The hoax idea depends on the belief that Ahmed was invited to Facebook by Zuckerberg, and to the Google Science Fair, and to the White House, because of his brilliant invention.
But that’s just wrong. Nerds aren’t defending him because we think he’s a brilliant but persecuted inventor. We’re defending him because he made an electronic device (taking apart and reassembling counts as making) and he got arrested for it. It doesn’t matter if the device was brilliant or trivial. He shouldn’t have been arrested in either case.
There’s no hoax. He got huge publicity because he was arrested. He shouldn’t have been arrested.
He should not have been arrested. We have a similar code of conduct in the NYC public schools, in which generally the same acts are considered violations, but in NYC there is a menu of possible disciplinary outcome, whereas in the Texas school it’s set in stone - sort of like mandatory sentencing guidelines. I think the menu of options is better.
Oh please, talk about strawman arguments. Even if one agrees with you that the kid misrepresented what he accomplished, It is not that possible hoax or fraud that is of concern in this discussion. And those would be very strong words for any kid that thought he had done something cool when it fact it was pretty ordinary. The issue is did he intend for people to think it was a bomb in any way, shape or form. No one cares if he misrepresented something like saying he wrote a history paper that he didn’t. That isn’t remotely the issue. Please don’t make illogical jumps.
@doughmom, I posted #475, and I don’t believe what I wrote was anti-Semitic. I’m Jewish. I’m very proud of my Jewish heritage and values (even if I am posting this on Yom Kippur).
I really do have Jewish friends who are posting on Facebook their strong belief that this kid needed to be arrested solely because he was Muslim. I’m not making this up. I am very distraught and disappointed that they feel this way. It is not how I interpret the value system I learned as a Jew. If anything, I think Jews should understand – given the history of anti-Semitism – that we should not prejudge someone because of their religion or ethnicity.
These are people I knew in high school, and haven’t seen in 35+ years. And I understood what Donna was saying in response – I didn’t take her answer to be anti-Semitic either.
The facts are pretty clear. The kid made a device that resembled a bomb. There will be some disagreement about whether it was intentional or not, but the fact remains that it resembled a bomb. How do I know? A close family friend is a member of the bomb squad in Dallas.
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I don’t think it “resembled a bomb,” but I’m no bomb expert. However, I might wonder if it was a part of some kind of destruction device.
We can’t expect lay people to “know” all these things.
The young man was advised by his eng’g teacher not to show it around…
Why do you think the eng’g teacher told him that? To be mean? Was he stupid?
No, but again, if lay people thought it was a bomb they would have evacuated the school. They wouldn’t have taken any chance that it wasn’t the real thing; but they didn’t.
I wish I could change this thread title to ** 14 year old ** inventing while Muslim. Since the fact that the kid is FOURTEEN seems to continually escape people’s minds.
Yes, some of y’all have genius kids who could’ve straight-up invented a brand new time keeper at 3, but for the rest of us mere mortals, this is a kid doing a project he thought was cool.
And honestly, if I was a parent, I’d be really upset if a school thought there was a bomb on campus and they didn’t evacuate.
Why do you think the eng’g teacher told him that? To be mean? Was he stupid?
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Because the proto-Eloi have an inherent fear of the proto-Morlocks?
I bet if he brought some Hot Wheels or a great-uncle’s pocket watch to class he’d have received the same advice although I’m unwilling to project my thoughts into the mind of his teacher. There are dozens of reasons each plausible enough for Occam himself to shave with.
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The best quip I’ve heard all week is that it was a good thing he didn’t bring a sundial. Those are powered by a thermonuclear reaction.
The second best was the one about the clock looking suspicious because it had Arabic numbers - which will soon be renamed “freedom numbers” … that may have been early in this thread, though.
From the facts available, it sounds like both the school and the police are in the wrong, but as Hunt and others have pointed out, since the school is prohibited for privacy reasons from giving its side of the story, I’ll allow that it is possible that there is a bit more to the story than we’re hearing.
I’m quite comfortable saying that the police were in the wrong, because EVEN IF the kid had said or done something that might reasonably be construed as criminal – and that’s a big if – that doesn’t justify holding a minor without informing his parents, or handcuffing a 14-year old who obviously posed no threat.
