Geopolitical Darwin Awards

[Tyler Durden]

A solid post. In this context I'd drill down a bit to the idea of 
"fanaticism"...


> > And if you ask me, fanaticism never lasts very long
> > anywhere, only for about a generation during turbulent times.
>
>That is what King George and his redcoats said about the
>ragtag colonials, American as well as those who suffered the
>king's abuse into the 20th Centruty.

My running, personal theory is that Muslim fundamentalism (and in general, 
most fundamentalisms) get going when the locals gain a persistent sense that 
they're gettin' screwed over, and that their current government ain't 
helping a whole lot. It's kind of a devil's bargain to obtain a source of 
strength. By necessity it needs to reject a lot of the local culture, 
otherwise there isn't sufficient motivation to fight. In general, it's 
probably on many levels predictable and even reasonable.

Of course, this can boil over into bizarre, "fanatical" behavior, but then 
again as Mr Young so aptly put it, "fanatical" is what the screw-ers 
normally call mass behavior they don't like. In the case of Nukes, I'd point 
out that the nuclear nations have a distinct advantage at the UN or any 
other bargaining table, so if I were Iranian I'd be working pretty hard to 
get something quasi-viable together that could be called a "nuke". Of 
course, the few truly "fanatical" members of the local nuke-wannabees might 
get a hold of the block box and, well, that sucks.

-TD

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