Current Events > Millennial Couple Bikes Through ISIS Territory to Prove 'Humans Are Kind'

(+) Yeah! (+)

Only to get brutally murdered by ISIS terrorists

https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1824-millennial-couple-bikes-through-isis-territory-to-prove-humans-are-kind-and-gets-killed/partners/44197

"Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans."

An idealistic young American couple was killed in an Islamic State-claimed terrorist attack last month while on a cycling trip around the world.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, who were both in their late 20s, last year quit their office jobs in Washington, DC, to embark on the journey. Austin, a vegan who worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in the Georgetown University admissions office, decided that they're were wasting their lives working.

"Ive 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. Ive 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 Instagram and on a joint blog. As The New York Times put it, they shared "the openheartedness they wanted to embody and the acts of kindness reciprocated by strangers."

You read the papers and youre 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 dont buy it," he continued. "Evil is a make-believe concept weve 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.

However, Austin and Geoghegan's dream trip came to a tragic and gruesome end when they got to Tajikistan, a country with a known terrorist presence. They were riding their bikes through the country on July 29 when a car rammed them, according to CBS News. Five men got out of the car and stabbed the couple 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.

Does this count as a Darwin award?
---

Man, that's dark
---

That's just dumb, they are a violent terrorist organization.

Now humans as a whole are not bad, it is ideas that can be bad and it is following bad ideas that make people bad. Obviously a group with ISIS ideas are bad.
---

Well that's depressing.
---

I'm sorry, but that's dumb
---

Hmm
---

Now lets see another liberal sjw do this in those no-go zones in Europe they love to deny.
---

Welp
---

Nah terrorism is all in your mind man, our good intentions will protect us.
---

Sad they died
but honestly this was a really stupid decision, incredibly sheltered
---

Why were there two other cyclists there?
---

Isnt pluralist a satire site
---

This sounds like some sort of dark comedy sketch. >_> Especially with those quotes from the obnoxious couples at the start. Terrible what happened to them, but god they sound like annoying people.
---

Rough lesson to learn.
---

That was not a good bit of decision making on their part. That said, well-meaning and naive people dying at the hands of terrorist is still sad. So RIP to them and condolences to their family.

Also not sure what their dietary choices had to do with anything.
---

butthole666 posted...

Isnt pluralist a satire site

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/07/world/asia/islamic-state-tajikistan-bike-attack.html

So is NYT apparently
---

To be fair, Tajikistan isn't exactly "ISIS territory"
---

Coffeebeanz posted...

Man, that's dark

It sounds like a side bit from a South Park episode.

Morbid, but too exaggeratedly stupid to be real...except it is.
---

Abyssea posted...

This sounds like some sort of dark comedy sketch. >_> Especially with those quotes from the obnoxious couples at the start. Terrible what happened to them, but god they sound like annoying people.

It's easy to think humanity is innately kind when you're born into wealth and privilege. I'd imagine most people born into inescapable poverty think differently.
---

Sounds like a couple of average liberals who want "common sense" gun control, but don't have any actual common sense.
---

untrustful posted...

Well that's depressing.

23 posts, and no accusations of victim blaming yet?

I blame their parents for not raising them right, any sane human should see how bad of an idea this is
---

"When you grow up poor it's easy to become something of an animal looking to survive. If you're poor for too long, you no longer are human, you're just a machine living day by day. That's why if you are poor, you have to get yourself out of the democrat plantation as soon as possible."
---

I wonder if they changed their minds as cold steel entered their flesh during their final moments of excruciating pain and agonizing terror

voldothegr8 posted...

Does this count as a Darwin award?

Yup
---

KhanJohnny posted...

I wonder if they changed their minds as cold steel entered their flesh during their final moments of excruciating pain and agonizing terror

It was at that moment that they joined the Republican party. But it was too late.
---

What bothers me is that their goal was to show the kindness of humanity, but they clearly lacked enough self-awareness about what a "rich white couple that can afford to bike around the world for a year" image looks like to people living in third-world countries who can't even afford to eat.

Regardless, they're not the ones to blame here, and screw anyone who thinks they should be.
---

KamenRiderBlade posted...

voldothegr8 posted...

Does this count as a Darwin award?

Yup

"You leave me out of this!"

This isn't even the first time something like this has happened. Wasn't there some woman who spent her honeymoon hitchhiking through ISIS territory to prove that it was safe, only to get raped and murdered?
---

ISIS is just Israelites in a Hollywood studio.
---

so I guess this proves that humans aren't actually kind? :v and that evil is a thing?
---

What a couple of a dumb fucks.
---

I feel the same way about every white college girl at a liberal arts school who spends summers in impoverished parts of the world to take selfies with poor people
---

Pepys Monster posted...

Sounds like a couple of average liberals who want "common sense" gun control, but don't have any actual common sense.

No the average liberal isn't this dumb.
---

Coffeebeanz posted...

Regardless, they're not the ones to blame here, and screw anyone who thinks they should be.

Seriously. Some of the post in this topic. Particularly the ones trying to tie it to politics are all sorts of fucked up.
---

Evil is a made up concept. They weren't wrong about that. Still, foolish idea. Shouldn't have done that.
---

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

Evil is a made up concept. They weren't wrong about that. Still, foolish idea. Shouldn't have done that.

Unfortunately "good" is also a made up concept.
---

Gheb posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

Regardless, they're not the ones to blame here, and screw anyone who thinks they should be.

Seriously. Some of the post in this topic. Particularly the ones trying to tie it to politics are all sorts of fucked up.

Hey, we made it to 31 before the "victim blaming" complaint appeared.

Abyssea posted...

so I guess this proves that humans aren't actually kind? :v and that evil is a thing?

Humans aren't inherently good or bad at birth.

They are shaped by their environment.

The longer you are in that environment, the more hardwired you will be in that state, whatever it is.

It's going to take that much more effort to change a person if you try to change them at all.
---

KamenRiderBlade posted...

Humans aren't inherently good or bad at birth.

No, some people are just fucking born wrong. You can tell when they start torturing rabbits to death for fun at like age five or something.
---

Well then
---

Coffeebeanz posted...

What bothers me is that their goal was to show the kindness of humanity, but they clearly lacked enough self-awareness about what a "rich white couple that can afford to bike around the world for a year" image looks like to people living in third-world countries who can't even afford to eat.

Regardless, they're not the ones to blame here, and screw anyone who thinks they should be.

They are completely responsible for this because theyd still be alive if they didnt stupidly jaunt into extremely dangerous territory.
---

Stop victim blaming

creativerealms posted...

That's just dumb, they are a violent terrorist organization.

Now humans as a whole are not bad, it is ideas that can be bad and it is following bad ideas that make people bad. Obviously a group with ISIS ideas are bad.

anyone that wants to harm another for any reason is bad obviously. wish that couple didn't plan to do what they did it's just entering a mine field with mines everywhere.
---

ToPoPO posted...

Stop victim blaming

We're dumbass blaming.

EnragedSlith posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

What bothers me is that their goal was to show the kindness of humanity, but they clearly lacked enough self-awareness about what a "rich white couple that can afford to bike around the world for a year" image looks like to people living in third-world countries who can't even afford to eat.

Regardless, they're not the ones to blame here, and screw anyone who thinks they should be.

They are completely responsible for this because theyd still be alive if they didnt stupidly jaunt into extremely dangerous territory.

I mean, what they did was just stupid.
---