ISIS doesn't want anything.
Neither does General Motors, Murica or Islam.
To think that a religio/political movement has individual conscious personal volition is the sort of anthropomorphizing thought that led to the Citizen's United decision (95% pure evil.) ISIS is not self aware and therefore not capable of wanting anything.
The individuals involved do want. The actions of the whole are guided by a weighted summation of the choices of the member individuals based on their desires. That sum is not equivalent to a conscious choice by some single person. We just think that way because it is intuitive and convenient. A central dogma in each case can guide the consensual decision. Attacking that dogma is a difficult task because it is so diffusely held in the population. Decapitation attacks on poorly defended ideological leaders (cartoonists) is one strategy which, for the Islamic extremist without significant backing resources, has high appeal because of its efficiency. The mirror problem, attacking ISIS leaders, is difficult because they are hard to find and relatively easy to replace and it would be a horrible precedent for the 1% in our society to condone killing the 1% in any other society no matter how despicable.
It remains to be seen if ISIS will hang together and govern well enough to be more than a nuisance threat to the West. Currently they have enough money to co-opt some of the West's technologies (e.g. to buy ammunition for their ubiquitous AK-47s supplied by the Soviets to Hezbollah, captured by the Israelis, sold to the Americans to supply to the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in 1980s Afghanistan. But unless they build or buy some industry, they are burning through their venture capital so fast that they are going to fade as an existential danger. They could continue as a proxy to some richer group (Saudis) but only if they can tone down their barbarous publicity stunts. At the moment, I don't know anybody who wants to associate with them, not even the Egyptian military.
[troll]
Similarly, nobody seems to like my strategy of unannounced missile attacks on mosques and madrasas. There seems to be a hesitance to randomly kill clerics and small children. I don't know why.
[/troll]
Neither does General Motors, Murica or Islam.
To think that a religio/political movement has individual conscious personal volition is the sort of anthropomorphizing thought that led to the Citizen's United decision (95% pure evil.) ISIS is not self aware and therefore not capable of wanting anything.
The individuals involved do want. The actions of the whole are guided by a weighted summation of the choices of the member individuals based on their desires. That sum is not equivalent to a conscious choice by some single person. We just think that way because it is intuitive and convenient. A central dogma in each case can guide the consensual decision. Attacking that dogma is a difficult task because it is so diffusely held in the population. Decapitation attacks on poorly defended ideological leaders (cartoonists) is one strategy which, for the Islamic extremist without significant backing resources, has high appeal because of its efficiency. The mirror problem, attacking ISIS leaders, is difficult because they are hard to find and relatively easy to replace and it would be a horrible precedent for the 1% in our society to condone killing the 1% in any other society no matter how despicable.
It remains to be seen if ISIS will hang together and govern well enough to be more than a nuisance threat to the West. Currently they have enough money to co-opt some of the West's technologies (e.g. to buy ammunition for their ubiquitous AK-47s supplied by the Soviets to Hezbollah, captured by the Israelis, sold to the Americans to supply to the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in 1980s Afghanistan. But unless they build or buy some industry, they are burning through their venture capital so fast that they are going to fade as an existential danger. They could continue as a proxy to some richer group (Saudis) but only if they can tone down their barbarous publicity stunts. At the moment, I don't know anybody who wants to associate with them, not even the Egyptian military.
[troll]
Similarly, nobody seems to like my strategy of unannounced missile attacks on mosques and madrasas. There seems to be a hesitance to randomly kill clerics and small children. I don't know why.
[/troll]
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
