'Jihadi rehab' is a possibility for post-Gitmo

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Jiro said:
Yes it is disrespectful to say the culture represses productivity and freedom. Yes I do not agree with the way of life in Saudi Arabia especially the way they treated the woman but it's not my place.
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So even if it's true, I shouldn't say it because you think it's disrespectful? I don't think all Arabs necessarily like their culture. I'm not doing them any favors by closing my eyes and pretending it's not so. My mom told me about a time we were at the beach and this Arab woman, dressed in full hijab, walked down the beach and out into the ocean. She was determined to just keep walking out to her death, but some guys came and forced her back onto land. I'd hate to see what kind of beating she got that night. That's just one story.

Jiro said:
and about productivity..... Last time I check - Saudi Arabia is what makes the world goes around. I don't know about you but that's quite a massive productivity to me considering that their oil & massive investments (for both stock markets and venture capitalism) are what makes the world runs. Middle Eastern's scientific & mathematical progress is and has always been purely for commerce purpose while others (like USA & South Korea & Japan) are purely for "for-the-humanity purpose." Middle East strives for best and efficient way to trade with other countries and they're pretty f'ing good at it!
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Oil is the point I was making- they do provide it to the world, but they lack the technical knowledge to get it out themselves. It would have to take a pretty backwards culture to not have the knowledge to deal with their only resource of value.

I also don't know where you get your science and technology history. Plenty of discoveries of commercial value have come from the west and east Asia. The integrated circuit that powers your processor was invented by an engineer working at Texas Instruments for commercial purposes. He later won the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery. As for the Arab world, they provided the world with a lot of astronomy. I don't see much trade value in that.
 
interesting thread...I will be back for read the whole thread later.
 
darkdog said:
So even if it's true, I shouldn't say it because you think it's disrespectful? I don't think all Arabs necessarily like their culture. I'm not doing them any favors by closing my eyes and pretending it's not so. My mom told me about a time we were at the beach and this Arab woman, dressed in full hijab, walked down the beach and out into the ocean. She was determined to just keep walking out to her death, but some guys came and forced her back onto land. I'd hate to see what kind of beating she got that night. That's just one story.
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your point is? I can tell you bunch of similar stories happening in USA. For ie - father killing his whole family due to getting laid off. Grown-up kids shoving their parents into "community home" aka mental ward. You can just agree to disagree with their culture but again - it's still disrespectful to say "no that's wrong" to other culture.

darkdog said:
Oil is the point I was making- they do provide it to the world, but they lack the technical knowledge to get it out themselves. It would have to take a pretty backwards culture to not have the knowledge to deal with their only resource of value.

I also don't know where you get your science and technology history. Plenty of discoveries of commercial value have come from the west and east Asia. The integrated circuit that powers your processor was invented by an engineer working at Texas Instruments for commercial purposes. He later won the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery. As for the Arab world, they provided the world with a lot of astronomy. I don't see much trade value in that.
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BTW - his name was Jack Kilby. He passed away 3 years ago. I read his book ([ame=http://www.amazon.com/Chip-Americans-Invented-Microchip-Revolution/dp/0375758283/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233382680&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: The Chip : How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution: T.R. Reid: Books[/ame]) several years ago. Good book but I cannot remember most of it. oh well.

Well USA would be useless if it weren't for oil. and Saudi Arabi would be useless if it weren't for USA to purchase it. The reason why you don't know where I get my science and technology history is because your knowledge of history is very ethnocentric. Sounds like you don't know much about what Arab world had contributed to the world so I'll just leave it at that. Suffice to say - they greatly contributed to every subjects during Islamic Empire when a massive portion of Europe + Africa + Middle East + Asia were under one peaceful, profitable empire.... until Crusaders fucked it all up and slaughtered them all. Astronomy is just a scratch of what they have contributed to the world.
 
Interesing thing about I learned about Jack Kilby. I don't know if it is true or not. However, I heard that during that moment when he invented the IC, his supervisors were gone and he pretty much had the place to himself. If they were there, I wonder if he would have came up with that.
 
Jiro said:
your point is? I can tell you bunch of similar stories happening in USA. For ie - father killing his whole family due to getting laid off. Grown-up kids shoving their parents into "community home" aka mental ward. You can just agree to disagree with their culture but again - it's still disrespectful to say "no that's wrong" to other culture.
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My point is that people hear about how women are mistreated there. My family saw it. My mom had to drop her head down and look at the ground when she passed an Arab man on the street. She wasn't allowed to drive on Arab roads. We met a woman who was pregnant and had no idea how it happened. How can you say I'm being ethnocentric when my family experienced it?

