Post: #1

People still don't get it. They must truly, completely believe the nonsense they read in the failing NYT and see on TV. This HAS to be more than youthful naiveté, they were in their late 20s. This is just willful ignorance of how the world works.

Quote:A progressive young American couple was killed in an Islamic State-claimed terrorist attack last month while on a bike trip around the world.


Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, who were both in their late 20s, quit their jobs in 2017 to embark on a trip around the world. Austin, a vegan, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian, decided that they're were wasting their lives working.


"I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin wrote on his blog before he quit. “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”


The couple documented their year-long journey on social media until it came to a tragic and gruesome end in Tajikistan, a country with a known terrorist presence.


Austin and Geoghegan were riding their bikes in the country on July 29 when they were rammed by a car, according to CBS News. Five men got out of the car and stabbed them to death along with two other cyclists, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands.


Two days later, ISIS released a video showing the same men sitting in front of the black ISIS flag. They looked at the camera and vowed to kill "disbelievers," according to The New York Times.

Throughout the trip, the couple embraced the kindness of strangers and sought to demonstrate that people are inherently good.


“You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place," Austin wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil."


“I don’t buy it," he continued. "Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own... By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.”


Some conservatives have framed the tragedy as a cautionary tale about not just the perils of travel but also naivete in general. In their telling, an overly generous understanding of human nature is behind much of today's progressive movement, including calls to radically scale back immigration enforcement and policing and support for socialism.


Some liberals, for their part, might view Austin and Geoghegan as martyrs in the struggle for a better world, or simply as unfortunate.

https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1824-mil...ets-killed

Post: #2

(08-16-2018 01:18 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  People still don't get it. They must truly, completely believe the nonsense they read in the failing NYT and see on TV. This HAS to be more than youthful naiveté, they were in their late 20s. This is just willful ignorance of how the world works.

Quote:A progressive young American couple was killed in an Islamic State-claimed terrorist attack last month while on a bike trip around the world.


Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, who were both in their late 20s, quit their jobs in 2017 to embark on a trip around the world. Austin, a vegan, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian, decided that they're were wasting their lives working.


"I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin wrote on his blog before he quit. “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”


The couple documented their year-long journey on social media until it came to a tragic and gruesome end in Tajikistan, a country with a known terrorist presence.


Austin and Geoghegan were riding their bikes in the country on July 29 when they were rammed by a car, according to CBS News. Five men got out of the car and stabbed them to death along with two other cyclists, one from Switzerland and the other from the Netherlands.


Two days later, ISIS released a video showing the same men sitting in front of the black ISIS flag. They looked at the camera and vowed to kill "disbelievers," according to The New York Times.

Throughout the trip, the couple embraced the kindness of strangers and sought to demonstrate that people are inherently good.


“You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place," Austin wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil."


“I don’t buy it," he continued. "Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own... By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.”


Some conservatives have framed the tragedy as a cautionary tale about not just the perils of travel but also naivete in general. In their telling, an overly generous understanding of human nature is behind much of today's progressive movement, including calls to radically scale back immigration enforcement and policing and support for socialism.


Some liberals, for their part, might view Austin and Geoghegan as martyrs in the struggle for a better world, or simply as unfortunate.

https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1824-mil...ets-killed

They're above average leftists, in that their mistakes only killed themselves, instead of thousands of innocent families back home. That's the closes to sympathy I can muster here.

Post: #3

(08-16-2018 01:18 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  People still don't get it. They must truly, completely believe the nonsense they read in the failing NYT and see on TV. This HAS to be more than youthful naiveté, they were in their late 20s. This is just willful ignorance of how the world works.

Eco-tourism is a big thing in Central Asia - that includes biking, trekking, rock climbing, rafting, ect. There's no "youthful naiveté" in biking or trekking around in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. Dozens of thousands of eco-tourists visit the region each year -including those who bike around the gorgeous "Pamir Highway", where the american couple has been killed. They have unfortunatly bumped into radical islamist nutcases, but this could happen everywhere in the world.

