Modern examples of a similar strategy- terrorists- seem to not be terribly effective at enacting their political goals. That may be because targeting leaders is more effective than targeting civilians or symbols, but it's not clear to me that that is the case.
Modern examples of a similar strategy- terrorists- seem to not be terribly effective at enacting their political goals.
That's far from the truth. Leaders seem to give them exactly what they want and the terrorists have success beyond anything they could have hoped for. At the rationalist boot camp we had some fun calculating the amount of economic damage caused by one attempted act of terrorism with a shoe bomb that failed. The extra time spent every day by Americans at airports waiting in lines to take off their shoes is hilarious (to anyone for whom c...
A reminder for everyone: on this day in 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world.
It occurs to me this time around that there's an interesting relationship here - 9/26 is forgotten, while 9/11 is remembered. Do something charitable, and not patriotic, sometime today.