Jiro said:
BTW - his name was Jack Kilby. He passed away 3 years ago. I read his book (Amazon.com: The Chip : How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution: T.R. Reid: Books) several years ago. Good book but I cannot remember most of it. oh well.
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I know- I have his autograph. I was on the Texas Instruments campus next to the building where he worked on the day he died.
Jiro said:
Well USA would be useless if it weren't for oil. and Saudi Arabi would be useless if it weren't for USA to purchase it. The reason why you don't know where I get my science and technology history is because your knowledge of history is very ethnocentric. Sounds like you don't know much about what Arab world had contributed to the world so I'll just leave it at that. Suffice to say - they greatly contributed to every subjects during Islamic Empire when a massive portion of Europe + Africa + Middle East + Asia were under one peaceful, profitable empire.... until Crusaders fucked it all up and slaughtered them all. Astronomy is just a scratch of what they have contributed to the world.
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The USA would find a way to progress if Saudi Arabia did not exist. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, would be useless if they couldn't get foreigners like my dad to drill the oil. For the record, he did work with some very smart and productive Arab engineers, but they were all Western educated. It was the Arabs who were not educated in the west that were lazy and uneducated. This could be a clue why. My dad had a friend who had to teach a class with both Arabs and westerners. He was told that he was not allowed to fail any Arabs. So if they never showed up or did any work, he still had to pass them, but he could fail the westerners. Naturally, the Arabs didn't do much and they passed anyway. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that their education is worthless. I don't see why I would need to avoid that conclusion in order to not be "ethnocentric".
 
darkdog said:
My point is that people hear about how women are mistreated there. My family saw it. My mom had to drop her head down and look at the ground when she passed an Arab man on the street. She wasn't allowed to drive on Arab roads. We met a woman who was pregnant and had no idea how it happened. How can you say I'm being ethnocentric when my family experienced it?
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again - your view is still ethnocentric because proof is there in your posts. You called their culture "backward" as compared to whose standard? YOUR culture. hence - an ethnocentric view.

darkdog said:
I know- I have his autograph. I was on the Texas Instruments campus next to the building where he worked on the day he died.

The USA would find a way to progress if Saudi Arabia did not exist. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, would be useless if they couldn't get foreigners like my dad to drill the oil. For the record, he did work with some very smart and productive Arab engineers, but they were all Western educated. It was the Arabs who were not educated in the west that were lazy and uneducated. This could be a clue why. My dad had a friend who had to teach a class with both Arabs and westerners. He was told that he was not allowed to fail any Arabs. So if they never showed up or did any work, he still had to pass them, but he could fail the westerners. Naturally, the Arabs didn't do much and they passed anyway. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that their education is worthless. I don't see why I would need to avoid that conclusion in order to not be "ethnocentric".
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you don't know that. i don't know either. to say that USA will progress regardless of Saudi Arabia is a talk of ethnocentrism. History is just the way it is. Maybe USA would be mostly dominated by Mexicans if Saudi Arabia didn't exist. and Mexicans will eventually get to mexican-version of Jack Kilby. :dunno: we never know!

To assume that USA will get there eventually regardless of historical event is incredibly ignorant.
 
Jiro said:
again - your view is still ethnocentric because proof is there in your posts. You called their culture "backward" as compared to whose standard? YOUR culture. hence - an ethnocentric view.
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I mean backward from what's needed for progress. If you read my posts here, you can tell I don't think we're entirely pointing in the right direction for progress either.

In South Korea, there were things that were very different from the way we do them in America, and I wouldn't call them backwards. I didn't see those things as wrong- just different. That sounds pretty non-ethnocentric.

Jiro said:
you don't know that. i don't know either. to say that USA will progress regardless of Saudi Arabia is a talk of ethnocentrism. History is just the way it is. Maybe USA would be mostly dominated by Mexicans if Saudi Arabia didn't exist. and Mexicans will eventually get to mexican-version of Jack Kilby. :dunno: we never know!

To assume that USA will get there eventually regardless of historical event is incredibly ignorant.
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I think you throw around words like "incredibly ignorant" too loosely. I can assume with a good probability that America would not have ceased to progress beyond where we were in 1938 if Saudi Arabia's oil hadn't been discovered that year. I'm not disputing that it's impossible to predict the results with any sort of exactness if you tweak a piece of history. I'm just saying that history shows that we've always found ways to progress in this country and taking Saudi Arabia's oil out of the equation is unlikely change that.

