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Terrorist attack in London [up: 6 people killed, ~50 injured, 3 attackers dead]

orochi91

Member
Honestly, the UK would be better off diverting more funding to their intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism task forces; they'll be able to better tackle those thousands of cases on hand.

That's the only viable solution that I can see, though naturally that increase in funding will have to come at the expense of other programs/budgets.

Anything more than that will basically be a police state and breaches of civil liberties/freedom.
 

Walshicus

Member
I'm sorry, but 3 people forming a planned attack against innocent civilians by driving a van down London Bridge and then getting out to stab a bunch of people, a week after a bloke blew himself up with a home made bomb packed with shrapnel, is not the same thing as road traffic accidents or any other death you seem to want to compare this to.

If you can't understand or differentiate that difference, there's not really much else to say is there.

You say there "6 preventable deaths". Go on then, how are they preventable? That's what I want to know.

No, they're not the same. They're several orders of magnitude LESS of a problem than traffic deaths.

If *you* can't see *that* then it's not really worth acknowledging your opinion either.

These attacks are designed to get this sort of reaction from people like you. They're designed to get disproportionately more coverage and to make you feel unsafe and to become reactionary. But it's on you if you fall for it.
 

holygeesus

Banned
Those are certainly good for helping identify actual threats, but there's also more to be done in identifying and stopping the root causes of radicalisation.
Posting again for the next page, but Leanne Woods points on this in the election debate were very good I thought:

I was speaking more from a short-term perspective. Long term solutions are beyond me at this point.
 

Audioboxer

Member
And people here compare it with traffic accidents and bad frogs.

Silly whatsaboutisms that serve no purpose. Just ignore them. Cars/traffic serve a purpose and end up being a necessity of life. Casualties from them are nearly exclusively accidents. Kniving people to death or running them over or blowing them up is not comparable in an apples to apples sense. They're not accidents but targeted acts of barbarism.

And yes before anyone asks that is the case for anyone in the country killing someone else, whatever their motivation or political ideology. You just don't start going on about car accidents/likelihood of dying from cancer or some other stat that isn't there for a 1:1 comparison.
 

Syder

Member
I live in Birmingham and can't shake the feeling that it's just a matter of time before something happens here. To be honest I can't believe it hasn't yet...
I'm surprised we've never had a football match get attacked.

As someone that regularly attends matches I'm ready for security to seriously step up next season.
 

holygeesus

Banned
I'm surprised we've never had a football match get attacked.

As someone that regularly attends matches I'm ready for security to seriously step up next season.

I haven't been to a music festival in years, but I'm hopeful that security is beefed up as the thought of such an attack in a population dense event such as that is truly terrifying.

Also one thing I am noticing in these types of attacks. The offenders seem reluctant to use or unable to obtain firearms. We would have had another Paris last night if there were automatic weapons involved.
 
Silly whatsaboutisms that serve no purpose. Just ignore them. Cars/traffic serve a purpose and end up being a necessity of life. Casualties from them are nearly exclusively accidents. Kniving people to death or running them over or blowing them up is not comparable in an apples to apples sense. They're not accidents but targeted acts of barbarism.
So due process serves no purpose? Because that's what's actually being discussed. Not to what degree of horrendous this act was compared to traffic accidents, that would be an utterly moronic discussion.
 
No, they're not the same. They're several orders of magnitude LESS of a problem than traffic deaths.

If *you* can't see *that* then it's not really worth acknowledging your opinion either.

These attacks are designed to get this sort of reaction from people like you. They're designed to get disproportionately more coverage and to make you feel unsafe and to become reactionary. But it's on you if you fall for it.

Ok everyone, let's divert all of MI5 funding into 20mph zones and building of speed bumps. Because terrorism isn't the real problem here, cars are.
 

MUnited83

For you.
I'm surprised we've never had a football match get attacked.

As someone that regularly attends matches I'm ready for security to seriously step up next season.

Well, football matches already have a pretty high standard of security to begin with. The issues with Hooligans have made it so the search for knives/harmful objects, explosive/incendiary devices is fairly through.

