Tag Archives: Beirut

Paris, Wahabis, Salafi, Homeopathy, Beirut

Since 2001 our policy for fighting Islamic terrorists has been, (Facebook) to put it politely, missing the elephant in the room, sort of like treating symptoms and completely missing the disease. Policymakers and slow-thinking bureaucrats stupidly let terrorism grow by ignoring the roots. We lost a generation: someone who went to grammar school in Saudi Arabia (our “ally”) after September 11 is now an adult, indocrinated into believing and supporting Salafi violence, hence encouraged to finance it –while we got distracted by the use of complicated weapons and machinery.

Even worse the Wahabis have accelerated their brainwashing of East and West Asians with their madrassas, thanks to high oil revenues.

So instead of invading Iraq, blowing up Jihadi John and individual terrorists, thus causing a multiplication of these people, it would have been be easier to focus on the source of all problems: the Wahabi/Salafi education and promotion of intolerance by which a Shiite or a Yazidi or a Christian are deviant people.

If we absolutely need to put people in Guantanamo, it is the Salafi preachers, Wahabi clerics, not just the people swayed by their teaching. And if we need to correct Saudi problems, we need to start by sending to them OUR preachers, educating them into tolerance, explaining the very concept of the separation of church and state. Or, better even, encourage Muslim preachers who promote religious tolerance (laka dinak wa li dini) — instead of seeing them ostracized.
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And if you find violence unavoidable, it should be directed at the Saudi and Qatari funders of violence, as well as the Salafi theorists, rather than the young performers.

PS Beware the usual ISIS crypto-sympathizer who sort of “explains” (that is, justifies) what happened (intentionally killing civilians) with some other Western event that can go all the way to the crusades… Otherwise it is “biased”. You cannot condemn ISIS without at the same time trying to be “balanced”? Who are they fooling? This is the technique of bundling problems that can be treated independently and you need to learn to deal with them by forcing them to discuss the problem of ISIS on its own.

https://freedomhouse.org/…/saudi-arabias-curriculum-intoler…

Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom released a report analyzing a set of Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks in use during the current academic year in Islamic studies courses for elementary and secondary students. The textbooks promote an ideology of hatred toward people, including Musli…
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Delenda est Salafi-stan. (Facebook)

(Background: Cato the ancient, for years, kept starting or ending his speeches at the Roman Senate with variations around “Delenda est Cartago”, *Carthage must be destroyed*. Until the Roman fleet went and destroyed Carthage, ending its threat.)

Comment 1: Since Sep 11 no focus to cut the SOURCE of terrorism: Salafi funding of terror & intolerance in schools (Qatari & Saudi money); ISIS oil.

Comment 2: Someone who went to school on Sept 11 in Saudi Arabia, now age 18 is brainwashed by the system to believe that all Shiites, Christians, and other minorities are deviant beings whose death doesn’t count.

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/665645361084686337

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/665538791512256512

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/665165986824380416

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/665155035018436608

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/665118073700098048

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/664929995689717760

The Saudi king is shocked that his own Wahabi intolerance …kills people. Murderer! https://t.co/aahF4pKI2M

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 14, 2015
14 y after Sept 11, teenagers in Saudi Arabia are schooled to believe Shiites, Christians, & others are deviants whose death doesn’t count.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 14, 2015
Never take an advice from a salesperson https://t.co/YZrZfFHMgx

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
I don’t know if the association is justified, but it takes greed to cancel the effect of corporate bullying. pic.twitter.com/XH7EVqzgQG

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
Superstitions can be rational if 1) harmless, 2) lower your anxiety, 3) prevent you from listening to forecasts by economists & BS “experts”

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 13, 2015
Skin in the game rule: after every tragic event in Beirut, never talk about it without visiting. Was there last week, going back in 2 weeks.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 12, 2015

Halloween, Mini-Certificate, Beirut, Employees

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/660216033349775360

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/660182249858428928

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/660055825054957568

The Mini-Certificate

MINI-CERTIFICATE IN REAL WORLD RISK MANAGEMENT*

One-week intense workshop: Feb 22-26 2016, New York City, 9 AM-5 PM

Nassim N. Taleb will deliver about half the lecture and sign the certificate

2 day program (no mini-certificate), $2950*

5 day program (with mini-certificate),  $7400*
(Early signup discount $2200 and $5900 respectively before Dec 15 2015)

* Inaugural price

The venue is expected to be the Princeton Club of NY in Midtown Manhattan or an equivalent outfit.

Note: Discussions include no equations, but a lot of concepts and pictures

http://www.realworldrisk.com/

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/660050334543273984

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/659449114191523841

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/658987521074925569

The minority rule explains the new Halloween (and why Europe will eat halal, why GMOs bust) https://t.co/aqvZRfOBil https://t.co/MLqXhg53Ji

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 30, 2015
After all this (secret) unremitting work I finally completed my small personal time machine. Future vs present. pic.twitter.com/RFMjs3k7Nx

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 30, 2015
Finally, our Mini-Certificate in Real World Risk Management anti-BS anti-Nerd approach. https://t.co/MOQV9AvJmY

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 30, 2015

First book lecture in French; In Beirut with French Lycée classmates attending. pic.twitter.com/B6dm6dXANY

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 30, 2015
My point about Switzerland isn’t that it doesn’t have a government. What It doesn’t have is much of a *central* government: *subsidiarity*.

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 28, 2015
Employees are more risk averse, they fear being fired more than contractors do being sued. @ArthurB https://t.co/2VlvtOsuia

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) October 27, 2015

Beirut is the only remaining City-State in the Mediterranean…

Beirut is the only remaining City-State in the Mediterranean. The multilingual multireligious, tolerant, obsessively mercantile, Mediterranean City-States have been swallowed by the modernistic nation states. Alexandria was swallowed by the nation of Egypt, Smyrna by the nation of Turkey, Tessaloniki by Greece, Aleppo by Syria.
But luckily Beirut swallowed Lebanon. Lebanon was small enough a state to let itself be colonized by the City-State of Beirut.

(cont) The Mediterranean was the anti-statist’s dream; it was itself the infrastructure. The maritime city did not need large structural projects, like trains, roads, dams, airports, and bridges. Consider how free a ship is in the sea compared to a train on a track or a car on a road.

via Beirut is the only… | Facebook.