All he has discovered is the probability of a large successful attack is lower than the probability of a small less successful attack. It is peculiar how this data does seem to follow a power law though.
in my limited intelligence...a is simply means STAY AWAY from other peoples lives, mind your own life, Iraq or any other nation can live peacefully on their own way and culture, it is only messed up when US or GB steps in in the name of BS diplomacy or WTF freedom or terrorism they are talking about. A meAns simply leAve them Alone And there will be no wAr...
@ atomisten i think the point is that a group of nerds got together and found a mathematical coincidence to a larger world problem and would like some credit for it :P
@atomisten A lot of TED talks seem to be pointless rambling without getting to a point, but the few that actually get at something will make you shit brix
@xaiomanga ok maybe for u more seem pointless rambling but for me no. thats why i am shocked that this presentation is such a low level one compared to the others... or if your opinion differs then tell me what was the point of this because it just explained how they ONLY did a data gathering from multiple sources reporting about a conflict, and yet they dare to call this mathematics...
@xaiomanga so my whole point is i dont understand your comment either, your answer is not for what i said, i said this particular presentation is shit, not all, yet u talk about TED talks in general and how they seem to suck but sometimes they are shocking when they have a point, so unless you can tell me whats the point in this presentation, then your comment has the same meaning as if u had written something like : "i like apples"
Fundamentally all wars are about control of resources. Religious factions and other cultural variables are constantly sited to deflect the main economic reasons Whether its control of trade / routes/ resources / knowledge et al .
I would contend is the more a foreign entity tries to impose peace on "its" terms n a foreign land, the more the native population will react more strongly against it.
Based on observational data alone one cannot make causal inferences. Confounding factors such as media bias and war fatigue covering long term conflicts have not been taken into account. The conclusion and recommendations therefore are flawed
He was working with the info he could get, so I don't blame him for using print or visual media. However, I don't understand the fragmented-robust dichotomy. Isn't he simply saying what opposers of the conflict have been saying: the more we threaten the civilization, they more we push civilians to the opposing insurgency? If the insurgency is more effecitve, that doesn't sound like a fragmented group of people to me.
America is an imperialistic nation involved in more wars than any other country in the world. Hardly surprising that it appears in a statistical analysis of wars.
Looks like Gourley and his research group have had their latest research published in the prestigious peer reviewed journal Nature. What's more they seem to have beaten out all other stories and Nature is leading with their work on the cover. Whether or not you agree with the results, this research really is a break through in our understanding of modern war.
Also, another important and missed interpretation of this data is that he has relied solely on the MEDIA to gather the data... the media will either report many attacks with few killed (but totalling many), or few attacks with many killed (thus still totalling many)... by nature of media filtering they WILL NOT report a single small attack in which 1 person was killed, as this would be non-sensical during a war...
The speaker lists three sources of information (Newspapers, NGOs, and Cable News), of which NGOs as far as I understand cannot be categorized as media. In regard to the last claim - when the table with recorded data and the sample distribution are being, there are cases with 1 person killed in a given attack (the graph showing '67 attacks where 1 person got killed').
Not every televised attack is a insurgent attack, hence, this whole report is a huge missed opportunity. Especially reflecting on the data that proves key attacks cause rises in fragmentation, thus possibly indicating that the fragmentation of these nations is in fact by design of the invading forces. The analysis of this data is naive at best because of the insinuation that the presence of allied forces is as mere peace makers and not considering the possibility that many attacks are allied
I does a certain sense. Bomb blows up, is a show of force, strength, insurgent groups feel like they found a leader to folow. They join forces. US troops attack, put pressure, group fragments again, so that they have a better chance to escape.
The explosons and assaults that kill more people are less likely than the explosions that kill less people. Thats obvious. Plus he did not link up his model to the different real factors that could affect the model. Well one way you can affect it is by giving terrorists and guerillas smaller guns or less effective explosives, that way the slope will maybe have more inclined slope.
He should have brought in a statistician along with him, instead of all those physicists.
you're forgeting something yourself. noone "gives" guns to guerillas and terrorists. they buy it on the blackmarket, where the usually tend to get themselves the best gun avaliable.
If you want to start a war, and you can get yourself a handgun or an ak47, the handgun probably wont be your weapon of choice.
He said: the more pressure you apply, the more diverted and the harder to find the groups are going to be. "more force" therefor isn't the best solution.
In the first "distribution of attack sizes in iraq" chart, what is the y-axis (frequency) actually a measure of? It shows frequency of attacks to be less than one (e.g it says there are 0.001 attacks with roughly 600 casualties). I did mechanics at school so this statistical stuff is lost on me. Isn't it obvious there will be many attacks with few people killed and few attacks with many people killed?
You are correct. Think of a sniper. They are trained to be a small group that never attacks from the same place twice (eg.) yet they are able to take out incredibly hard targets.... The human mind cannot be ever vigilant. Attack randomly once every year, and you will be attacking with surprise, attack the same place every day, and expect fierce knowledgeable resistance.
seems the insurgency id fragmented and The allies can pull out... and the graph shows this.. now this is absolutely amazing what they discovered......
@TDeltablues Bit ironic that you attach intelligence to preference of one news source -- as superficial and borderline obsolete as all the rest -- over any other.
@TDeltablues I watch Fox News to fınd out what the rıght wıng ın Amerıca thınks. I don't lıke theır opınıons but ıt's worthwhıle knowıng what they are. A recent one ıs that they (Glenn Beck) thınk lıvıng under a dıctator that commıts genocıde ıs preferable to a socıalıst democracy.
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I almost fell for this talk, until he gave away his poor research skills by using a graph that included the old "Bush declares "Mission Accomplished'" myth. Gee, did Mr. Gourley feel including the date of the "serving fake turkey" myth was over the top? Maybe an alpha of 2.5 can be blamed on global warming.
it's proportionally more difficult to achieve a higher kill rate per attack in any given conflict. So the cost of a higher kill attack (resources, personnel) is always proportional.
The comments on this page are thoroughly idiotic though. What's so hard to understand about P(x) = C x^-alpha? If you don't understand this simple math and its interpretation (and none of you do), why comment?
in reality it is a little complex and hard to understand probably even for math people.
But it actually may depend on the way one thinks and how interested one is in his findings.
Plus if you think about it, there is probably whole lot of people who understood it but they just didn't comment. the people who didn't understand were probably frustrated or annoyed enough to comment.
Just because you didn't understand it doesn't make it the worst one. He shouldn't need to explain anything because he is presenting to other in his field.