Silly whatsaboutisms that serve no purpose. Just ignore them. Cars/traffic serve a purpose and end up being a necessity of life. Casualties from them are nearly exclusively accidents. Kniving people to death or running them over or blowing them up is not comparable in an apples to apples sense. They're not accidents but targeted acts of barbarism.

And yes before anyone asks that is the case for anyone in the country killing someone else, whatever their motivation or political ideology. You just don't start going on about car accidents/likelihood of dying from cancer or some other stat that isn't there for a 1:1 comparison.
Somewhere I think people lost the point of the comparison: people were arguing for the removal of due proccess to arrest anyone at all for the slightest hint of suspicion. It's ridiculous to argue that you should do away with due process, a fundamental right of a true modern and free society because some of the people arrested might be terrorists. Just like it's ridiculous to argue you should ban transportation because traffic accidents happen.
 

Walshicus

Member
Silly whatsaboutisms that serve no purpose. Just ignore them. Cars/traffic serve a purpose and end up being a necessity of life. Casualties from them are nearly exclusively accidents. Kniving people to death or running them over or blowing them up is not comparable in an apples to apples sense. They're not accidents but targeted acts of barbarism.
They are both problems society has to address with limited resources and within the boundaries of personal freedom.

So no, the comparison is valid.


Here's the question: would you spend £1bn more on counter terrorism or £1bn more on the NHS after today's events?
 

Phased

Member
Yeah the taliban were our friends as long as we shared a common enemy in Russia.

For those saying 'we should just get solid government in place' - that contributes to the problem. Many countries are unstable and rife with tribal and other fragmented interests - Shiite vs Sunni etc. Left on their own, creating a stable government will be incredibly difficult and may take generations. But does that mean we should interfere? Maybe that's a process they just have to be allowed to go through?

When we interfere, we try and say 'we are putting in a democratic government'. But there is nearly always al alternative angle to it - with the US having one eye on the Russians and Chinese to ensure that they try and get their preferred flavour of 'democratic' government in place. And even if it is genuinely democratic, you still have the underlying imbalances from different sections of the population. So eg if you put in a Sunni government the Shiites will fight against it, and see it as western interference etc.

I just don't see any solution working for as long as we keep poking around in the internal affairs of other countries. And even that won't be a quick solution - there are entire generations that don't know anything except conflict and western (and Russian) meddling. That will take years to slowly diffuse. But keeping the status quo just creates a breeding ground for this kind of activity.

As painful as it is, intervention in that region (or really any country by a foreign interest) almost never goes well.

It may indeed take generations, but it will mean a hell of a lot more if they do it themselves rather than see an outside hand try to force it, which gives a pretty popular narrative to extremists in those regions whenever we try.

If something stable is going to form, it's going to have to come from within and by a coalition of the people. We've fucked that region up enough, and anything we do seems to just make it worse.

I honestly don't have the answer here.
 

Audioboxer

Member
So due process serves no purpose? Because that's what's actually being discussed. Not to what degree of horrendous this act was compared to traffic accidents, that would be an utterly moronic discussion.

No, I'm talking about the posters who start the "you're more likely to die from a car accident" remarks. They're often unhelpful, especially at least to the victims family and friends that probably aren't in the least bit interested in hearing anyone tell them more people die each year from collisions on the motorway. That is an accident, this is a senseless taking of life.

We're not going to divert all of our intelligence agencies to go and work on motorway safety because more deaths come from accidents in the UK each year. It's just a daft way to attempt to talk about terrorism. It might only ever be one or two posters but you can almost guarantee each topic about a terror attack will have someone going on about road traffic incidents and the likelihood of dying by a million other things.

But okay, sure, some people are just trying to be well intentioned and play down the fear of terrorism. It just rustles some because it's not an easy time to be calm and collected and think about other things.
 

Syder

Member
Well, football matches already have a pretty high standard of security to begin with. The issues with Hooligans have made it so the search for knives/harmful objects, explosive/incendiary devices is fairly through.
From my experience, it really wouldn't be that hard to sneak weapons into a Premier League match at some stadiums unfortunately. Stewards aren't trained enough or paid enough to properly deal with this stuff.
 
Ok everyone, let's divert all of MI5 funding into 20mph zones and building of speed bumps. Because terrorism isn't the real problem here, cars are.

