desperation
while watching a lecture, Can we avoid catastrophic failures of computer networks?, i heard an interesting idea on how to reduce terrorism.
Reduce Terrorism. One aspect is to reduce injustice in (the) world as one of the reasons for terrorism.
“For me of course, this does not mean killing people, but it means that we are making sure that not too many people of this world are desperate. I am not an idealist. Even if all people are doing well in the world, there will be crazy people who shoot kids in highschools and there will be crazy people who throw bombs in northern Ireland; but a large proportion of terrorism is done because of sheer desperation. I visitied Gaza and if you talk to people there and you talk to a man who says that he has no future, and the children have no future, and his grandchildren have no future, you don’t approve what he may be planning but you certainly understand it.
So, I think we have to try to reduce the injustice in the world. This is an injust world.
.. So we have to try to help the third world and we can do this with computers. That was a big surprise for me. ”
he goes on to describe computers for reducing desperation and it happens because computers and internets make the process of sharing information a lot easier even something as simple as a man in India or central Africa learns a more efficient way to boil water.
interesting 1hr 17min lecture if you’ve got time to check it out. a lot more economic, social, and political aspects were discussed than i’ve come to expect from the geeky stanford ee380 lectures.