I also understand how the TED TALKS work. I've been watching them for years.
I fundamentally disagree with his methods of representing the data in question, via those god-awful graphs. If you think cooked/spun stats are bad, this is a nightmare. Secondly ....his source: Fox news ? Cnn ? ET AL ? .....RRRRRRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I find this talk Abhorrent, it serves the interests of war-mongers, and the apathetic neo-liberal majority who sit on their hands. IMVHO
Firstly I don't see how statistics comes into it, as I didn't even mention any, unless it was just a random TED talk...Which would be weird.
Secondly, I don't even liked Sims, my girlfriend plays it, but you saying that has only just proven, that your sad and lonely enough to check my profile and track what I've been doing.
I imagine you weren't insulted by not knowing something, because I imagine that's a daily occurrence for you, rather that I patronized you for it?
1: It doesn't surprise me that you don't see the relevance of the link I so graciously provided you with.
2:I only checked your profile to assess who I might be replying to. The pertinent info being age, seeing as youtube is full of petulant teens. As you are 25 yrs old I imagined it might be worth my time to develop my point a little. I couldn't help but notice all the comments you've made on SIMS the video game.
Anyways, you're reply proves you're not worth addressing.
this guy proves he's an idiot when he names Fox News as his preferred source of news. his statistics are interesting, but his interpretation is minimal. if he developed a predictive or interpretive quality to his report, it might be valuable
For me interesting is change of scheme when something ( 6:20 ) happens. If elections in Iraq changed the status quo, there are some possible solution(s) to decrease attacks.
Question is: What steps should be made to stop the conflict?
Machiavelli also wrote L'Arte Della Guerra (The Art of War). Given the Renaissance's Classical focus, his main treatise was the desirability of reviving genius and methods of the Roman Legions. The lessons demonstrated by history's most successful military machine, and distilled by one of humanity's most astute political thinkers, are doubtless valuable to strategists and warriors of all nations and eras.
Both possibilities are good. According to the video a value of approximately 2.5 means a steady war state, thus the war is not about to end.
For those that don't understand why this 'discovery' is interesting: Given that you have enough date it allows you to predict whether a war is about to end and what action is required to end it.
Information from broadcast and cable news for one is not a very objective source. data mining opinion. What decides what information stays and what does not? The speaker never talks about what data omitted. I could apply math to anything and find a pattern and a method to demonstrate said pattern, hence mathematics.
3) I could model and simulate anything but only poorly.
The whole thing seems intrinsically biased and thus intellectually bankrupt.
however, the talk was pointless. No real explanation. He called "alpha" the data-structure. That is all he said about structure, right? And he tied policy events with his alpha changes... Doesnt sound like an answer to me.
you mean the data set... he was describing the structure of the set. A data structure is completely different from a data set but, you can use data structures to hold data sets.
Good point. This video shows exponential(power law) as the question at 3:47. My point was there is a correlation(based on Physical limitation) in the frequency and the numbers. I need to look back. Is my explanation right for Prussian cavalry incidents, which Geodesicks mentioned? Did I go too far from the main point of this video?
For dead people kicked by horses in Prussian cavalry, I will explain why the distribution should be like a Poisson distribution. I hope it is not a statistics class. Imagine throwing a die that each number has the equal probability. Now add more and more dice in a bucket and observe frequency:how often an event happens and number:how many dice has ONE dot after a throw. Throw all dice and then record our observation over and over.
Draw our observation on a graph: frequency on x axis and total number of dice with ONE dot on y axis. It shoud look like the graph in this video at 2:31. What is the meaning of an event :All dice have ONE dot? All people are dead. Is it easy to happen? No. How about one of dice has ONE dot. Yes. Do math the last.
Haha... For other viewers and the speaker, I left the direct explanation of the correlation between number of attacks and number of people killed. Also the first option does not need to be linear. Haha... The key to nature of war is in what I wrote. Here is a hint. Compare holding a knife, try to kill soldiers with grabbing a gun, try to kill soldiers, which one takes more attempts? Good luck. hahaha...
Thank you, yn231 and Cyphlix. Eureka! I found the reason why the distribution should be like that. Here is what happened in my logic. Imagine random numbers on a timeline graph, and of cause no pattern observed. Now generate the random number with a condition (I will explain later and the random number is not pure random any more), and look at the numbers and the intervals between two numbers. A smaller number has a longer interval after any number, and a bigger number has a shorter interval.
The condition is called a weight. How can I determine each number weight, and what is the relationship between weights and our reality? If the numbers are related to physical limitations, it explains all. What is the limitation on the maximum number with one attack? Any maximum number came with any sort of a massive attack (heavy bombs, lots of bullets or large number of terrorists).
I name it PREPARATION because it takes longer time/sophisticated plan/financial support/high secret communication to prepare it. The alpha is the obvious correlation between the structure of insurgency and the PREPARATION, and between the enemy actions and the PREPARATION. Any physical conflict, such as war or battle, needs THE PREPARATION. BE PREPARED!!! I hope the data is correct. Hahaha
This video has been haunting my logic for a few days. Could somebody explain how to define the number of attacks in this video? For example, in a spot at a month, there were 6 attacks. If the previous five attacks killed 1, and then the sixth killed 10, he reset counting the number of attacks here? 5 attacks kills one and one attack kills 10? Or 6 attacks kills 11? If it becomes clear, we can find the meaning of his research?
I think that in one month if there were 5 attacks that kill 1 and a 6th that kills 10 then the distribution in one of his graphs would have +5 in the x=1 position and +1 in the x=10 position.
a black swan event means that we can know nothing about the probability of an event occurring. We cannot even know of its existence. War here fails on both these counts. Firstly we do know it exists and we have seen it before. Secondly we can know something about the relative probability of attacks as is shown in this talk.
War has perhaps moved from a black swan to something of a grey swan.
The surge, really an excuse to use more private security forces, was much publicised, whereas the awakening movement, i.e. paying off militias, was not mentioned. I don't think he has demonstrated the significance of his number.
its quite simple really. if there is a more-or-less fixed probability of one attack yielding a certain number of soldiers killed, then n attacks will exhibit something like a binomial distribution of number of soldiers killed. not much to it really.
yeah i suppose you are right; only the distribution is not showing a correlation between number of attacks and number of people killed; it is showing the number of attacks against the strength of each attack. The first option would seem to be obviously linear (and rather pointless), but what he showed seems to reveal a bit more about the nature of war.
