The story of Ahmed Mohamed and a clock

[Civil War Man]

You know, if Dawkins is right and Mohamed did this on puropose then Mohamed has earned every single dollar he can harvest from this. If you manage to game a misanthropic system like the US school system in such a way you deserve a medal.

I don't think, based on what I've read about this case, that Mohamed intended anyone to think he had a bomb, but if, hypothetically, he did, are you really saying that you think a fucking bomb hoax is something one should be applauded and rewarded for? Bomb hoaxes are not a game.

I think the point was that if, hypothetically, his goal was to perpetrate a bomb hoax by never claiming that the clock was anything more than a clock and relying entirely on the bigotry of teachers, school administration, and police to cause the incident to spiral out of control, then he is either some kind of avant-garde performance artist or a next level criminal genius on par with a James Bond or Batman villain.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, obviously, if their was no intimidation/fear or harm to anyone, and no intent to cause either, I wouldn't call it terrorism. On that much, at least, we can agree. But any bomb hoax has the potential to cause panic, especially since not everyone has, to put it in your terms, "...more brain cells than a hen...", especially when it comes to terrorism and security. Its like the old example of shouting fire in a crowded theatre, only more so. Sure, its possible nothing really bad will happen, but its not something to play around with.

No, it´s exactly NOT like shouting "fire". It´s like shouting "pretzel" and the safty mechanisms in place treating it AS IF it was "fire".

Hell, just in terms of self-interest, its a bad idea. The boy in this story is fortunate that things didn't turn out worse for him. He wouldn't be the first innocent person in the news to be beaten or shot by cops if things had gone just a little worse.

Civil disobedience carries a risk. This just means that his reward should be even bigger.

Well, I sort of see where you're coming from, but nothing is ever going to convince me that deliberately making people think you have a bomb is a good idea (unless you're in an actual war zone, maybe). This... honestly seems rather obvious to me. Remember, in this hypothetical, we're not talking about an innocent misunderstanding. We're talking about someone deliberately creating a bomb hoax. You may assume that no one will really take it that seriously, that they're not genuinely afraid but just corrupt bastards. But I think that their are plenty of people who will take it seriously, and that for that reason it crosses a line. And also because if you have enough obvious hoaxes, its possible that people will start to take the real ones less seriously- a boy who cried wolf phenomenon. Which incidentally is also something to fault the officials in the actual case for- the backlash over their stupid overreaction might conceivably make people reluctant to believe genuine threats.

[salm]

Well, I sort of see where you're coming from, but nothing is ever going to convince me that deliberately making people think you have a bomb is a good idea (unless you're in an actual war zone, maybe). This... honestly seems rather obvious to me. Remember, in this hypothetical, we're not talking about an innocent misunderstanding. We're talking about someone deliberately creating a bomb hoax. You may assume that no one will really take it that seriously, that they're not genuinely afraid but just corrupt bastards. But I think that their are plenty of people who will take it seriously, and that for that reason it crosses a line. And also because if you have enough obvious hoaxes, its possible that people will start to take the real ones less seriously- a boy who cried wolf phenomenon. Which incidentally is also something to fault the officials in the actual case for- the backlash over their stupid overreaction might conceivably make people reluctant to believe genuine threats.

That is not the kids problem. That is the flawed rules problem. The kid tries to get rid of the flawed rules.

The boy who cries wolf in this case is actually the government. You see, the teachers, the principal and the cops all cried wolf even though the wolf turned out to be pink bunny. In fact they cried wolf even though they knew it was a pink bunny and they kept pretending it was a wolf even after everybody else knew that it was a pink bunny. This is what makes the story so absurd and Orwellian. So instead of getting defeated by brain-dead rules the hypothetical kid decides to get "defeated" while the public is watching. What follows is the public deciding that the rules are bad and that it´s time to change them.
Now the people responsible for this clusterfuck don´t cry wolf anymore when they know there´s a pink bunny because they know that the public will laugh at them for being the morons that they are.
Now they only cry wolf when there´s reason to believe that there´s a wolf which means that the kid just single handedly fixed a broken safety mechanism.
It´s a bit like when hackers hack into a network to get rid of security holes and collect the reward from the company owning the network.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm presuming that in the case of the hackers you mentioned, they do it with the company's authorization, not as a plot on their own initiative. Last I heard, just hacking something on your own initiative was generally not well-regarded by the law. So it seems to me that your analogy is actually supporting my case.