On the subject of Islamaphobia, I think it is important to distinguish between assuming that all Muslims are automatically suspect and acknowledging that, given current geopolitical realities, there are certain acts that might reasonably give a little bit more cause for concern if a Muslim is involved. The chances that any individual person is a potential threat are vanishingly small. But if I see a person walking around in a 95 degree day wearing a bulky jacket, yes, I’m going to be more wary if it is a Middle-Eastern looking male than if it is an Asian female.
For those of you who may be horrified by this, I would ask if you can honestly say for sure that you aren’t likely to view men as more of a threat than women in a variety of circumstances, even when physical strength isn’t an issue. As far as I can recall, every single mass shooting has been carried out by a (usually white) male. And I’m going to guess that if the majority of people saw a glint of metal in the bag of a person they perceived to be “odd,” they’d be more likely to jump to “gun” if it were a male than if it were a female. Similarly, most parents would be leerier of a male teacher showing what seemed to be excessive interest in their child than a female teacher. And I don’t think they’re fools or hateful people for doing it.
Of course, in this case, the school obviously didn’t think the clock was actually a bomb anyway.
I agree @zoosermom. And actually, @awcntdb, if you had read the article from Pew Research that I linked, you would see the study found that liberals tended to gather their news from a variety of sources and conservatives tended to gather theirs from a singular source. The study found that conservatives tend to be more insular in their news exposure and friend groups. It’s pretty eye-opening.
No, I don’t particularly respect Town Hall as a “news” source. But you are wrong about my ignoring news sources I don’t agree with ideologically. That is not what I said. NPR and Town Hall are not diametrically opposed in their world views; they are diametrically opposed in their quality. I don’t agree with every perspective on NPR either for heaven’s sake! But I generally trust the quality and integrity of their reporting. Others may not. See that Pew Research study…
I would like to explain why I think that the reference to the proto-Eloi and the proto-Morlocks made by 50N40W in post #587 is germane to the topic. Please bear with me–this may take a series of posts.
First, as background, I would like to state that I have a cousin who became a Muslim and has a Muslim family. I have personally known people who were treated with suspicion just because of the color of their skin, or their religion. This goes contrary to values I deeply cherish, and I think it is simply wrong.
In this case, the situation did not solely involve the student’s being Muslim, but also involved the device that he brought to school. That is where the reference to the proto-Eloi and proto-Morlocks comes in.
In the H.G. Wells story, The Time Traveller–which it has been a long time since I have read, so I might have some of this wrong–the Morlocks are a group that dwells underground, and provides the clothing and food for the Eloi, though they also attack the Eloi at times. (It may be that they are cannibals.) The Eloi dwell above ground. At the web site I linked, they are described as a “bright, happy people” who are “mainly interested in playfulness.” Their technology is practically invisible.
The Wikipedia article on Morlocks–which appears to have some problems–states that they live underground, “maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build.”
H. G. Wells, I think, intended the Eloi/Morlock distinction as a commentary on the behavior of the English upper class and the working class.
I took the reference by 50N40W to refer to the non-techie/techie distinction. Apologies if I misread this. The element that the Morlock may or may not remember how to build the “ancient machines” adds a layer of complexity to the comment by 50N40W.
I have no take on the overall situation–other than to say that I believe that profiling Muslims is wrong, and that calling the police for a school issue is generally unwarranted. Also, if the student was bullied in middle school for being Muslim, that is also wrong.
The reason that I have no take on the overall situation, though, is that I think there are too many unanswered questions.
But I think that there was likely an element of fear, or at least “concern” on the part of some of the adults in this situation. And I also think that part of that is based on the difficulty in understanding how the technology operates.
Some posters on this thread think the device was clearly a clock. Others think there’s no way of telling that, by looking at it. I side with the people who think you cannot tell what it is exactly, from the photo. It does not look like a bomb. But it might be an electronic adder using a clock face for the display, for example.
I cannot tell from the media coverage what exactly the student did, to “make” the device. At first, I thought that he had designed and soldered the circuit board. That would indeed be impressive. My impression from what I have read is that he did not do that.
There are some possibilities I cannot differentiate:
He simply transferred the electronics from a working clock into another case. That is not at all impressive.
He took two clocks of the same design, neither of them functioning, and combined them into a single working clock. That is better, but it is still at the level of the “troubleshooting” that is often expected of students at the end of a General Science course.
He took the electronics from the clock and modified them in some way. How impressive this is depends on how he modified it.