He defines the "strength of the attack" by the "number of people killed in the attack" at 2:04. Thereafter he consistently plots the "number of people killed in the attack" as his variable 'x'.
And what he showed was not a linear relationship, it was an exponential. It looked linear because it was on a log plot.
The number of casualties in the Prussian cavalry who died of being kicked by horses also follows a Poisson distribution. It isn't anything profound -- just the law of large numbers.
i predicted that you was going to say that... according to my mathamatical eqation: dukusahab=going to say "human behavior is predictable, even in war." + YT x TED talks x Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war.... humans are soo predictable
He never used the data except in a statistical way, which is a mistake. It's been used for insurance (whole insurance business is based on statistics). I think the data here tells more about the fighters' morale than any other thing. People are predictable, but not stupid. When the invaders lose their guard, the freedom-fighters attack. A well-motivated freedom-fighter force will triumph against imperial mercenaries, not because of movies, but because it's a proven tactic in modern warfare.
i don't think this guy did a very good job explaining what his data ment or what its signifigance was. It seemed like there was always some fundamental point he was leading up to but could never deliver on.
I think that the fundamental point of the talk was that despite all the chaos there are patterns in war and these patterns are the same around the world. Second point - Stable insurgencies have an alpha of 2.5 - need to move it away from that in order for a war to end.
Governments reinforce our false identity. Once we wake up and realize we are earth, we won't need them. The question is how to gracefully and gradually reduce the institutions of hate we have set up. Perhaps war will become a sport, if it hasn't already...
From how I see it, he's trying to isolate events that can change the behaviors of, in this case, the Insurgents. You can't really sit down and talk to large numbers of small groups of enemies, but you can definitely start negotiating peace with an organized enemy. He's not talking about ideology, he's talking about doing what works, and being able to show it. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
After watching this for a second time, this video strikes me as interesting for two reasons 1) that there is some kind of mathematical order amongst all the chaos of war 2) this mathematical pattern seems to be the same for all the different wars around the world. The graph at 6:07 is interesting, I would love to see how other wars have ended so we can know what to expect from Iraq. In terms of leaving the country is a high alpha a good thing or a bad thing?
I think that the graph at 3:33 shows the movement of alpha for Iraq over time. It starts at around 2.2 and then moves to 2.5. Possibly the same for Colombia moving from 3 to 2.5 as it says Colombia '85 as in 1985. I think that is what might be going on. Though definitely want to hear more than 7 minutes on this stuff
Too bad most governments don't want to eradicate insurgents and terrorism because that would undermine their authority, which is the only reason these problems still exists. The insurgents and terrorists are just tools being used by the government. Everyone is just too blind to realize it.
Up next, this scientist will explain how brain damage is more likely to occur with repetitive blows to the head with a hammer vs one blow to the head with a hammer. *fingers crossed he's the self-experimental type*
That part seems very obvious to me too, but the last minute where he shows the constant slope change over time and the size of the troops is more of a value.
I agree but I would still like there to be a follow up to his study because you do see a pattern. He needs to find a way to eliminate certain variables to form a better correlation.
It would be interesting to hear if alpha in Iraq is calculated from the entire history of the conflict (invasion -> present moment), or over a smaller, roving time window. If it's calculated based on the entire history, then drastic changes in strategy (like the surge) would produce less drastic results on alpha because they would be weighted down by the three years of data preceding them.
What is better, what is worse? Disrupting the chain of command of groups causing them to loose power and unorganized or having a group like that cleric they eventually got to step down and join into the political relm. Which is worse, which is better?
Yeah except people are gettin angry at such arrogant display of naive realism. The reason: we are as we speak bailing out a lot of arrognt SOBs on Wall Street who made us believe that markets follow pure math and that LTCM was somehow the xception. This video reminds me of the cable show Numb3rs in which totally "cool" FBI scientists find bad guys using pure math. This plays into the general perception that social sciences are like hard sciences hence social problems can't be solved by gov.
Of course in a country where 1 in every 136 citizen is in jail at this very moment, it helps to keep up the legitimacy of this corrupt system by making people believe that crime and punishment follows cold hard laws of nature that we can discern using math. If math decides who and how many people die in a conflict, I guess there is nothing politicians or soldiers can do about it. It like economic fortunes: the invisible hand of math that takes all the credit and blame ;)
This is THE example of too much guessing for nothing. For example, every car accident kills 0.3 people and 11% of students in a high school got "D" in physics, therefore, 99.999% people don't want to watch this video. Every single clause of this sample sentence sounds like true. Is this statement true? TED presents A JOKE of Intelligent DESIGN. hahaha...
If you think this video meaningful, like it. Please do not take what I wrote in person. I was thinking the purpose of attacks rather than the number of attacks? If we were the lead of terrorists without massive weapons and looked for THE BEST way of terrifying enemies. killing enemies is a means, not the purpose. Within a small attack, injuring enemies is THE BEST. Think about THE BEST.
When you really look at what this is saying, it's pretty trivial. Basically terrorists commit more attacks if they are unable to kill many people per attack, and fewer attacks if they are able to kill a lot of people per attack.
The point is it's obvious that you're gonna attack more often if you're not able to kill as many people per attack, and less often if you're able to kill more people per attack.
This is true regardless of who is carrying out attacks against whom.
The obvious truth is that the US should get the hell out of where they so evidently don't belong. That is unless you simply support killing for killing's sake. Sadly it would appear that many Americans appear to support this strategy rather than admit to a humiliating withdrawal, just like in Vietnam.
That is a good talking point, & another way of looking at the situation - which is definitely needed. What is interesting is that he came form a purely mathematical, scientific approach & came up with the same conclusion that many believe - that war on terror is a failure & that we should be looking at approaches that affect the radicals themselves. e.g. retracting military strategies and introducing moderate islamic nation representatives & orgs to de-radicalise them by engaging them directly
Events where small amounts of people get killed occur more often that those where a lot of people get killed... No shit, Einstein! And it only took an interdisciplinary team of retards with high salaries to figure it out LOL
This guy is a complete fucking moron and this talk is worth less than nothing. Absolute complete total crap
ROFL I was thinking the same thing. TED is going downhill =./
The first good indicator that this guy wasn't too bright came at around 0:55 when he mentioned he discovered that news crawls have information. OMGOOSES!