But in the actual case of young Ahmed, not the hypothetical, I would entirely agree that it is the authorities involved (though obviously not the government as a whole) that cried wolf. And they should be disciplined severely for it if at all possible.

[salm]

Well, I was talking about hackers hacking into a companies system without their authorization and then telling the company. I´m sure the company will be happy to use this information before some criminals break into the system.

Or lets say somebody discovers a security hole which could lead to a lot of peoples credit card details getting stolen. The hacker informs the company but the company is too lazy/stingy/stupid to get rid of the security hole. The only ethical path would be to somehow coerce the company into fixing the hole, for examply by making the problem public causing a PR desaster.

[The Romulan Republic]

I wouldn't say its "The only ethical path...", but under certain circumstances, leaking information, even illegal obtained information to the public could be justifiable (Edward Snowden comes to mind- many people have defended his actions, and you could certainly argue that he did the public a service). I'm not absolutely against civil disobedience or violating unjust laws by any means. Its in cases of violence or other acts that cause actual physical harm, or threats of the same, that I draw a hard line.

[salm]

What other ethical path would there be than to get the company to remove the security flaw? In the end you can either get the company to remove the flaw, you can ignore the flaw and the company will just keep the flaw or you can fix it yourself. Fixing it yourself is probably impossible so that leaves you with ignoring the problem or getting the company to act.

[The Romulan Republic]

I question that their is only one way to get the company to act. I mean, I'm sure you could contrive a hypothetical where it was justified to leak illegally obtained information to the public, but I'm wary of oversimplification or assumption. However, as I don't wish to take the thread way off topic, I'm going to bow out of this discussion right now if that's alright with you. For one thing, we've moved beyond my original contention (objecting to bomb hoaxes/terrorism/threats of violence) into the minutia of non-violent leaks and activism, which is a much more morally (if not necessarily legally) uncertain area.

[salm]

Ah, I didn´t say the only moral thing to do is to leak. The only moral thing to do is to get the company to act. This might be through leaking, threatening to leak, involving police or depending on the specific case something completely different.

But the same is true for rules in society. You identify a flaw and then have to try to get society to act. If society doesn´t act after telling them that the flaw exists you can use other measures such as publicly demonstrating what happens if somebody (yourself in this case) gets caught in the flaw. This is called civil disobedience.

But I guess you´re right. This isn´t all that on topic and has nothing to do with the actual case because Dawkins is most likely wrong. Man, Dawkins is a cunt.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I sort of see where you're coming from, but nothing is ever going to convince me that deliberately making people think you have a bomb is a good idea.

Thing is, that is exactly the opposite of what he did.

He didn't tell people he had a bomb or had made a bomb. He said "this is a clock." He told everyone who asked him "this is a clock." At no time, so far as I can tell, did he say anything other than "this is a clock."

He didn't just NOT "deliberately make people think he had a bomb."

He deliberately tried to make people NOT think he had a bomb. Because he didn't have a bomb. He had a clock.

As noted, this is not "the boy who cried wolf." This is "the boy who cried 'pretzel' and everyone decided to act like it was a wolf, and then beat him up for crying 'wolf.' "

[TheFeniX]

If you can game the system... by not gaming the system, merely relying on the stupidity of those in charge of the system: kudos to you.

Motivations matter when there's an actual crime. Like fucking seriously, if I stuck gum under a table and spread it "like" it was plastic explosive, while saying "I'm just defacing school property with gum over here" and you decide to charge me with terrorism: my motivations don't really matter one bit. I could just be an ass or actually trying to start a panic, but you're the dumbfuck arresting someone who, for all intents and purposes, is doing nothing to incite a panic.

Those types of people can get hit by trucks. The US justice system is way to ready to double-down on bullshit when they get called on bullshit. Actually.... they just double-down either way because they can and it isn't their money they're wasting.

[jwl]

I did think Dawkins was an asshole, but I've never considered him a moron.
It just seems out-of-character for him. Have you checked the tweet is genuine?

[Adam Reynolds]

I did think Dawkins was an asshole, but I've never considered him a moron.
It just seems out-of-character for him. Have you checked the tweet is genuine?

It's not out of character. Look at his response to the Rebbecca Watson Elevator incident.