Vox Sentences: Why Sunday’s terrorist attack in Pakistan happened

The political context of Sunday's suicide bombing in Lahore; the EU's migration plan is both incompetent and inhumane; welcome to the age of virtual reality!

Vox Sentences is written by Dylan Matthews and Dara Lind.

TOP NEWS

That attack Facebook thought you were in the middle of

Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

• A suicide bombing killed more than 70 people in a public park in Lahore, Pakistan, on Sunday.

  [NPR / Camila Domonoske]

• The group Jamaat-e-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the bombing, and said it had deliberately targeted Christian families on Easter Sunday.

  [NYT / Salman Masood]

• Jamaat-e-Ahrar split off from the Pakistani Taliban about two years ago. It's based along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, but appears to be now staking its claim in Punjab, where Lahore is located (and which is the home turf of the current prime minister).

  [The Guardian / Jason Burke]

• The group's attack comes at a time when religious hard-liners are feeling increasingly frustrated. In 2011, the governor of Punjab was assassinated for questioning anti-blasphemy laws; his assassin's execution earlier this year has prompted widespread protests.

  [Al Jazeera / Shereena Qazi]

• The Pakistani government is planning to crack down in Punjab, authorizing its paramilitary group to conduct raids and interrogations as needed.

  [Reuters / Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Mubasher Bukhari]

• But according to Pakistani columnist Umair Javed, there's increasing distaste for outright violence — and many Pakistanis feel particularly sympathetic to Christians.

  [Slate / Isaac Chotiner]

• Meanwhile, if you live in Britain or the US, you probably heard about the Lahore bombing because Facebook mistakenly thought you were in the area and asked you to check in and say you're safe — which is certainly one way to circumvent the recurring complaint that Western media and tech companies don't care about disasters happening in the rest of the world.

  [The Verge / Amar Toor]

This is bad, and the EU should feel bad

Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

• The European Union is currently in the midst of implementing its new migration plan, which will require the government to start relocating asylum seekers in Greece to Turkey on April 4.

  [The Guardian / Jennifer Rankin and Helena Smith]

• Given that there are about 50,000 asylum seekers in Greece, in particular, this is not a plan that anyone is convinced is practicable — or humane.

• All asylum seekers who arrived after March 20 are already being held in "hot spot" camps like the one in Moria, Greece, "protected by a thick concrete perimeter wall and a double razor-wire fence."

  [Financial Times / Kerin Hope]

• Several humanitarian groups, including Doctors Without Borders, are pulling out of refugee camps rather than condone the plan. As Vox's Amanda Taub puts it, "An organization that continues to work in war zones in South Sudan, Yemen, and Syria has concluded that its position in a European refugee camp is morally untenable."

  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Even those migrants who are allowed to apply for relocation within the EU have no idea whether they'll be accepted, or where they'll go.

  [NYT / Liz Alderman]

• And, just like every other attempt over the past year for Europe to stifle migration flows, the deal to ship asylum seekers from Greece could result in more asylum seekers landing in Italy — creating a new crunch.

  [Financial Times / James Politi]

What to worry about in the age of virtual reality

Axel Schmidt/Getty Images

• Oculus Rift headsets began shipping to Kickstarter investors today — marking the first time a virtual reality headset has been available to the broad retail market.

  [Polygon / Ben Kuchera]

• This means that virtual reality — after decades of sci-fi speculation and hype (covered by Ian Bogost here) — might finally become a mass-market way to experience the world.

  [The Atlantic / Ian Bogost]

• Even if the Rift ends up being an early-adopter product, several competing devices are set to launch later this year.

  [Bloomberg Business / Joshua Brustein]

• The Verge's Adi Robertson explains what the Rift actually feels like: Compared with other virtual reality devices she's tried, it's like being a "brain in a vat."

  [The Verge / Adi Robertson]

• That sensation could be worrisome to some of the people studying the way virtual reality is sneaking into real-world realms like education. Jade E. Davis worries about the "escapism" of VR keeping children from relating to the physical classroom.

  [DMLCentral / Jade E. Davis]

• Or it could stoke fantasies of total control that might encourage bad habits when dealing with actual human beings, as Robertson figured out when she realized that VR sex was an easy way to stop caring about your partner's consent.

  [The Verge / Adi Robertson]

• These psychological landmines are why two German philosophers are attempting to generate a "code of ethics" for virtual reality — one that is, of course, already being broken by the nascent VR market.

  [Vice / Daniel Oberhaus]

• As long as VR remains mostly a toy for gamers, though, you will be able to enjoy videos like this, of people trying to sit on virtual desks and falling on their butts.

  [The Verge / Chris Plante]

MISCELLANEOUS

The federal government is dropping its case against Apple over the iPhone of suspected San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook; after all that, it got into the phone on its own. [Brad Heath via Twitter]

• The research on football and the brain disease CTE is still in its infancy, which has some brain injury experts worried that the public perception of football's dangers is outpacing what we actually know.

  [NYT / Benedict Carey]

• Fannie Lowenstein lived for 35 years in a three-room suite in the Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park. She paid $500 a month.

  [Vice / Cara Sheffler]

• How Sandra Day O'Connor introduced the "undue burden" standard to abortion law — and restricted the right to choose in ways that persist to this day.

  [Slate / Meaghan Winter]

• A comprehensive guide to adorable baby animal live cams.

  [Atlas Obscura]

VERBATIM

"One of the best conversations Walton and I had during our two days together consisted entirely of listing the rivers in Oregon." [NYT Mag / Sam Anderson]

• "Seeing emotion didn’t make my life happy. It scared me, as the fear I felt in others took hold in me, too. … It spoiled friendships when I saw teasing in a different and nastier light. It even ruined memories when I realized that people I remembered as funny were really making fun of me."

  [NYT / John Elder Robison]

• "From al Qaeda’s perspective, the 9/11 attacks were a spectacular success. The attacks cost the United States billions of dollars: We closed stock exchanges, halted air travel, and started expensive and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. From the Islamic State’s perspective, the Paris attacks are working, too: The anti-refugee backlash will aid Islamic State recruiting, and tourism is taking a hit even here in the United States, where fear alone has led schools to cancel class trips to Washington."

  [Foreign Policy / Rosa Brooks]

• "1 percent of the young men are responsible for 70 to 80 percent of shootings and homicides. That means that when you look in that dangerous neighborhood and you look at the young men in that neighborhood, a very small number of them are driving that problem."

  [Thomas Abt to Vox / German Lopez]

• "Researchers calculate that engineering C4 photosynthesis into rice and wheat could increase yields per hectare by roughly 50 percent; alternatively, it would be possible to use far less water and fertilizer to produce the same amount of food."

  [Technology Review / Kevin Bullis]

WATCH THIS

We’ve hit peak lens flare. Here’s how it started. [YouTube / Phil Edwards]

Bad Robot Productions

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