Central Asia is usually very safe (but I would not go frolicking around in the south by the Afghan border). It is politically repressive police states, and that is splendid for you and me because police will make reasonably sure that you are not jacked. I've been a few times in this part of the world, and travelled deep in Uzbekistan, and felt much safer there than in the arabs-infested areas of our western cities.

   

Post: #4

Anonymous Conservative posited that this was not just a random act of violence - cause white western wonks.
Rather, they were sighted biking around well before the attack & the attack was co-ordinated as a result.

Hell, on my first trip to America in 2014, I made sure not to look like a tourist, cause I had never actually walked the streets of L.A or Balitmore or Cleveland & did not know what to expect.
I sure as hell would not prance around nations such as Tajikistan without my own AK & a couple of ex-mil Serbian bodyguards.

Post: #5

Two thoughts:

1). Has anyone ever compiled a list of idealists whose lives get ruined by the very ideals they espouse? I know there are others like these two -- such as the murdered Italian feminist Pippa Bacca. This would make for a good Return Of Kings article. Speaking of which, I recently came across a report on CBS News that said one in five Peace Corps volunteers gets sexually assaulted.

2). This sort of blind idealism and naive faith in humanity was savagely parodied in a 1960 episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "People Are Alike All Over." If you haven't seen it, here is the best online video (all the others have technical problems).

I would recommend not reading the plot synopsis ahead of time so as not to ruin the twist ending. This show was constantly rebroad cast on the SyFy Network, so you'd think these two might have seen this episode. But even if they did, they probably wouldn't have heeded its warning. There is no reasoning with True Believers In The Cause.

Post: #6

(08-16-2018 02:18 AM)Count Pierre Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 01:18 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  People still don't get it. They must truly, completely believe the nonsense they read in the failing NYT and see on TV. This HAS to be more than youthful naiveté, they were in their late 20s. This is just willful ignorance of how the world works.

Eco-tourism is a big thing in Central Asia - that includes biking, trekking, rock climbing, rafting, ect. There's no "youthful naiveté" in biking or trekking around in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. Dozens of thousands of eco-tourists visit the region each year -including those who bike around the gorgeous "Pamir Highway", where the american couple has been killed. They have unfortunatly bumped into radical islamist nutcases, but this could happen everywhere in the world.

Central Asia is usually very safe (but I would not go frolicking around in the south by the Afghan border). It is politically repressive police states, and that is splendid for you and me because police will make reasonably sure that you are not jacked. I've been a few times in this part of the world, and travelled deep in Uzbekistan, and felt much safer there than in the arabs-infested areas of our western cities.

Can't you just rent a fucking car?

Aloha!

Post: #7

(08-16-2018 02:37 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  1). Has anyone ever compiled a list of idealists whose lives get ruined by the very ideals they espouse?

Sorry but OP's interpretation is very biased (to say the least). Firstly, Tajikistan is not "ISIS territory" (just saying that shows a total ignorance of the region), and secondly, you don't bike around Central Asia mountains to "prove humans are kind", but simply because of the extraordinary culture and the natural splendor. And BTW biking around a gorgeous region is certainly more interesting and fulfilling than stalking sub-6s on Kreschatik.

Post: #8

(08-16-2018 02:56 AM)Kona Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 02:18 AM)Count Pierre Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 01:18 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  People still don't get it. They must truly, completely believe the nonsense they read in the failing NYT and see on TV. This HAS to be more than youthful naiveté, they were in their late 20s. This is just willful ignorance of how the world works.

Eco-tourism is a big thing in Central Asia - that includes biking, trekking, rock climbing, rafting, ect. There's no "youthful naiveté" in biking or trekking around in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. Dozens of thousands of eco-tourists visit the region each year -including those who bike around the gorgeous "Pamir Highway", where the american couple has been killed. They have unfortunatly bumped into radical islamist nutcases, but this could happen everywhere in the world.

