The heatmap may as well represent a map of recently decolonized areas with unresolved political issues, and just so happens that many of these places have significant Muslim populations.
If you read the Koran and Hadiths, there are numerous statements about the true Muslims duty being to spread Islam - at the point of the sword being a well supported one, scripture wise.
Isn't that true of Christianity as well? If it is the true Muslim's duty to spread Islam by the sword, then why did it take centuries for populations to convert to Islam in places like Egypt which were conquered by leaders who knew Mohammed personally? Why did places which were never conquered by Muslim caliphates like Indonesia have significant Muslim populations today?
No, definitely not with the same authority. If you take the Bible as the equivalent of the Quran, and the church fathers as the equivalent of the hadiths, neither has any endorsement of conversion through threats of violence. Jesus was never a political or military leader, nor were the first few generations of Christian leaders.
I cannot give as clear an answer with regard to islam, because I do not know enough in depth, but there are a variety of interpretations. There was persecution of religious minorities in the Muslim empires, but mass slaughter of those who refused to convert would have inspired rebellion. The conversion did happen in places like Egypt and Syria and Persia and there was coercion.
As for Indonesia, the GP did not claim Islam spread only by the sword.
Notably, I never said ‘by the sword’ was the only way. There is definitely a history of a number of religions doing it though!
First, I am under no illusions that what a religions book (or common formal teachings) says necessarily matches what its stated followers actually do.
Judaism essentially forbids ‘recruiting’, and it is quite difficult to convert. Mainly because Judaism is essentially ‘this group of people have a special deal with god/are god’s special people’.
Which makes the crusades particularly crazy/insane of course. Jesus was clearly non-violent and didn’t want people going out killing each other over anything he was saying.
At the time, the Church (now Catholic Church) heavily controlled ‘the word’, by insisting everything be done in Latin - which they were then the gatekeepers for. They also meddled (or flat out controlled!) national politics, and this gave them immense power to control the narrative of ‘what god demands’ in ways that now clearly contradict what we can read ourselves.
Islamic teachings can be interpreted in many different ways, and there are at least 2 major schools of thought (Sunni/Shia), and two major regional differences. What is taught//practiced in most of the middle, and what is taught/practiced in Indonesia being clear differentiators, for example.
But the Koran and its Hadiths are generally relatively accessible, if one looks, and it’s not hard to find analysis of different elements of it online. Unlike the Bible, there are explicit calls for the devout to study it directly. Also, unlike the Christian Bible, it also tends to be less - chaotic and internally conflicting. Comparing Matthew and Leviticus would give anyone whiplash, for example.
As to if it means believers must go to war with specific ‘irritating’ local tribes, or means all unbelievers, depends on who you ask. But most agree it means unbelievers in general. Many of the ‘problem’ groups in recent history with the west have explicitly used it to justify their attacks (among many others).
There are specific carve outs/exceptions for Jews and Christians (though also corresponding ‘give them no quarter unless they convert/behave as Muslims’ sections!), and in general the expectation is that for them to be protected they need to respect Islamic law and behave accordingly. Which isn’t really possible, for the most part, without significant changes in behavior/belief.
So depending on how ‘close to the book’ someone is being, and if sections are being ignored, depends on how much someone is going to believe/follow. Notably, Indonesia is widely seen is ‘Islam light’, but they do follow quite a bit of it (like how marriages work, expectations for women), that the west would struggle with. Middle eastern countries, communities in Pakistan, India, etc. tend to be the hardest core.
And once you understand the nature of the teaching, it is hard to not see the western way of life as being the personification of Iblis (the great satan - the tester of faith). After all, who wouldn’t want to chill out and drink beer, watch TV, and ignore the (often difficult) teachings of God? join us…, it’s fun! And don’t worry, there is no actual god anyway.
And like the old Christian Church during the crusades, government and madrases (religious schools) tend to be intermixed, which of course causes ‘problems’ similar to
the crusades.
Thankfully not to the full extent, right now anyway.
I appreciate your long and thoughtful answer. I am actually Muslim, and from the Middle-East. I agree with most of what you said, I only disagree with the premise that Islam is an inherently violent religion. While I usually ignore such statements, seeing this atrocious conflict in Sudan being reduced to "Islam bad" especially when it's primarily non-Arab Muslims being genocided just irked me too much.
To your point, you're right that the Quran and the Hadith make some statements that to an unlearned individual's interpretation, appear to promote total war against the unbelievers. As you also point out, this is not unique to Islam, as demonstrated by the Crusades for example. I don't think the relative accessibility of the Quran today is a valid point, as in the current day and age anyone can pick up the Bible and read something like Matthew 10:34 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010%3A...] and claim that Jesus ordered Christians to fight.
Continuing to use Christianity as an example, today you don't get that many extremist Christian groups because most places with significant Christian populations are well developed, generally have highly educated populations, robust political processes, and strong rule of law. Back to the map OP posted, if you overlay it with a map of Christian populations, you'll find a strong overlap in central Africa. Central Africa was recently decolonized, has unresolved political issues, and is majority Christian, as a result you get extremist organizations like the LRA forming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army_insur...].