All he has discovered is the probability of a large successful attack is lower than the probability of a small less successful attack. It is peculiar how this data does seem to follow a power law though.
thebestsumoeva 1 month ago
in my limited intelligence...a is simply means STAY AWAY from other peoples lives, mind your own life, Iraq or any other nation can live peacefully on their own way and culture, it is only messed up when US or GB steps in in the name of BS diplomacy or WTF freedom or terrorism they are talking about. A meAns simply leAve them Alone And there will be no wAr...
chas6641 1 month ago
He literally made no sense. No sense at all.
akallabror 1 month ago
I knew there was a reason I liked Data Mining.
GypsyLeah 1 month ago
western intelligence is an oxy moron.
xjustamem0ryx 8 months ago in playlist 2011 ones to watch
it tkaes time for western intelligence to create fund and organise a black ops operation fighting against the main forces..
whther it be the drugs war in south amerika or the 'religious' wars in the middleeast..
kdcruz75 9 months ago
@ atomisten i think the point is that a group of nerds got together and found a mathematical coincidence to a larger world problem and would like some credit for it :P
maumac09 9 months ago
WTF?
ptu1969 11 months ago
most pointless and useless shit ever in TED
atomisten 1 year ago
@atomisten A lot of TED talks seem to be pointless rambling without getting to a point, but the few that actually get at something will make you shit brix
xaiomanga 11 months ago
@xaiomanga ok maybe for u more seem pointless rambling but for me no. thats why i am shocked that this presentation is such a low level one compared to the others... or if your opinion differs then tell me what was the point of this because it just explained how they ONLY did a data gathering from multiple sources reporting about a conflict, and yet they dare to call this mathematics...
atomisten 11 months ago
@xaiomanga so my whole point is i dont understand your comment either, your answer is not for what i said, i said this particular presentation is shit, not all, yet u talk about TED talks in general and how they seem to suck but sometimes they are shocking when they have a point, so unless you can tell me whats the point in this presentation, then your comment has the same meaning as if u had written something like : "i like apples"
atomisten 11 months ago
Don't forget the WIKILEAKS data!!!!
LSRochon 1 year ago
Fundamentally all wars are about control of resources. Religious factions and other cultural variables are constantly sited to deflect the main economic reasons Whether its control of trade / routes/ resources / knowledge et al .
I would contend is the more a foreign entity tries to impose peace on "its" terms n a foreign land, the more the native population will react more strongly against it.
majik2hanz 1 year ago
uh.... this is not the mathematics of war, but the mathematics of the COVERAGE of war by news media. google CNN Effect.
TheInternetMurderer 1 year ago 4
Based on observational data alone one cannot make causal inferences. Confounding factors such as media bias and war fatigue covering long term conflicts have not been taken into account. The conclusion and recommendations therefore are flawed
Siem2000 1 year ago 3
The very next day, there was a cubicle in the pentagon office with Sean's name on it :P
arhabersham 1 year ago
Sean should switch his subject to famine in Africa to save life..not to do more efficient killing of human being in poor country...
tamingsariyt 1 year ago
He was working with the info he could get, so I don't blame him for using print or visual media. However, I don't understand the fragmented-robust dichotomy. Isn't he simply saying what opposers of the conflict have been saying: the more we threaten the civilization, they more we push civilians to the opposing insurgency? If the insurgency is more effecitve, that doesn't sound like a fragmented group of people to me.
slytown 1 year ago
the people who discovered the fundamental physical constant of war.....
boorens18 1 year ago
Isnt the governing equation at 3:45 describing Lévy flight ?
hiraku0n 1 year ago
Hmm... would like to have had the statistics explained further. He didn't really do much explaining about what the numbers meant..
Abnormalized 1 year ago
ho-ly shit, thats a surprising result.
aSheeple 1 year ago
I find it rather odd that america is was the primary force against each of those countries shown in the graph.
well, I'll admit I do not know anything about senegal, but the other 3 america was heavily heavily involved in.
Anderw12345 1 year ago
America is an imperialistic nation involved in more wars than any other country in the world. Hardly surprising that it appears in a statistical analysis of wars.
boom6766 1 year ago
America? America is a whole continent. I think you mean United States of America, please.
EgonSchiele2 1 year ago
@EgonSchiele2
Within the context of the comment, this went without saying.
boom6766 1 year ago
excellent talk
dave597 2 years ago
the real application for this is economics....specifically markets...
centervilletn 2 years ago
Looks like Gourley and his research group have had their latest research published in the prestigious peer reviewed journal Nature. What's more they seem to have beaten out all other stories and Nature is leading with their work on the cover. Whether or not you agree with the results, this research really is a break through in our understanding of modern war.
yn231 2 years ago
Also, another important and missed interpretation of this data is that he has relied solely on the MEDIA to gather the data... the media will either report many attacks with few killed (but totalling many), or few attacks with many killed (thus still totalling many)... by nature of media filtering they WILL NOT report a single small attack in which 1 person was killed, as this would be non-sensical during a war...
MrBlaqgold 2 years ago 3
The speaker lists three sources of information (Newspapers, NGOs, and Cable News), of which NGOs as far as I understand cannot be categorized as media. In regard to the last claim - when the table with recorded data and the sample distribution are being, there are cases with 1 person killed in a given attack (the graph showing '67 attacks where 1 person got killed').
arte6ka 2 years ago
Not every televised attack is a insurgent attack, hence, this whole report is a huge missed opportunity. Especially reflecting on the data that proves key attacks cause rises in fragmentation, thus possibly indicating that the fragmentation of these nations is in fact by design of the invading forces. The analysis of this data is naive at best because of the insinuation that the presence of allied forces is as mere peace makers and not considering the possibility that many attacks are allied
MrBlaqgold 2 years ago
Smart, but please focus on something peaceful and do not distract our mind
yama100100 2 years ago
compromise and accomodate..
voidy2003 2 years ago
This stuff blows my mind. I'm sure I dont understand some of it but I can kind of grasp the idea. Really just blows my mind.
f4ll3n4n9el 2 years ago 3
I does a certain sense. Bomb blows up, is a show of force, strength, insurgent groups feel like they found a leader to folow. They join forces. US troops attack, put pressure, group fragments again, so that they have a better chance to escape.
nyctasiaselesq 2 years ago
The explosons and assaults that kill more people are less likely than the explosions that kill less people. Thats obvious. Plus he did not link up his model to the different real factors that could affect the model. Well one way you can affect it is by giving terrorists and guerillas smaller guns or less effective explosives, that way the slope will maybe have more inclined slope.
He should have brought in a statistician along with him, instead of all those physicists.
chiwiliger 2 years ago
you're forgeting something yourself. noone "gives" guns to guerillas and terrorists. they buy it on the blackmarket, where the usually tend to get themselves the best gun avaliable.