Central Asia is usually very safe (but I would not go frolicking around in the south by the Afghan border). It is politically repressive police states, and that is splendid for you and me because police will make reasonably sure that you are not jacked. I've been a few times in this part of the world, and travelled deep in Uzbekistan, and felt much safer there than in the arabs-infested areas of our western cities.

Can't you just rent a fucking car?

Aloha!

Fuck no brah! It's pickup country

Post: #9

Play stupid games win stupid prizes

Post: #10

Delete

Post: #11

(08-16-2018 02:18 AM)Count Pierre Wrote:  Eco-tourism is a big thing in Central Asia - that includes biking, trekking, rock climbing, rafting, ect. There's no "youthful naiveté" in biking or trekking around in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan.

Central Asia is usually very safe (but I would not go frolicking around in the south by the Afghan border). It is politically repressive police states, and that is splendid for you and me because police will make reasonably sure that you are not jacked. I've been a few times in this part of the world, and travelled deep in Uzbekistan, and felt much safer there than in the arabs-infested areas of our western cities.

Kyrgyzstan can be considered safe (well, until it isn't).
Most parts of Uzbekistan as well, although you shouldn't let your guard down too much in the Ferghana Valley. Better safe than sorry.
Tajikistan on the other hand is not safe in the Western sense. People without situational awareness and street smarts should think twice about going there.

Post: #12

(08-16-2018 04:32 AM)Ski pro Wrote:  Play stupid games win stupid prizes

Let's see how many of the Rules of Stupid, did these people break.

(04-03-2018 07:18 AM)TravelerKai Wrote:  At the end of the day, everyone's safety is their personal responsibility. If you do not know how to deescalate a tense situation, you better watch a video on Youtube on how to do so. Lots of free vids on that. If you can mack a hoe, you have the skills to mack a dude into chilling the fuck out. Ego problems and pride cause these situations 9 times out of 10. The other might be skin color or religious stuff.

That guy John from Active Self Protection says something lately that I love alot and can be shared here in this thread.

Follow the Rules of Stupid.

1. Do not go to stupid places

2. With stupid people

3. At stupid times

4. And do stupid things

Follow the rules of stupid and you will never find yourself in these situations. You can get away with breaking one rule most of the time, but each rule broken greatly increases your risk. Anytime all four rules are broken, danger or death is eminent.

Looks like they broke the first 3 brazenly. That's 75% or 3/4. Yeah, they deserved that death alright.

I wonder if their dogs or cats will get the money left in their bank accounts? I bet their parents have to pay for their funerals too.

If they had done what they were supposed to be doing, having children, and raising them, this would be a non factor, but I'm sure they would have found a way to fuck that up too. You cannot fix stupid.

Post: #13

Check the State Department's Tajikistan Travel Advisory. It's at level 2 ("increased caution"):

Quote:Exercise increased caution in Tajikistan due to terrorism.

On July 29, 2018, two U.S. citizens were killed in a terrorist attack in Danghara province.

Danghara is some 100 Km away from the Afghan border.

However, let's use the Wayback Machine. On January 10, 2018, it was only at level 1 ("normal precautions").

Quote:Exercise normal precautions when traveling to Tajikistan.

From the Safety and Security section:

Quote:Potential for Terrorist Activity

While supporters of terrorist organizations are known to have a presence in and around Tajikistan, terrorist attacks have been infrequent in recent years and focused on Government of Tajikistan targets, such as law enforcement or security service facilities and personnel. Other violent acts are generally criminal-on-criminal or criminal-on-security services activity related to the narcotics trade.

Supporters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), Jamaat Ansarullah, and al-Qaida may target U.S. government or private interests in the region, including Tajikistan.

Travel in the mountainous region along the Afghan border can be dangerous, even during daylight hours. Avoid camping, biking, or sheltering in the open after dark, especially in unpopulated areas.

Terrorists may target residential areas, clubs and restaurants, places of worship, hotels, outdoor recreation events, and other venues, although Government of Tajikistan facilities remain the most likely target. Facilities catering to Westerners in Tajikistan present a heightened risk. Avoid large crowds and public transportation.

