation and surveillance" of Muslims in western countries benefits ISIS by giving them more recruits.
(2) Our soft response to terrorism compared to, say, how Saudi Arabia deals with terrorists who threaten it, benefits ISIS by signaling that the West is weak and by not providing sufficient disincentives to potential terrorists.

How do you determine which is right?

Comment author: Lumifer 02 April 2016 09:33:08PM 6 points [-]

How do you determine which is right?

Why, you look at what France and other European countries did. We know that whatever they did led to Paris and Brussels. Do you think they radicalized the Muslims by heavy-handed patrolling of Muslim neighbourhoods and being generally oppressive toward them? Or did the European policy involve averting their eyes and issuing proclamations about how Muslims should feel welcome (the term "appeasement" isn't terribly popular)?

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 02 April 2016 09:46:20PM -1 points [-]

And I suppose other countries that treat terrorists more harshly never experienced suicide bombings?

But just saying that would not be getting to the meat of your point. The question to ask is not whether what they did led to Paris and Brussels, but whether if doing something different would have prevented Paris and Brussels, or led to Berlin, Milan, and other prominent cities being bombed.

As always, I'm ready to update my beliefs, and if you can show that me sufficient proof that a heavy police presence would be more optimal than not for the sake of decreasing the resources flowing to ISIS and its ability to do suicide bombings, I'll be happy to update.

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 April 2016 12:32:37AM 1 point [-]

Paris isn't excatly a European city that did a good job at trying to integrate it's Muslim populations. Even before the terrorist attacks there were riots in Paris's suburbs. France is also one of the countries that did the most surveillance.

Comment author: Plasmon 03 April 2016 01:23:57PM 1 point [-]

We know that whatever they did led to Paris and Brussels

Correlation / Causation?

Comment author: Lumifer 03 April 2016 10:45:19PM 1 point [-]

Evidence.

But do note that the OP explicitly asserts causation between police presence and radicalization.

Comment author: Good_Burning_Plastic 02 April 2016 08:06:15PM *  2 points [-]

Are you assuming they're mutually exclusive? Why?

Comment author: James_Miller 02 April 2016 08:14:25PM 3 points [-]

I was, but perhaps I shouldn't have.

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 April 2016 12:38:35AM 1 point [-]

Would you consider it to hard on Muslims or soft on Muslims if France would head the call of it's Muslim community to require Imam's to have a license to preach?

Comment author: James_Miller 05 April 2016 02:27:54AM 0 points [-]

Hard on them since with limited competition the Imam's would put less effort into their work.

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 April 2016 08:53:16AM 0 points [-]

Basically limiting competition of a trade means being hard on the trade?

Comment author: James_Miller 05 April 2016 12:56:25PM 1 point [-]

The government licencing practitioners of industry X helps incumbent practitioners of industry X while harming industry X's customers. The licencing should raise the price and lower the output and innovation of the industry.

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 April 2016 12:32:06AM 1 point [-]

Our soft response to terrorism compared to, say, how Saudi Arabia deals with terrorists who threaten it,

Saudi Arabia pays the terrorists to move their operations to other countries. That isn't exactly being soft on terrorism.

Comment deleted 02 April 2016 06:39:31PM [-]
Comment author: pianoforte611 03 April 2016 10:32:55PM *  6 points [-]

I think can finally state what is it about many of your arguments makes me go "sigh, here we go again". (And I suspect a lot of people, given that your political posts tend to be negatively received by a lot of people).

Your arguments take a general form that is something like the following. State that A could have beneficial effects B, C and D. Dismiss any suggestions that A could have negative effects E, F and G. Insistently state that since A could have beneficial effects B, C and D, then the expected utility of A is positive - throw some made up numbers and probabilities to justify said expected positive utility of A, so therefore we should do A.*

This is incredibly annoying. It is even more annoying because, (and I'm sorry to be blunt), you're way out of your depth on most of the things you write. You don't know how ISIS works (not that I think that the average person should spend time figuring out how ISIS's ideology works), you don't know how politics works, and your model of rationality is out of touch with how human knowledge is actually furthered.

*Also ignore suggestions that A could have a net negative effect on B, C and D via other casual pathways. See here to see what I'm talking about:

http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/

Comment author: James_Miller 03 April 2016 04:53:05AM *  6 points [-]

This shouldn't be down-voted if for no other reason then it shows that a regular contributor to LW got an article in a major paper that contains the following paragraph:

"Recent research shows that after any emotionally powerful event, our brains tend to assign too much weight to that event compared with what is really important to us, a thinking error called attentional bias. To fight this thinking error, we should consider what are our actual goals and how best to reach them."

Comment author: ChristianKl 05 April 2016 12:22:33AM 1 point [-]

Isn't that the point of the Monthly Bragging Thread? Why do you consider the article to be valuable to be in discussion?

Comment author: Chriswaterguy 05 April 2016 04:41:43AM -1 points [-]

Agreed - the article is remarkably rational for a mainstream media op-ed.

Comment deleted 02 April 2016 06:04:47PM *  [-]
Comment author: Lamp2 08 April 2016 02:14:14AM -1 points [-]

Also, two of your recommendations are.

Our top political figures can make powerful, courageous and politically unpopular statements that all Muslims are not to blame for this attack, and that we should not radicalize the rest through unthoughtful policies. We can reach out to Muslim leaders who condemned the Brussels attacks and work together against the radicals.

Of course, this is what western leaders have been doing for the past 15 years, and it doesn't seem to be working. Turns out Muslims are more inclined to get their theology from their own imams then from western politicians, and reaching out to "moderate" Muslim leaders results in Muslim leaders that are moderate in English but radical in Arabic.

Original thread here.

Comment author: Lamp2 08 April 2016 02:13:57AM -1 points [-]

So you wrote an article that starts with a false premise, namely the implicit claim that the primary cause of radicalization is western police presence. It then proceeds to use numbers you appear to have taken from thin air in an argument whose only purposes appears to be signalling "rationality" and diverting attention from said false premise. It final reaches a conclusion that's almost certainly false. This is supposed to promote rationality how?

Original thread here.