If you want to start a war, and you can get yourself a handgun or an ak47, the handgun probably wont be your weapon of choice.
He said: the more pressure you apply, the more diverted and the harder to find the groups are going to be. "more force" therefor isn't the best solution.
liquidminds 2 years ago 2
now.....what?
Joe6pack4 2 years ago
Forgive the typos... now, we do nothing. If you want to do something, send your child to Westpoint, and let the pentagon take care of the rest.
tdmnyd 2 years ago
In the first "distribution of attack sizes in iraq" chart, what is the y-axis (frequency) actually a measure of? It shows frequency of attacks to be less than one (e.g it says there are 0.001 attacks with roughly 600 casualties). I did mechanics at school so this statistical stuff is lost on me. Isn't it obvious there will be many attacks with few people killed and few attacks with many people killed?
robwilko 2 years ago
You are correct. Think of a sniper. They are trained to be a small group that never attacks from the same place twice (eg.) yet they are able to take out incredibly hard targets.... The human mind cannot be ever vigilant. Attack randomly once every year, and you will be attacking with surprise, attack the same place every day, and expect fierce knowledgeable resistance.
tdmnyd 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
more like bomb this shit bomb that shit tell these fuckers to go there . pretttty eassssy id say
flipskatedmd 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
there is order in the data because all the attacks have been literally "ordered" by commanders-fool
djboony 2 years ago
not nessesarilly
taurus494 2 years ago
except in this case order and order mean different things
McJigger 2 years ago
seems the insurgency id fragmented and The allies can pull out... and the graph shows this.. now this is absolutely amazing what they discovered......
carnage1970 2 years ago
Not to slight Mr. Gourley, he is clearly an intelligent man..
..but that being the case, I must point out the inconsistency at 0:50..why would a clearly intelligent, well spoken man watch Fox News?!?!
TDeltablues 2 years ago 42
lmao!
sexdrugsnmaximilian 2 years ago
It's a conspiracy i tells ya!
In all seriousness, i agree.
thecore12345 2 years ago
mr gourley your so dam smart, but please watch CNN lol
santoak47 2 years ago
@TDeltablues ... Well, because fuck news like the foxing war.
therrydicule 1 year ago
@TDeltablues Bit ironic that you attach intelligence to preference of one news source -- as superficial and borderline obsolete as all the rest -- over any other.
theycallmefibb 11 months ago
@theycallmefibb >>implying Fox = news source
Ahah.
DeathAdder187 5 months ago
@TDeltablues I watch Fox News to fınd out what the rıght wıng ın Amerıca thınks. I don't lıke theır opınıons but ıt's worthwhıle knowıng what they are. A recent one ıs that they (Glenn Beck) thınk lıvıng under a dıctator that commıts genocıde ıs preferable to a socıalıst democracy.
eoineoineoin 8 months ago
@TDeltablues Why not??
platinumare 5 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I almost fell for this talk, until he gave away his poor research skills by using a graph that included the old "Bush declares "Mission Accomplished'" myth. Gee, did Mr. Gourley feel including the date of the "serving fake turkey" myth was over the top? Maybe an alpha of 2.5 can be blamed on global warming.
econalc 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
to me it plainly shows no one wins wars
erbeeflower 2 years ago
well to me it plainly shows no one wins a war ever.
erbeeflower 2 years ago 2
it's proportionally more difficult to achieve a higher kill rate per attack in any given conflict. So the cost of a higher kill attack (resources, personnel) is always proportional.
SpaceCoastMusic 2 years ago
Fascinating talk.
The comments on this page are thoroughly idiotic though. What's so hard to understand about P(x) = C x^-alpha? If you don't understand this simple math and its interpretation (and none of you do), why comment?
TeeBirdTim 2 years ago
Because this falls under the TED program, wherein experts in certain fields explain and present their (innovative) ideas.
This didn't explain anything, it was more like a DOD staff presentation than anything else.
Some people are just dissapointed in this presentation and they are allowed to express this.
Johnnydbad 2 years ago 16
in reality it is a little complex and hard to understand probably even for math people.
But it actually may depend on the way one thinks and how interested one is in his findings.
Plus if you think about it, there is probably whole lot of people who understood it but they just didn't comment. the people who didn't understand were probably frustrated or annoyed enough to comment.
wuttup123 2 years ago
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wuttup123 2 years ago
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wuttup123 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
This is the worst TED TALK i've ever seen (of those dealing with serious,meaningful topics)
He lost me as soon as that graph appeared, and kept losing me.
Seriously - this is really, really, really, REALLY stupid. psy ops.
d33pS3Ad1v3r 2 years ago
Just because you didn't understand it doesn't make it the worst one. He shouldn't need to explain anything because he is presenting to other in his field.
If you don't get it, you don't get it.
Petchhyy 2 years ago
Excuse me ?
I DID understand it.
I also understand how the TED TALKS work. I've been watching them for years.
I fundamentally disagree with his methods of representing the data in question, via those god-awful graphs. If you think cooked/spun stats are bad, this is a nightmare. Secondly ....his source: Fox news ? Cnn ? ET AL ? .....RRRRRRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I find this talk Abhorrent, it serves the interests of war-mongers, and the apathetic neo-liberal majority who sit on their hands. IMVHO
d33pS3Ad1v3r 2 years ago
Peter Donnelly: How juries are fooled by statistics
/watch?v=kLmzxmRcUTo
It's a ted talk. If you don't understand it, don't worry - he's presenting it to others in his field.
If you don't get it, you don't get it.
(stick to playing SIMS, you schmuck)
d33pS3Ad1v3r 2 years ago
Firstly I don't see how statistics comes into it, as I didn't even mention any, unless it was just a random TED talk...Which would be weird.
Secondly, I don't even liked Sims, my girlfriend plays it, but you saying that has only just proven, that your sad and lonely enough to check my profile and track what I've been doing.
I imagine you weren't insulted by not knowing something, because I imagine that's a daily occurrence for you, rather that I patronized you for it?
Petchhyy 2 years ago
1: It doesn't surprise me that you don't see the relevance of the link I so graciously provided you with.
2:I only checked your profile to assess who I might be replying to. The pertinent info being age, seeing as youtube is full of petulant teens. As you are 25 yrs old I imagined it might be worth my time to develop my point a little. I couldn't help but notice all the comments you've made on SIMS the video game.
Anyways, you're reply proves you're not worth addressing.
fuck you, asshole.
d33pS3Ad1v3r 2 years ago
I think I'll just take that last bit, spoken like a true gentlemen.