The poster was pretty clear in what they meant, you can choose to continue to reply in an idiotic fashion or you can actually respond to the point the poster was making and it's a valid point.

People in here are demanding we go away with due process, that we strip away freedoms and civil liberties from people, we should put things into perspective with regards to how bad terrorism actually is and how it impacts our daily lives.
 

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
That's excluding the attackers I'm assuming?

Am I the only one that hates it when the numbers quoted in the media or by police includes the attackers?

They don't deserve to be considered victims.
 
I can't understand the level of hate one must have in order to plunge knives into total strangers, and do so thinking God would approve. I think it was Richard Dawkins who said it best:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion".
 

spidye

Member
1400 Years? Where the fuck you getting your numbers.

Buddy, this region was basically controlled by the Ottomans until WW1 where western powers got involved. Not until after WW2 did these countries start to develop. They've had ~70 years of development - from living in the desert in a tent, riding camels, fighting with swords to today living life like a modern U.S. family. Most people here have grandfathers that died in a tribal sword battle. The fuck you talking about. You have no information at all about this region to base your information on - other than news articles related to specific events.
The fuck are we arguing? You say those people didn't have the time to develop and get more progressive. That's fine, although in terms of Iran not correct.
all I was saying that people still hold onto the backwards beliefs in those countries since the very beginnings of islam. (1400 years ago) see public executions

And please, don't assume you know people. You don't know where I or my informations come from.
 
The poster was pretty clear in what they meant, you can choose to continue to reply in an idiotic fashion or you can actually respond to the point the poster was making and it's a valid point.

People in here are demanding we go away with due process, that we strip away freedoms and civil liberties from people, we should put things into perspective with regards to how bad terrorism actually is and how it impacts our daily lives.

Yes it is and I already said that I'd reform healthcare and divert funds into police and security services. You're right in that my response was childish but I don't like the comparison of accidents to terrorism as if they're the same thing.
 

Walshicus

Member
No, I'm talking about the posters who start the "you're more likely to die from a car accident" remarks. They're often unhelpful, especially at least to the victims family and friends that probably aren't in the least bit interested in hearing anyone tell them more people die each year from collisions on the motorway.

Since your talking about *me* here why not do so directly? Do you think I'm going to funerals with spreadsheets and charts? Fuck off with that.

Limited resources.
Competing priorities.
Optimise for social utility.

That's it.


I'm sick and fucking tired of one of this country's - objectively - least damaging problems being treated like it's our biggest.
 
No, I'm talking about the posters who start the "you're more likely to die from a car accident" remarks. They're often unhelpful, especially at least to the victims family and friends that probably aren't in the least bit interested in hearing anyone tell them more people die each year from collisions on the motorway. That is an accident, this is a senseless taking of life.
This discussion sprung from suggesstion/desire of setting up a gitmo for the UK.

No one said this to grieving people, at least not knowingly.

It is a valid example of not giving up personal freedoms for security. You could handle traffic entirely commercially but we take the risk of people driving recklessly, or under the influence, or distracted, or tired, etc. to give people a higher grade of mobility.
 

GHG

Gold Member
I can't understand the level of hate one must have in order to plunge knives into total strangers, and do so thinking God would approve. I think it was Richard Dawkins who said it best:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion".

This quote makes my head hurt. If somebody does something evil, they are evil, period. There is no grey area here. You cannot be a good person and do evil things, it doesn't work like that.
 

Bumhead

Banned
No, they're not the same. They're several orders of magnitude LESS of a problem than traffic deaths.

If *you* can't see *that* then it's not really worth acknowledging your opinion either.

These attacks are designed to get this sort of reaction from people like you. They're designed to get disproportionately more coverage and to make you feel unsafe and to become reactionary. But it's on you if you fall for it.

One is an accident.

The other is planned murder. An attack.

So just for clarity, your solution to last night, and to Manchester last week, and to Westminster 2 months ago, is to do LITERALLY nothing. To wait for the next one. To wait for a statistic you can compare against RTA stats.
 
This discussion sprung from suggesstion/desire of setting up a gitmo for the UK.

No one said this to grieving people, at least not knowingly.