My point is, it's easy to manipulate some holy text or another to claim it orders to fight the disbelievers. I would say the average Joe who does not need to worry about how tomorrow he will feed his family and educate his children will never get up in arms to kill someone just because of a cherry-picked verse from a holy book. If that happens and this Joe gets up to murder his neighbor, either Joe is a psychopath at heart, or the core reason is something else. If that wasn't the case, then Islam has a huge problem with disobedience, because its 2 billion followers aren't slaughtering everyone right now.
Anecdote time. I had the pleasure of acquainting someone who seriously thought about joining ISIS during their heyday. He was in high-school with me, I didn't know him very closely, but enough to paint a picture. He lived in a dysfunctional home with a terrible father who was too harsh and too violent. He lived in the street most of his childhood, basically treating his home as where he goes to sleep. He came from a poor background, was rock bottom academically, all while living in a country where most youth do not have high hopes for the future. He also had a history of drug abuse and generally thuggish behavior. On a spiritual level, the dude did not give a single iota about any teaching of Islam.
It was 2015. In the few months leading up to his arrest, he had a change of mind and heart. His closer friends tell me he started joining some FB groups where ISIS was doing recruitment. Having been exposed to a couple of recruitment videos myself, I imagine it would have been super lucrative for someone like him. They were always boasting about the loot the fighters would get from battle, how in a couple of months of fighting you could have your own house and land, a nice truck, a subservient wife, all while being super badass with guns and fancy combat gear AND God would love you and send you to heaven if you die (but you wouldn't, because look at the map, ISIS is unstoppable). It was almost like a parody version of the American dream. No need for a higher education, job interviews, hard work, or knowing the right people. If you can pick up a gun and don't mind killing these worthless scum who don't know any better, we can take care of the rest!
Somehow he was arrested and was imprisoned before he could join ISIS. He was released from prison a couple of years ago, and from what I hear some special prison treatment took its toll and now he wouldn't hurt a fly. When this guy tried to join ISIS, was his sole motivation the belief that God earnestly ordered Muslims to indiscriminately fight the unbelievers? A better question: would he have joined them without the promise of wealth beyond his wildest dreams and a chance to start anew?
If you're in the Silicon Valley you sit on the land of one of one of the most brutal genocides that's ever occurred. Let's not act like Catholic and Christian missionaries haven't committed some of the largest genocides we have records of.
Besides these debates about religion are an obvious distraction when we know EXACTLY why this is happening. The previous governor was propped up by international players because they allowed them to exploit the countries gold reserves. They are the 3rd largest producers of gold but the poorest country in Africa because none of the resources being extracted from Sudan is going back to the Sudanese people. The UAE (which is funded by the US) is currently the largest player but even Russia was funding the RSF until early 2024 (Russia has since switched sides).
Not so. There are plenty of cultures that don't follow this. Off the top of my head I can think of the Sami people for whom we have zero archeological evidence of wars. They are not unique either. It just so happens that the barbaric cultures spread more rapidly than the peaceful ones
How would you suggest to compensate devs for developing and maintaining such apps?
Personally I would much prefer that developers lock poweruser features behind a paywall rather than plaster ugly ads all over the place. Making it a paid app works too, but likely 95% of the potential userbase would not try the app if they had to reach for their wallets first.
(I would leave the comment at that, but it would probably come across as a bit facetious and would fail any 'low-effort' test. But I genuinely mean it: remove the necessity to obtain a certain amount of money every month, and all of a sudden, people would be able to create, share, and enjoy for free.
> How would you suggest to compensate devs for developing and maintaining such apps?
As a developer, I feel more than sufficiently compensated by seeing people use and enjoy my work and thanking me. Getting featured on Hacker News would make my day; nay, year.
I just need to be able to eat and use a computer. I shouldn't have to prove myself valuable just to be allowed to live. I think everybody, regardless of what they do, deserve a livable basic income.
It is an extremely privileged view. In my home country of Egypt, a population of 100 million lives on an average home internet speed of 30mbps with about 300gb monthly data cap, in 2023. I'm sure most of the world is similar.
> But does Google upload what you translate later?
If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers
> Would be cool to have Firefox Translations integrated into TOR.
Tor Browser is just a forked firefox so this should not be too difficult. I believe they disable addons by default because they can leak data and they can't check all addons for this. Not sure if you can switch it back on though. I suppose they could validate this one as it's so important. I would recommend submitting a feature request to the tor project.
>> But does Google upload what you translate later?
> If you use Google Translate, of course it does because everything is done on their servers
As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate. That implies everything is done locally, not on Google’s servers. GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch.
> GP’s question was whether the app will still save your queries and submit them once a connection becomes available just to scratch that data collection itch.
disclaimer: googler
This can be tested. Translate shows up in your Google 'My Activity' page, so you can do some offline translations, then switch the network back on, and see if the translations show up in My Activity. Assuming you can trust the My Activity page to be complete and accurate (my opinion is you can, but i would say that)
and FTR: I've actually just tried it and offline translations do not show up in my activity so I highly doubt they're being surreptitiously uploaded.