Petchhyy 2 years ago
"He shouldn't need to explain anything"
Reposted for posterity.
d33pS3Ad1v3r 2 years ago
1. Correct your globe slide (PERU IS IN THE CENTRAL/WESTERN COAST OF S. AMERICA, and, colombia is a lil bit to the left of ur spot.
2. Explain ur frequency axis.
....be more detailed....urs is the suckiest TED presentation.
sicinapo 2 years ago
Left-brain cripple.
immayhem 2 years ago
this guy proves he's an idiot when he names Fox News as his preferred source of news. his statistics are interesting, but his interpretation is minimal. if he developed a predictive or interpretive quality to his report, it might be valuable
manonthemount 2 years ago
...or maybe it's designed that way to continually justify ongoing conflict.
BayAreaLen 2 years ago
Sexiest. Physicist. Ever.
spauldinggg 2 years ago
Word.
Too. Bad. He's. A. Tool.
immayhem 2 years ago
This guy sounds quite impressive but what is he actually saying....
1. He had difficulty understanding what was going on in Iraq
2. He then discovered there were news reports about the conflict.
3. He discovered that there were many small attacks by insurgents and fewer large attacks.
4. He discovered that the strength of the insurgency is proportional to the number of attacks.
5. This takes us back to point 1. This guy knows nothing but basic maths and he probably works for the Pentagon.
Carinae13 2 years ago 4
For me interesting is change of scheme when something ( 6:20 ) happens. If elections in Iraq changed the status quo, there are some possible solution(s) to decrease attacks.
Question is: What steps should be made to stop the conflict?
mattnesspl 2 years ago
Hmm I think Sean Gourley would have a field day reading the second chapter "Waging War" of The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
doloppost 2 years ago
Machiavelli's The Art of War is also an illuminating read for contemplating the principles and dynamics of armed conflict.
Hottides 2 years ago
Machaivelli wrote the prince...the art of war is by Tsung Zu
FreudsCigar 2 years ago
Sun Zi
rockytriton 2 years ago
Machiavelli also wrote L'Arte Della Guerra (The Art of War). Given the Renaissance's Classical focus, his main treatise was the desirability of reviving genius and methods of the Roman Legions. The lessons demonstrated by history's most successful military machine, and distilled by one of humanity's most astute political thinkers, are doubtless valuable to strategists and warriors of all nations and eras.
Hottides 2 years ago
Oh, snap!
cjfozter 2 years ago
Very unimpressive.
Carinae13 2 years ago
Fair enough, but why?
archdeaconj 2 years ago
I wish he would be clearer... Is it better when alpha is high or low? What is the strategy that insurgents learn in order to survive?
aaaaaaaaooooooo 2 years ago
Both possibilities are good. According to the video a value of approximately 2.5 means a steady war state, thus the war is not about to end.
For those that don't understand why this 'discovery' is interesting: Given that you have enough date it allows you to predict whether a war is about to end and what action is required to end it.
Hylk0r 2 years ago
(chuckle) Hari Seldon....
polymath7 2 years ago 2
Information from broadcast and cable news for one is not a very objective source. data mining opinion. What decides what information stays and what does not? The speaker never talks about what data omitted. I could apply math to anything and find a pattern and a method to demonstrate said pattern, hence mathematics.
3) I could model and simulate anything but only poorly.
The whole thing seems intrinsically biased and thus intellectually bankrupt.
EveryHumanBeing 2 years ago 3
And they say math is useless.
ErichoTTA 2 years ago
interesting but it dosnt prove a god damn thing
footbalr074 2 years ago
however, the talk was pointless. No real explanation. He called "alpha" the data-structure. That is all he said about structure, right? And he tied policy events with his alpha changes... Doesnt sound like an answer to me.
FuckRequiringSignUps 2 years ago
you mean the data set... he was describing the structure of the set. A data structure is completely different from a data set but, you can use data structures to hold data sets.
Entertainmentwf 2 years ago
Hehe, Smartie... yes, I was not refering to the "data structure" into which he dumbed the data.
The art of using context to make obvious statements is refered to sometimes as deixis. ;)
And I hardly doubt he had to choose a "data structure" anyway, since he surely was using Matlab or the likes and he wasn't coding it from scratch.
FuckRequiringSignUps 2 years ago
Lol I did exactly the same to monitor media coverage of companies I invested into
FuckRequiringSignUps 2 years ago
Search "Happy Rob Buy" by google ,and you will find amazing.
MrSushan 2 years ago
Good point. This video shows exponential(power law) as the question at 3:47. My point was there is a correlation(based on Physical limitation) in the frequency and the numbers. I need to look back. Is my explanation right for Prussian cavalry incidents, which Geodesicks mentioned? Did I go too far from the main point of this video?
Dreamrio 2 years ago
For dead people kicked by horses in Prussian cavalry, I will explain why the distribution should be like a Poisson distribution. I hope it is not a statistics class. Imagine throwing a die that each number has the equal probability. Now add more and more dice in a bucket and observe frequency:how often an event happens and number:how many dice has ONE dot after a throw. Throw all dice and then record our observation over and over.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
Draw our observation on a graph: frequency on x axis and total number of dice with ONE dot on y axis. It shoud look like the graph in this video at 2:31. What is the meaning of an event :All dice have ONE dot? All people are dead. Is it easy to happen? No. How about one of dice has ONE dot. Yes. Do math the last.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
"DARTA-BAYSS" lol
leshark 2 years ago
Haha... For other viewers and the speaker, I left the direct explanation of the correlation between number of attacks and number of people killed. Also the first option does not need to be linear. Haha... The key to nature of war is in what I wrote. Here is a hint. Compare holding a knife, try to kill soldiers with grabbing a gun, try to kill soldiers, which one takes more attempts? Good luck. hahaha...
Dreamrio 2 years ago
Thank you, yn231 and Cyphlix. Eureka! I found the reason why the distribution should be like that. Here is what happened in my logic. Imagine random numbers on a timeline graph, and of cause no pattern observed. Now generate the random number with a condition (I will explain later and the random number is not pure random any more), and look at the numbers and the intervals between two numbers. A smaller number has a longer interval after any number, and a bigger number has a shorter interval.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
The condition is called a weight. How can I determine each number weight, and what is the relationship between weights and our reality? If the numbers are related to physical limitations, it explains all. What is the limitation on the maximum number with one attack? Any maximum number came with any sort of a massive attack (heavy bombs, lots of bullets or large number of terrorists).
