Reflectii

I am trying to wrap my brain around the abyss between pacifism and violence as to the proper means to bring about socio-political change. And as to how to overcome that divide. Though not violent as a person, my basic impulse, my instinct in this regard, is belligerent: ultimately, I believe, it will be necessary to unleash a lethal war to the finish against Power, if only to assuage a burning anger buried in the human psyche against the psychopathological forces of Power intent on the destruction of the world. It is clear that the struggle is unfair since ONLY Power uses violence—primarily violence—a violence masked under countless euphemistic masks.

Violence by Islamist extremists in Africa reached a record high last year. Now, the Islamic State is using those attacks to project an image of strength.

The Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate has fallen, its fighters have dispersed and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed.

The terrorist threat to the United States is extremely diverse in 2021, with many ideologies that motivate violence defying simple categorization. 
There are important connectors that facilitate ideological convergence, including anomie, nihilism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and accelerationism.
There is a growing list of individuals who reflect this “salad bar” of ideologies, combining Salafi-jihadism and white supremacy extremism.
Extremists with a potpourri of grievances, combined with decentralized and diffuse movements, present a difficult security challenge.

In remarks before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in September 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray described the tendency of some terrorists to be motivated by what he referred to as “a mishmash” or “salad bar” of ideologies, the most prominent feature of which is an attraction to violence. The recently released Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) report on the threat posed by domestic violent extremism (DVE) in 2021 seemed to reference the salad bar analogy when it described “a diverse set of violent extremist ideologies,” adhered to by lone actors and/or small cells of domestic violent extremists (DVEs) as among the most likely to carry out violent attacks in the United States.

When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson left the hospital in April 2020 after having been treated for COVID-19, he released a widely viewed video address in which he thanked the nurses that had cared for him. In singling out two for special mention—Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal—he shone a spotlight on the critical role that migrants have played during the pandemic.

What happens when systems cross the threshold of peak complexity and can no longer be improved in their current forms? Decision-makers can commission competing models in order to pick a winner. This however calls for patience, prudence and sound oversight. Alternately, they can pounce on a fantastical blueprint that will supposedly gel via Artificial Intelligence and get to play monopoly at the same time. An all-in-one solution!

Such thinking was precisely what beleaguered the F-35 combat aircraft program with its estimated $1.7 trillion in lifetime costs. After 20 years of troubled development, the stealth fighter’s problems have become so insurmountable that the US Air Force is now considering a clean slate fighter jet program to replace its ageing F-16s.

Senator Elizabeth Warren appeared on CNBC last week, sparring with hosts Becky Quick and Joe Kernan over stock buybacks.

Both sides here either forget about, miss, or fail to prioritize the key behavioral incentives that drive this activity.

It is true that company managers are shareholder agents—and are obligated to pursue projects to the end of wealth maximization. If the managers perceive that they do not have enough net present value–positive projects to pursue, they often pay dividends or do share buybacks.