>As mentioned by GGP, the Google Translate app for Android (at least) allows you to download the model for a given language (pair?), after which you no longer need any kind of Internet connection to translate.
This isn't true. Google claims this, but it just doesn't work that way: I've had many, many cases of trying to translate stuff with a bad cellular data connection and it doesn't work, even though I have the language pack downloaded.
I don't think offline translation kicks in automatically when you have a bad (as opposed to no) connection. You can easily verify that it can translate without any connection (both on iOS and Android) by downloading the language and putting the phone in airplane mode. (At least, the basic text translation works fine. The more advanced features, such as speech and image translation, don't.)
Also, Microsoft's Translator app can do the same (offline translation for text) and IME is about on par with Google).
>Also, Microsoft's Translator app can do the same (offline translation for text) and IME is about on par with Google)
Interesting, I'll have to try this.
Well, I tried installing the app and using image translate mode on some Japanese and the results were not very good, not nearly as good as Google Translate. I'll try it out later with regular text.
I also looked at the phrasebook feature. That's a pretty neat idea actually. However, for some really strange reason it defaulted to showing me phrases in Spanish. I have no idea why it thinks I would want to speak Spanish (My system language is English, and I live in Japan, so obviously I want to convert to Japanese. No one speaks Spanish here.)
> using image translate mode on some Japanese and the results were not very good,
I think the honest truth is that Japanese is the ultimate challenge of any translation too.
My Japanese friends tell me that DeepL is about as close as you will ever get to a passable translation quality.
But DeepL does not do image translation.
On a recent trip to Japan I installed six image translation apps on my phone.
None were perfect, I found Naver Papago to be the most consistently usable (although it was far from perfect).
Interesting observations I made during the extensive testing:
1) The majority of image translation apps don't like Japanese when written vertically, I found they perform best with horizontally written Japanese.
2) All image translation apps *REALLY* don't like hand-written Japanese. Some of them *MIGHT* translate *SOME* of the text. But really all of them only really work consistently with machine-printed text.
The other issue with deepl is that it has limited language pairs. I wonder what limits it. The language I'd like should have enough of a corpus of text.
That’s just bad programming. Turn on Airplane Mode and it will work. A bunch of apps won’t even try to use offline data when they’re “online”, even if the connection is 1 byte/second.
It’s not bad programming if the server has a bigger better model, thus gives better results, and the local model is just a lower quality but smaller portable model.
That said, let my give my HN 2c and say that Google Translate is pretty bad these days. It’s community/user adjustments, for example, are guaranteed to be bad. In Spanish, you instantly know you’re looking at a user “correction” because the translation has no accents. “como estas”. It’s bad in 100% of cases, every time I see that “user verified” symbol.
I think the offline model doesn’t have the user adjustments, but the offline model also seems to be lower quality. Back when I translated a lot, I used to know when my internet was offline mid session because of the difference in translation quality.
So I ask for a translation and it fails because it times out, giving me an error. And you call that good programming?
I get it that the server translations are better, but currently I’m not seeing any translation at all. You, Google Translate developer, should catch the error and show the offline translation instead.
Oh, I see. By “doesn’t work” I thought they (and you) just meant it still hits the server even though you have a model downloaded.
Yeah, on a spotty mobile connection, most services tend to be optimistic that it’s better to wait than to assume your internet is down. iOS online/offline callback is very optimistic, probably because for most services, trying something in a degraded 20b/s conn is better than giving up and going “sorry, no internet.” (Funnily enough, the iOS App Store gives up way too soon)
So I agree. I think the right thing to do is to do an instant translation with the local model, when available. Maybe a cherry on top is to see if the server has a better translation in the background.
Even if it's Amazon paying Amazon, there is an opportunity cost to using all those cloud resources. Every resource used internally is a resource not available for sale externally.
One of the main selling points of the cloud is dynamic scaling which necessitates that Amazon have enough servers for some multiple of their customers’ base load. As long as internal Amazon resources are given a lower priority and booted in favor of customers during leak load, the opportunity cost is basically zero leaving just the marginal cost of electricity and hardware maintenance.
I am fairly certain this does not happen. An internal AWS customer account can have numerous flags associated with it but "boot me out first" isn't one of them (aside from spot instances that everyone has access to).
And they bake in the losses to their pricing, as well as banking fees up to 3% or more. I've seen vendors online offer substantial discounts for using cryptocurrency as payment.
There really aren't many online vendors that accept crypto that I have seen. And if they want to avoid views, the fees for a debit card are lower than most crypto transactions at this point.
>I've seen vendors online offer substantial discounts for using cryptocurrency as payment.
This is actually my 100% use case for crypto. Making legal online purchases at a discount to avoid credit card fees, not retarded speculation or the spectre of crime all the nay-sayers worry about.
Most online metal bullion vendors. Usually I only buy on the occasions they wave crypto fees; but even when they don't it's virtually always cheaper than the CC/Debit option. Compare CC to crypto price on APMEX for example.