Dreamrio 2 years ago
I name it PREPARATION because it takes longer time/sophisticated plan/financial support/high secret communication to prepare it. The alpha is the obvious correlation between the structure of insurgency and the PREPARATION, and between the enemy actions and the PREPARATION. Any physical conflict, such as war or battle, needs THE PREPARATION. BE PREPARED!!! I hope the data is correct. Hahaha
Dreamrio 2 years ago
the graph at 2:31 seems to suggest for it to even be considered an attack, 1 person has to die - otherwise it wouldn't make it to the news
Wish he explained it better..
Cyphlix 2 years ago
Thanks.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
This video has been haunting my logic for a few days. Could somebody explain how to define the number of attacks in this video? For example, in a spot at a month, there were 6 attacks. If the previous five attacks killed 1, and then the sixth killed 10, he reset counting the number of attacks here? 5 attacks kills one and one attack kills 10? Or 6 attacks kills 11? If it becomes clear, we can find the meaning of his research?
Dreamrio 2 years ago
I think that in one month if there were 5 attacks that kill 1 and a 6th that kills 10 then the distribution in one of his graphs would have +5 in the x=1 position and +1 in the x=10 position.
yn231 2 years ago
Thanks.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
War is a Black Swan.
These observations mean nothing.
MrFrankBullitt 2 years ago
a black swan event means that we can know nothing about the probability of an event occurring. We cannot even know of its existence. War here fails on both these counts. Firstly we do know it exists and we have seen it before. Secondly we can know something about the relative probability of attacks as is shown in this talk.
War has perhaps moved from a black swan to something of a grey swan.
yn231 2 years ago 2
I also couldn't quite follow exactly what he meant. It seems interesting though.
Dayvit78 2 years ago
The surge, really an excuse to use more private security forces, was much publicised, whereas the awakening movement, i.e. paying off militias, was not mentioned. I don't think he has demonstrated the significance of his number.
gamesbok 2 years ago 3
the fact that he can pull a probability distribution out of the chaos of war blew my mind.
mattfoley59 2 years ago 4
its quite simple really. if there is a more-or-less fixed probability of one attack yielding a certain number of soldiers killed, then n attacks will exhibit something like a binomial distribution of number of soldiers killed. not much to it really.
geodesicks 2 years ago
yeah i suppose you are right; only the distribution is not showing a correlation between number of attacks and number of people killed; it is showing the number of attacks against the strength of each attack. The first option would seem to be obviously linear (and rather pointless), but what he showed seems to reveal a bit more about the nature of war.
mattfoley59 2 years ago
He defines the "strength of the attack" by the "number of people killed in the attack" at 2:04. Thereafter he consistently plots the "number of people killed in the attack" as his variable 'x'.
And what he showed was not a linear relationship, it was an exponential. It looked linear because it was on a log plot.
The number of casualties in the Prussian cavalry who died of being kicked by horses also follows a Poisson distribution. It isn't anything profound -- just the law of large numbers.
geodesicks 2 years ago
ok, that makes more sense; i misunderstood your previous post. I'm still impressed though.
mattfoley59 2 years ago
It's a double log plot, it's a power law, not exponential.
heyrog 2 years ago
human behavior is predictable, even in war.
dakusahab 2 years ago
i predicted that you was going to say that... according to my mathamatical eqation: dukusahab=going to say "human behavior is predictable, even in war." + YT x TED talks x Sean Gourley on the mathematics of war.... humans are soo predictable
leshark 2 years ago
He never used the data except in a statistical way, which is a mistake. It's been used for insurance (whole insurance business is based on statistics). I think the data here tells more about the fighters' morale than any other thing. People are predictable, but not stupid. When the invaders lose their guard, the freedom-fighters attack. A well-motivated freedom-fighter force will triumph against imperial mercenaries, not because of movies, but because it's a proven tactic in modern warfare.
Simpson654 2 years ago
i don't think this guy did a very good job explaining what his data ment or what its signifigance was. It seemed like there was always some fundamental point he was leading up to but could never deliver on.
jefferyklassen 2 years ago 2
I think that the fundamental point of the talk was that despite all the chaos there are patterns in war and these patterns are the same around the world. Second point - Stable insurgencies have an alpha of 2.5 - need to move it away from that in order for a war to end.
yn231 2 years ago
Governments reinforce our false identity. Once we wake up and realize we are earth, we won't need them. The question is how to gracefully and gradually reduce the institutions of hate we have set up. Perhaps war will become a sport, if it hasn't already...
themanyone 2 years ago
Unbelievable, they are actually focusing on stuff like this, instead of focusing on how pointless war is.
SeiferTV 2 years ago
in some ways the talk shows exactly how pointless war is. If war can be explained by a set of mathematical equations why even bother fighting?
yn231 2 years ago
If electricity can be explained by a set of mathematical equations, why even bother turning a light switch?
beriukay 2 years ago
Looks like you missed this guy's entire point.
beriukay 2 years ago
Please ilustrate us, then .Because I don't think i got this guy's point either.
SeiferTV 2 years ago
From how I see it, he's trying to isolate events that can change the behaviors of, in this case, the Insurgents. You can't really sit down and talk to large numbers of small groups of enemies, but you can definitely start negotiating peace with an organized enemy. He's not talking about ideology, he's talking about doing what works, and being able to show it. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.
beriukay 2 years ago 4
this reveals how pointless war is. once you're in it it always wants to return to a stable state of fighting. its hard to change the alpha for good.
dakusahab 2 years ago
After watching this for a second time, this video strikes me as interesting for two reasons 1) that there is some kind of mathematical order amongst all the chaos of war 2) this mathematical pattern seems to be the same for all the different wars around the world. The graph at 6:07 is interesting, I would love to see how other wars have ended so we can know what to expect from Iraq. In terms of leaving the country is a high alpha a good thing or a bad thing?
yn231 2 years ago
The graphs of Iraq all show an Alpha of 2.56
But the graph at 3:33 comparing various countries - has Iraq plotted as an Alpha of around 2.25.
Huh?
roidroid 2 years ago
I think that the graph at 3:33 shows the movement of alpha for Iraq over time. It starts at around 2.2 and then moves to 2.5. Possibly the same for Colombia moving from 3 to 2.5 as it says Colombia '85 as in 1985. I think that is what might be going on. Though definitely want to hear more than 7 minutes on this stuff
yn231 2 years ago
no, what has happened is that only the graphs at the end are actually plotting time.
most of the graphs at the start do not plot time - that may be why it has confused you.
roidroid 2 years ago
What is Peru doing in Chile :D lol...ok...guess they finally decided to invade.Damn wars!!
