(urth) Predictions Re: The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

[David Stockhoff]

On 8/1/2012 11:44 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
> On 8/1/2012 9:26 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>
>> On 8/1/2012 10:08 PM, António Pedro Marques wrote:
>>> But what did you mean by it requiring a lot of work and their
>>> likeliness to be caught? Those are the bits I inquired on. Lot of work
>>> to set fires? I mean, that could apply to lots of other ideas, but 
>>> here?
>> In order to create a wildfire that is bigger than "natural" wildfires,
>> you'd have to start several fires over a wide area. If it's not bigger
>> than normal fires, what's the point?
>
> Considering how much press and FUD  just a threat like a fake bomb 
> scare can get, it wouldn't have to be even as "big" as a natural fire. 
> Natural and accidental fires happen infrequently, but if you make it 
> plain you are willing to set them on purpose, you create a perception 
> of significant risk on a daily basis.
>
> A terror org could deliberately set a fire in an area with a high 
> danger of spread to inhabited areas, then when fire fighting resources 
> are concentrated there, they set another one at another high-risk area 
> in a distant part of the same or adjacent state - now there are two 
> fires! Limited resources have to be diverted from the big established 
> one to fight the new one, they take much longer to respond than normal 
> because they are already deployed instead of at the ready and farther 
> away, and now the pols get to explain to the first fire's victims why 
> they decided the second fire was more important, to the second fire's 
> victims why help was so slow to arrive, and to the fire fighters why 
> they cut the budget last year, etc.
>
>
> Then whenever the terror org needs some publicity, they call in 
> another arson threat, and everyone running an unsanctioned weenie 
> roast gets to enjoy the half-assed security theatre "zero tolerance" 
> policies...

All true, but there's a big difference between "terror" and "media 
hysterics." I just have to assume terrorists know the difference too.