Demonstrations are rare.

Restricted zone: Gorno-Badakhshan

Do not enter the Gorno-Badakhshan region without official permission. Persons violating the law may be arrested or imprisoned. To enter this restricted zone, request a special permit from Tajik embassies/consulates or from the MFA or OVIR in Tajikistan. Submit authorization requests at least two weeks in advance of your trip. If granted, authorities will annotate your passport with the names of the settlements and cities you are authorized to visit.

From Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Reminder of Risk of Terrorist Attack (June 16, 2017)

Quote:Although there have been no recent attacks by organized terrorist groups in Tajikistan, the threat remains, and the danger of such an attack may have increased over the past 6-12 months. A range of terrorist organizations might seek to conduct attacks in the territory of Tajikistan, including against U.S. interests and the U.S. Embassy.

Post: #14

One day science will prove liberals have some sort of mind virus. It's like The Happening in real life.

Post: #15

I'm sure their last words were...

Post: #16

(08-16-2018 01:18 AM)Captainstabbin Wrote:  

Quote:Some liberals, for their part, might view Austin and Geoghegan as martyrs in the struggle for a better world, or simply as unfortunate.

That last line is the real kicker: No lessons will be learned, no reality will be dawned.
Just doubling down from the safety of your parent's home with the same dismissive attitude because something happened that didn't agree with your utopian worldview based on zero life experience.

Post: #17

Lots of things wrong with this one:

Biking (dangerous activity that will get you mowed down, arguably a motorcycle is safer)
Vegan (stupid diet for skinny fat hippies)
ISIS controlled Tajikistan (hey while we're at it how about we do a tour in a shark infested body of water, shark attacks are a part of the vast right wing conspiracy)

Darwin Award winners. But unlike many champagne socialists they put their ideas where their mouths are at. And no travel isn't dangerous but being naive, unaware of your surroundings, and going to dangerous places will hurt you. I hope the parents have been warned of the evil liberal propaganda.

Edit: I've talked to expat Euro liberal fags that no what's going on in Europe. "It's just a couple lives lost no biggie." FFS! Don't bring that mentality here. Some of us don't care about cultural enrichment to an extreme degree.

Post: #18

(08-16-2018 02:56 AM)Kona Wrote:  Can't you just rent a fucking car?

Aloha!

The collision damage waiver they sell doesn't cover acts of terrorism.

EDIT: When I read this story I loled and fwded to several friends to spread the joy.

Post: #19

These are the kind of people who work for the US government.

Post: #20

(08-16-2018 06:47 AM)Matsufubu Wrote:  One day science will prove liberals have some sort of mind virus. It's like The Happening in real life.

I guess...
They just wanted to make Tajikistan great again?
Or at least the perception thereof.

Once again, going back to Anonymous Conservative, he has a rather interesting idea that leftist / "progressive" types (with their stunted amygdala) cannot mentally process pain nor discomfort properly.
So you see it manifest in rather odd ways.
Such as demanding that reality bend to their juvenile notions of fantasy that everything is fun & rainbows.

Acknowledging that there are actually ruthless & violent people in the world would cause the Soycialist discomfort. Can't have that, so the fantasy persists...

Post: #21

Truly an awful tragedy

Post: #22

OP is biased. ISIS territory is nowadays just a pocket in the Syrian desert.

And that Steven Sotloff meme a few posts above is not funny at all. Given that he was the guy who broke down what happened in Benghazi, and Hillary's dirty hands on it...his soul should deserve more respect in here to say the least.

Post: #23

With the risk of sounding cruel, at least they're gone now and they didn't end up on JSOC's "list of idiots that need to be rescued at great risk to US/Allied forces." i don't wish bad things onto anyone, but this level of obstinance is absurd. Why on earth would you do something like this?

Post: #24

Sad news indeed. Hopefully this serves as a wakeup call to anyone else out there was contemplating embarking on a similar adventure.

Post: #25

Would this qualify as a payment of the eloi tax?