India was under so much pressure to go to war at that time. Experts were gunning for surgical strikes. Imagine the pressure on bureaucrats, especially when both countries have nuclear arsenal.

Why does education/intelligence/morality not cull the inner devil of some?

This is honestly a far more complicated question than other commentors appear to be capable of engaging with.

Educational systems worldwide are constructed with the idiotic hope of job fulfillment. There are noises about a liberal arts education, but these are the first things cut when budgets are on the line. Educational systems, thusly, do nothing to help guide moral compasses: indeed, they do a lot to break them down.

Intelligence, on the other hand, very naturally cuts both ways. The capacity to reason is also the capacity to rationalize. These are people trained to vote with their wallet, because their wallet is the only meaningful measure of value they have. Short of coincidence, they have no particular reason to believe that this is untrue.

Morality, though, isn't innate. The purpose of philosophy--one of those casualties of an industrial-catered educational system--is to actually tackle the construction of a moral system and tinker with practical applications of it. It was never a widespread practice to engage in understanding how morals are made, even if you contribute no new thought, but we've done nothing to spread it wider.

We end up leaving it to genetic lottery and your local tradition of faith. When most people's "inner devil" is culled only by the least possible amount of thought, how do you expect it to be culled at all?

IMO education and intelligence may sometimes fuel the "inner devil". "Greed has poisoned men's souls." I really think it is power and or authority that may be the culprit in these kinds of situations. Some people are completely disconnected from our fellow humans.

Highly relevant: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/~uzimmerm/Notes/Ludwig+Longenecke...

Reva Bhalla's interview is too insignificant to directly affect our decision to respond. She was speculating, but everyone (including the government!) was speculating too and they were all pretty much saying the same thing. Which is, "someone in Pakistan".

I haven't seen anything seriously damaging yet from the India files. People aren't always very mild in emails, and some of them were just jokes. Some jokes were crude, but we all make such jokes.

You haven't seen damaging because they are aggregator, and put in their analysis on the news. Yeah crude jokes like selling weapons over the misery of others. "We" do not make these kind of jokes, and even if we do, they should be deplored. Sorry, I am not in sync with you over this.

[1] - http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/29mumterror-isi-chief-vi...

He is apparently in "high demand" at JP Morgan- http://www.stratfor.com/about/analysts/dr-george-friedman

Neither ignorance nor stupidity cause people to act this way.

I've seen some study (not handy sorry) that about 5% of people near-totally lack the ability to empathize.

I'm being serious. You make an awful lot of assumptions about real people there, and ascribe to them the worst possible motives. That's a risky default behavior.

Basically the same stuff CNN does.

[1] http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/201031_.html

I was in India when the Mumbai carnage took place. My classmate from IIT was killed the same day at the very same spot [1].

And here we have this class of a bitch thinking of making a "lot of money" off a probable war ['caged match' look at the audacity!]. No wonder they say karma is broken all over the place. On another story these same corrupt assholes have abused their power to send a whistle blower to jail and serve a 10 years term [2].

Nice going, keep it up newage SS!

[1] http://www.iitfoundation.org/?p=200

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6740652

Stratfor is nowhere close to holding the kind of power you are imagining.

I have limited experience in this but I've seen some egregious things with current intelligence employees and private contractors. I think you are underestimating outside ways these guys could profit and/or use their intelligence collection news company to encourage those profits.

Sure, it's pretty crappy, tasteless behavior, but lets not go overboard here.

-----Original Message-----

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 10:02 AM

To: Fred Burton

Cc: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Reva rocks

Will be glad to supply weapons to both sides if India and Pakistan want a cage match. India gets the net and trident and the pakistanis get the shield and short sword. Kamran can instruct in Klingon

Sent from my iPhone

You can say you want to kill someone, or even tell them you're going to kill them - but under law, it's only when you act on it OR have a plan to do so that the scenario becomes illegal - and you'll go to jail if you then kill said person (assuming you get caught) or have a plan to do so. Likewise, them just saying wouldn't be illegal, however I feel them acting out and selling actual weapons to both sides (and perhaps somehow inciting war between two parties to then profit) should IMHO be illegal, stating their intent they would and would love to is not only having a plan stated but perhaps one of the most disturbing disconnected inhumane uncaring violent acts a person could partake in.

I don't generally agree that killing of anyone is right - though perhaps with the only exception of those who actively kill others or lead violence - however that's for a society to determine what is acceptable. Unfortunately many things a society deems unacceptable (even existing laws that are enforced) are happening and go unchanged, though we're moving towards a system that is more in line with general views. There are more basic issues that need to be taken care of first to help alleviate people's worries and stresses, removing fear of survival will solve most, if not lead to solving all problems.

I think you mean hanged.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Circuses_%28Star_Tre... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gamesters_of_Triskelion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amok_Time http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tsunkatse_%28episode%29

I must be one of the few HN commentator apart form Matt Cuts who has ever studied the classics.

edit: I'm not being ornery, I'm really actually curious what people think they should go to prison for. Tastelessness != criminality.

EDIT: Ouch, game over for me... I thought these email leaks involved government officials 'n such. If these are like reading the emails of FOXNews, then nevermind. They're bad people(IMHO), but can't jail 'em anymore than we can jail the people of stormfront.org

>I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that.

You're right, there is no law against it, yet.

There also didn't used to be laws against a ton of morally wrong things, but at some point, enough people thought it was wrong and a law was made.

We should be looking to make the world a better place, not saying "there's no law against that, they can do it". The status quo needs improvement.

The media makes a lot of money from bad news, especially death. Perhaps only the state should run news organizations?

Terrorism, for material support of international war for commercial gain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retiarius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmillo

I don't wish to engage in hypotheticals, suffice it to say I'd sooner be a prostitute than work for a weapons company myself.

Agreed. Unfortunately there is no recourse until a power center rises elsewhere. They say written history would have been very different in case Germany had won their war.

The money comment is a pretty insensitive. That said, a lot of time spent on any particular thing tends to result in serious desensitization to the subject. Go have dinner with a few EMTs and listen to their shop talk. ("He was tasting for air, saying, 'dudegaspam Igaspgonnagasplive?', and all I could muster was, 'dudemock gasp, mock gasp no, mock gasp you aren't mock gasp gonna live!'" Followed by a few rounds of laughter. Got to hear that little gem said just the other night by one of the top Search & Rescue professionals in the world.)

This kind of thing isn't uncommon, or even that big a deal. Few people can withstand the scrutiny of a public life-dump.

Tackiness aside, I don't think it's sufficient evidence for us to call for anyone's hanging or jailing, like some seem to be advocating here.

Oh, it's ok then.

[1] http://www.indianexpress.com/news/yes-bank-chairman-ashok-ka...

Death of innocents is a tragedy whether they were an entrepreneur, an executive, or a janitor.

On the parent comment 164 people sounded like a lame statistic, involuntarily generalizing everyone as "people who just died there" and this is usual business for others to profit from it.

I know what you're trying to say. Sure everyone innocent who died there was an equal human being and this tragedy should be left at that.