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I do stats for a living, and while I think it's good to back up claims with data when possible, inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world.

The logic is that active, dedicated terrorist groups already know: "They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to."

The reasoning that knowing this information you would be very careful about what you communicate over the internet is very sound to me. To convince me that this reasoning is incorrect would require an abundance of data to the contrary.




You assume that every terrorist (or most terrorists) acts rationally and has the knowledge you know. That is a huge assumption for your reasoning to work.

I think terrorists make mistakes (or take risks), and I'm not convinced that we catch all of those either.


In the context of droning terrorist, I think the anthropic principle applies. The ones who don't act rationally or have that knowledge are dead.


Once again, that is just your opinion, presented as fact. Personally I would argue that people acting rationally stay away from the terrorism business.


If you were in their shoes and america exterminated your family,how would you react? Killing civilians is evil and horrible but in their case they are being very rational.

Was the US being irrational with nuking of japan?


You’re assuming a static world.


If terrorists know not to touch digital comms, then how would they get caught by being at a wedding with other terrorists with cell phones? Do terrorists use cell phones or not?

The claim directly conflicts with the supporting anecdote.


Both, they adopt. This isn't a video game you get to beat after figuring out the enemy, unlike games real life enemies adopt to your tactics.


People can learn from their mistakes, and from the mistakes of others.


> inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world.

And here it has led you astray. Terrorist organisations have propaganda mouthpieces, and use social media like any other. One of my previous jobs involved building network analysis tools to identify and locate terrorists combing through their Twitter feeds.

For some, you could easily identify the point in their lives when they were radicalized, and trace connections to others who were also, and identify the people they had in common.

Inductive reasoning opens room for questions, not answers, because it does not account for unknown information.


You are talking about the past when they were radicalized,if this happened online then you are right but I thought it was clear that I meant internet usage for organizing and planning terrorism. Propaganda and radicalization is a dragnet, you will catch many but the one cell that recruits in person and communicates on paper only by code will succeed. It's not a volume game,it's a binary game.


No single method of intelligence gathering will win a binary game, that is just moving goal posts.


"inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world."

Thank you so much for saying this.


Plenty of people are dumb. Including the ones who decide to join terrorist organization.

Actual terrorists were found because of using cell phones or internet.


9/11 terrorists were well educated. Show me how absent flight security 9/11 can't happen again in 2020?




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