EyFmS 2 years ago 2
Propaganda vs insurgents = win
but the people in charge don't want a win.
Too bad most governments don't want to eradicate insurgents and terrorism because that would undermine their authority, which is the only reason these problems still exists. The insurgents and terrorists are just tools being used by the government. Everyone is just too blind to realize it.
swyft187 2 years ago
Intelligent research, well presented.
agpshadow 2 years ago
Up next, this scientist will explain how brain damage is more likely to occur with repetitive blows to the head with a hammer vs one blow to the head with a hammer. *fingers crossed he's the self-experimental type*
Truthiness231 2 years ago
I don't see the value in this. More attacks = more ppl killed? NO DUH?!
dbzakj 2 years ago
That part seems very obvious to me too, but the last minute where he shows the constant slope change over time and the size of the troops is more of a value.
behglah 2 years ago
Any correlation will seem interesting, that's the power of deception through statistics. Unless they come to some real conclusions I'm not buying it.
dbzakj 2 years ago 2
I agree but I would still like there to be a follow up to his study because you do see a pattern. He needs to find a way to eliminate certain variables to form a better correlation.
Jahaison 2 years ago
It would be interesting to hear if alpha in Iraq is calculated from the entire history of the conflict (invasion -> present moment), or over a smaller, roving time window. If it's calculated based on the entire history, then drastic changes in strategy (like the surge) would produce less drastic results on alpha because they would be weighted down by the three years of data preceding them.
jsimpkin 2 years ago 2
It looks like 1 month blocks, if you mark off Mar 04 with a per, 12 points later is Mar 05. So, based on each month what is the alpha value.
jdogatl 2 years ago 2
i am confused. Is he trying to say that military presence in the place where the conflict is makes it worse or better.
themachine27 2 years ago
What is better, what is worse? Disrupting the chain of command of groups causing them to loose power and unorganized or having a group like that cleric they eventually got to step down and join into the political relm. Which is worse, which is better?
jdogatl 2 years ago
So we should look at the structure of the insurgency?
oooook?
Mrmoc7 2 years ago
there's so many angry people on you tube, just comment on the video, and not someone's opinions.
see like this...
cool video
D00dle15 2 years ago
Yeah except people are gettin angry at such arrogant display of naive realism. The reason: we are as we speak bailing out a lot of arrognt SOBs on Wall Street who made us believe that markets follow pure math and that LTCM was somehow the xception. This video reminds me of the cable show Numb3rs in which totally "cool" FBI scientists find bad guys using pure math. This plays into the general perception that social sciences are like hard sciences hence social problems can't be solved by gov.
szatmar666 2 years ago
Of course in a country where 1 in every 136 citizen is in jail at this very moment, it helps to keep up the legitimacy of this corrupt system by making people believe that crime and punishment follows cold hard laws of nature that we can discern using math. If math decides who and how many people die in a conflict, I guess there is nothing politicians or soldiers can do about it. It like economic fortunes: the invisible hand of math that takes all the credit and blame ;)
szatmar666 2 years ago
This is THE example of too much guessing for nothing. For example, every car accident kills 0.3 people and 11% of students in a high school got "D" in physics, therefore, 99.999% people don't want to watch this video. Every single clause of this sample sentence sounds like true. Is this statement true? TED presents A JOKE of Intelligent DESIGN. hahaha...
Dreamrio 2 years ago
i didnt understand any of that
D00dle15 2 years ago
If you think this video meaningful, like it. Please do not take what I wrote in person. I was thinking the purpose of attacks rather than the number of attacks? If we were the lead of terrorists without massive weapons and looked for THE BEST way of terrifying enemies. killing enemies is a means, not the purpose. Within a small attack, injuring enemies is THE BEST. Think about THE BEST.
Dreamrio 2 years ago
Using media and NGO's (permitted by the US) is unsound data, propoganda basically.
Shit in, shit out.
flyhead2 2 years ago
Nobody has ever been to irak, but there are people who have been to Iraq.
zolo4 2 years ago
lol, own3d on a technicality.
D00dle15 2 years ago
zolo - there are more languages than English. In mine we don't use "q" at all, and there is country called Irak.
Cheers
mattnesspl 2 years ago
When you really look at what this is saying, it's pretty trivial. Basically terrorists commit more attacks if they are unable to kill many people per attack, and fewer attacks if they are able to kill a lot of people per attack.
That just seems like common sense.
johnfraserm 2 years ago 4
Who are terrorists? Those who kill coalition soldiers are not terrorists, by definition. Or perhaps you use Fox for your vocabulary?
flyhead2 2 years ago
Terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters, whatever.
The point is it's obvious that you're gonna attack more often if you're not able to kill as many people per attack, and less often if you're able to kill more people per attack.
This is true regardless of who is carrying out attacks against whom.
johnfraserm 2 years ago
'Whatever'?
The obvious truth is that the US should get the hell out of where they so evidently don't belong. That is unless you simply support killing for killing's sake. Sadly it would appear that many Americans appear to support this strategy rather than admit to a humiliating withdrawal, just like in Vietnam.
flyhead2 2 years ago
Comment removed
vanillasugarkt99 2 years ago
That is a good talking point, & another way of looking at the situation - which is definitely needed. What is interesting is that he came form a purely mathematical, scientific approach & came up with the same conclusion that many believe - that war on terror is a failure & that we should be looking at approaches that affect the radicals themselves. e.g. retracting military strategies and introducing moderate islamic nation representatives & orgs to de-radicalise them by engaging them directly
Cyrius01 2 years ago 2
This guy is an idiot. If he's a physicist why doesn't he stick to physics? All of these numbers are stupid.
aenrko 2 years ago
Yes, and I'm sure you're much smarter than him.
SJRNWT 2 years ago
Read much?
aenrko 2 years ago
Rofl. This is an example of how mathematical analysis of some issue can produce information that is totally useless.
IFknHateUTube 2 years ago 4
Events where small amounts of people get killed occur more often that those where a lot of people get killed... No shit, Einstein! And it only took an interdisciplinary team of retards with high salaries to figure it out LOL
This guy is a complete fucking moron and this talk is worth less than nothing. Absolute complete total crap
mrkvamaster 2 years ago 4
ROFL I was thinking the same thing. TED is going downhill =./
The first good indicator that this guy wasn't too bright came at around 0:55 when he mentioned he discovered that news crawls have information. OMGOOSES!