It is a valid example of not giving up personal freedoms for security. You could handle traffic entirely commercially but we take the risk of people driving recklessly, or under the influence, or distracted, or tired, etc. to give people a higher grade of mobility.

If traffic deaths would rise by 500% in a few years you bet some drastic measures would be taken.
 
I can't understand the level of hate one must have in order to plunge knives into total strangers, and do so thinking God would approve. I think it was Richard Dawkins who said it best:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion".

You can also have evil people doing good things because of religion. It's not a great quote.
 
Since your talking about *me* here why not do so directly? Do you think I'm going to funerals with spreadsheets and charts? Fuck off with that.

Limited resources.
Competing priorities.
Optimise for social utility.

That's it.


I'm sick and fucking tired of one of this country's - objectively - least damaging problems being treated like it's our biggest.

The problem we have is that the NHS is a massive fucking black hole that will suck in any amount of money you throw at it. And that's with nurses taking a real-terms pay CUT over the past decade. It needs root and branch reform, but that's a discussion for a different topic and day.
 

Budi

Member
I can't understand the level of hate one must have in order to plunge knives into total strangers, and do so thinking God would approve. I think it was Richard Dawkins who said it best:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion".

It was Steven Weinberg, Dawkins might have quoted him ofcourse on some occasion.
 

Maledict

Member
The problem we have is that the NHS is a massive fucking black hole that will suck in any amount of money you throw at it. And that's with nurses taking a real-terms pay CUT over the past decade. It needs root and branch reform, but that's a discussion for a different topic and day.

This is not true btw. It is a lie pushed by the right wing press.

We spend less on healthcare than any other western economy. Germany, Spain, France, the USA - all spend a significantly higher % of their GDP on healthcare than we do. Before we write the nhs off as a money hole, maybe we should try funding it properly for once?
 

Walshicus

Member
One is an accident.

The other is planned murder. An attack.

So just for clarity, your solution to last night, and to Manchester last week, and to Westminster 2 months ago, is to do LITERALLY nothing. To wait for the next one. To wait for a statistic you can compare against RTA stats.

My 'solution' is to let the police do their jobs and balance their funding requests against those from competing services on the basis of the *marginal* gain to society from each.

I mean, if you've got a magic solution to stop people killing each other, for free, then why the fuck have you kept it to yourself?
 

Plasma

Banned
From my experience, it really wouldn't be that hard to sneak weapons into a Premier League match at some stadiums unfortunately. Stewards aren't trained enough or paid enough to properly deal with this stuff.

Pretty much, they were supposed to be cracking down more on it this year and after the Westminster attack everybody was supposed to be searched before going into a ground. But in reality this is how it was carried out.

https://twitter.com/SBOnet_/status/853903671645675520
 

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
I can't understand the level of hate one must have in order to plunge knives into total strangers, and do so thinking God would approve. I think it was Richard Dawkins who said it best:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion".

What a stupid quote.
 

Par Score

Member
Ok everyone, let's divert all of MI5 funding into 20mph zones and building of speed bumps. Because terrorism isn't the real problem here, cars are.

This, but unironically. Also heart disease, cancer and climate change.

So your suggestion would save far more lives, as would givingng that money into any other number of road safety initiatives, building solar panels or wind farms, or hell, just give it to the NHS.

Horrific acts of barbarism such as this are designed to draw a disproportionate response. The raw anger and despair they generate should not be allowed to shift policy in the cold light of day. Our limited resources have to be used effectively, not emotionally.
 

Bumhead

Banned
My 'solution' is to let the police do their jobs and balance their funding requests against those from competing services on the basis of the *marginal* gain to society from each.

I mean, if you've got a magic solution to stop people killing each other, for free, then why the fuck have you kept it to yourself?

Why bother?

Terrorism isn't a problem and there are only marginal benefits to trying to prevent it.

Why are you shouting at me for a solution? Don't get all reactionary and shouty with me. YOU said "6 preventable deaths" in your earlier post. I asked you to quantify how you meant they were preventable which you've ignored.
 

Ashes

Banned
Can you link to what you have read about their reasoning?