By the way, I ate dog there and it was yummy. Tastes like beef. It took me a while to get used to the idea of eating dog, but I came around. I can't hold it against them- after all, I eat cows, chickens, and fish here. I do not like the inhumane way they kill the dogs, though.
 
darkdog said:
I mean backward from what's needed for progress. If you read my posts here, you can tell I don't think we're entirely pointing in the right direction for progress either.
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progress? by whose standard? must they need bunch of skyscrapers, nuclear power plants, human rights, and gender equality to "progress" ?

darkdog said:
In South Korea, there were things that were very different from the way we do them in America, and I wouldn't call them backwards. I didn't see those things as wrong- just different. That sounds pretty non-ethnocentric.
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because South Korea is very very westernized. it's pretty much like asian-version of New York.

darkdog said:
I think you throw around words like "incredibly ignorant" too loosely. I can assume with a good probability that America would not have ceased to progress beyond where we were in 1938 if Saudi Arabia's oil hadn't been discovered that year. I'm not disputing that it's impossible to predict the results with any sort of exactness if you tweak a piece of history. I'm just saying that history shows that we've always found ways to progress in this country and taking Saudi Arabia's oil out of the equation is unlikely change that.
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we'll never know! :hmm:

darkdog said:
By the way, I ate dog there and it was yummy. Tastes like beef. It took me a while to get used to the idea of eating dog, but I came around. I can't hold it against them- after all, I eat cows and chickens and fish here. I do not like the inhumane way they kill the dogs, though.
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understandable. just like vietnamese eat fully-developed fetus bird. :)
 
Jiro said:
I can see you are very disrespectful to any cultures. :roll: Please review the history of Middle East because **hint hint** it's what led to modernization of America and the world.
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For a period they were advanced, then it came to a screeching halt.
 
Jiro said:
progress? by whose standard? must they need bunch of skyscrapers, nuclear power plants, human rights, and gender equality to "progress" ?
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They do want the skyscrapers and nuclear power plants. Human rights? Not so much.
 
Jiro said:
progress? by whose standard? must they need bunch of skyscrapers, nuclear power plants, human rights, and gender equality to "progress" ?
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If those things aren't signs of progress, what is? I think you just managed to strip the word "progress" of any meaning. So if it has no meaning, what are we talking about?

I don't understand this cultural relativism stuff. Well, actually, I do, but I reject it. I agree there are some aspects of culture that are subjective, like art, music, food, clothes, etc. If I prefer Indian food over German food, that's just a personal opinion. However, when it comes to the nuts and bolts of how a culture operates, there are some features that are objectively better than others because they simply work better. This is implied in the history of cultures. Since the beginning of time, cultures have been shedding old features and replacing them with better features. It's very common for cultures to borrow advances made by other cultures.

Yet if I were to say that a culture which uses Roman numerals should adopt Arabic numerals, the cultural relativists would be deride me as ignorant and ethnocentric. They would tell me that I just don't "understand" other cultures. But I don't see anything ignorant or ethnocentric about coming to the conclusion that balancing a national budget or calculating the mass of an electron would be nearly impossible with Roman numerals. Apparently, cultures of the past agreed with me because they ended up adopting the Arabic numerals. And thank goodness for that.

Jiro said:
because South Korea is very very westernized. it's pretty much like asian-version of New York
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With noraebangs. :) In that aspect, the Koreans have us beat.


Jiro said:
we'll never know! :hmm:
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And that's the beauty of probability. It allows us to make an evaluation of a situation even when we lack enough information to know the outcome with any certainty. Hence, my use of words like "good probability" and "unlikely".


Jiro said:
understandable. just like vietnamese eat fully-developed fetus bird. :)
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Mmm... fully developed Vietnamese fetus bird... *drools*
 
Reba said:
For a period they were advanced, then it came to a screeching halt.
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maybe they were just not interested in skyscrapers and such because it's not their way of life. skyscrapers are Western culture. Mosque-like buildings (whatever it is called) are their style.
 
Jiro said:
maybe they were just not interested in skyscrapers and such because it's not their way of life. skyscrapers are Western culture. Mosque-like buildings (whatever it is called) are their style.
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They are very interested in skyscrapers now.

Tallest Skyscraper Photos Defy Belief: Tallest Skyscraper in the World Almost Completed, Defies Belief

Burj Dubai Photos

Skyscrapers of Dubai | Emporis.com

BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Saudi opens first skyscraper

Integrated Wind Turbines in Bahrain Skyscraper - Wind

Kuwait to build the world's first 'sculptured' skyscraper | Kuwait News
 
Darkdog,

You're a proud American.

the liberals and their envrionmentalist friends from Greenpeace, NRDC, and whatever are earning 6 figures salaries more than the loggers in Washington State are still opposing off-shore drilling in Alaska and the Gulf Of Mexico because they support the anti-human rights in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela.

darkdog said:
I'm disrespectful to any cultures? Not so much. My family experienced the culture in Saudi Arabia for over four years. I have no reason to sugar coat it. I understand that the Arab world used to be the center of scientific and mathematical progress. Algebra is an Arab word, in fact. But that's not the case today. Years ago, I remember reading about how the Arab world produced less than 400 patents from 1980 to 2000. That was compared to South Korea with a much much smaller population producing 19,000 patents during that time period. I lived in South Korea and I believe it. I have no qualms with that culture as it supports freedom and productivity, not represses them.
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