I used to have more, but this is a view from the perspective of scholars:

http://www.bilalabdulkareem.com/scholars1/

Aside from Isis 'scholars', when you look at radical recruits, this is more interesting. It's from MI5:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1

"The research, carried out by MI5's behavioural science unit, is based on in-depth case studies on "several hundred individuals known to be involved in, or closely associated with, violent extremist activity" ranging from fundraising to planning suicide bombings in Britain."


" Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation"
 

Murkas

Member
Someone I used to work with had pics of her at London Bridge on her snap story yesterday then went quiet. Thankfully her battery died and she left the area just before it happened.

I went to bed as this all started, what happened to the shirtless handcuffed guy that was in early reports? Related to the 3 attackers?
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Another Islamic attack.

There are something like 4000 of these potentially violent Islamic terrorist currently on the watch list and these fuckers go and fight for ISIS and get trained and the UK government let them back in.

Why the fuck are the UK government letting these people in. When are we going to start putting the lives of UK citizens first.

I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.
 
This quote makes my head hurt. If somebody does something evil, they are evil, period. There is no grey area here. You cannot be a good person and do evil things, it doesn't work like that.

You can also have evil people doing good things because of religion. It's not a great quote.

I think the over-arching point is that there are good people who are able to rationalise evil things as long as it comes from religion. Look at the story of Jericho or God's punishment of Ramses. People justify the rationale, or dismiss it as rhetoric. They would not apply the same level of moral relativism if religion were not involved.
 

Syder

Member
Pretty much, they were supposed to be cracking down more on it this year and after the Westminster attack everybody was supposed to be searched before going into a ground. But in reality this is how it was carried out.

https://twitter.com/SBOnet_/status/853903671645675520
Exactly. I've been to hundreds of games over the years and I've snuck plenty of prohibited things into matches. If I can sneak a bottle of cider or 4-pack of beer into a football match without really trying then a potential terrorist can sneak a machete or bomb in, especially in the middle of winter when it's totally fine to be wearing a big coat.
 
Another Islamic attack.

There are something like 4000 of these potentially violent Islamic terrorist currently on the watch list and these fuckers go and fight for ISIS and get trained and the UK government let them back in.

Why the fuck are the UK government letting these people in. When are we going to start putting the lives of UK citizens first.

I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.

I see the pretense of "radical" is being dropped too now. I guess it's just Muslims being Muslims huh?

I can actually see the argument for why people in the counter-terrorism world didn't want to use that magical phrase now, it's a slippery slope that doesn't really help anyone.
 
Another Islamic attack.

There are something like 4000 of these potentially violent Islamic terrorist currently on the watch list and these fuckers go and fight for ISIS and get trained and the UK government let them back in.

Why the fuck are the UK government letting these people in. When are we going to start putting the lives of UK citizens first.

I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.

As far as i'm aware, the suspects in these cases have all been British born. Immigration isn't really central to this issue, unless the argument is to ban Muslims altogether.
 

orochi91

Member
I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.
This seems to be more of a resource/budgetary​ issue, not political correctness.

Intelligence agencies and task forces are already shifting through these cases.

They can't act on most of these suspects because they haven't committed any notable crime.

You can't apprehend folks via thought-policing, dude.
 
Another Islamic attack.

There are something like 4000 of these potentially violent Islamic terrorist currently on the watch list and these fuckers go and fight for ISIS and get trained and the UK government let them back in.

Why the fuck are the UK government letting these people in. When are we going to start putting the lives of UK citizens first.

I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.

Political correctness?

What exactly do you want the UK government to do?
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I see the pretense of "radical" is being dropped too now. I guess it's just Muslims being Muslims huh?

Fuck that shit.
You know I'm talking about those violent killers and not the majority of peace loving Muslims.

Go force your narrative down someone else throat.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Another Islamic attack.

There are something like 4000 of these potentially violent Islamic terrorist currently on the watch list and these fuckers go and fight for ISIS and get trained and the UK government let them back in.

Why the fuck are the UK government letting these people in. When are we going to start putting the lives of UK citizens first.

I'm so sick of this political correctness crap.
The majority of the attacks in the UK have been perpetuated by British nationals. You propose locking British nationals from the UK? It doesn't make any sense. Arrest them when they come back or put them in very high vigilance and get them for questioning, but you can't lock UK nationals from going back to the UK
 
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