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Inter arma enim silent leges.
Ergo impiorum designare omnia tempora "inter arma"
Amidst warfare, laws are silent. Therefore the wicked shall designate all times "amidst warfare".
Edit: Searching for the first phrase, "inter arma enim silent leges", found this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_arma_enim_silent_leges
Apparently, the original is from Cicero (slightly differently worded).
Its too bad that most people don't have a basic appreciation of statistics or probability. Its too bad Schneier only spends a tiny paragraph on it: "Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event". The chance that a person will die from a bombing, or be shot, or their plane crash, or a hurricane kill them is so small that there is almost NO reason to be afraid of…
For me personally, I completely agree when reading this article but I'm here, on the west coast, not feeling threatened directly and knowing my friends are now safe.
But what if you were passing the finish line as these devices exploded. You might well be the most rationale person in the world, you would not think about probabilities. What if you were there in the public, wondering why your life has been spared because you decided to stand further away from that point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People don't react to terrorism because they're afraid of being blown up personally. They do it because they're afraid of the precedent that might be set by not responding. It's statistically unlikely that you'll be the victim of gang violence, but does that mean it's irrational prosecute and punish gang members? No, because the activity threatens social stability vastly out of proportion with the probability of any…
This might explain the political response to terrorism, but I'm not sure it applies to the individual. Fear of setting a bad precedent which could lead to the undermining of civil order seems to be a more complex feeling than that of being the victim of an attack. It's been my experience that the most common fears of an individual are related to sudden/unexpected pain and/or death, not concern for the social good. An…
"Terrorism, even the terrorism of radical Islamists and right-wing extremists and lone actors all put together, is not an 'existential threat' against our nation. Even the events of 9/11, as horrific as they were, didn't do existential damage to our nation. Our society is more robust than it might seem from watching the news. We need to start acting that way." I wonder if there were people saying that to Romans about…
It's not through terrorism they beat us. But through politics. Either twisting the minds of the current leaders, or infecting political parties and slowly implementing sharia - happening in Sweden, with our own tax money.
Forget gay and female civil rights.
I think for HN it's worth noting, perhaps in the title, that this article is written by Bruce Schneier.
Because I needed to look it up, too: "Bruce Schneier an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With modern technology, you don't need to sack New York to cause tremendous damage. People downplay the magnitude of 9/11, but as I noted somewhere else today, it involved more deaths than Pearl Harbor, and economic damage of almost $100 billion (without accounting for the economic impact on the stock market). Is a terrorist attack ten times stronger inconceivable? An attack on a nuclear power plant could cost into t…
You really think that could bring "The Fall of New Rome"? An attack a hundred times more deadly (which would be something like 3% of NYC's population dead, if my mental math does not betray me, or something a little less than 10x The Blitz.) than 9/11 would be a tragedy with only a few parallels in history. It would be an astronomically staggering blow to our economy. Hell, the mangled remains of the economy after su…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The British resolve is something that those of us across the pond seem to have lost, or perhaps it is something that was developed in the British people during the terrible days of WW1 and WW2. We here tend to work more of a spirit of freak-outery and cynicism. And as much as it annoys me, I think its more a symptom of how relatively little most of us and our ancestors have had to worry about in the US as much of our…
I saw no shortage of resolve in NYC after 9/11. Just as untog said of London, we all went to work the next day and carried on with our lives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People don't react to terrorism because they're afraid of being blown up personally. They do it because they're afraid of the precedent that might be set by not responding. It's statistically unlikely that you'll be the victim of gang violence, but does that mean it's irrational prosecute and punish gang members? No, because the activity threatens social stability vastly out of proportion with the probability of any…
#citationneeded Really now. I don't need to go much beyond the evening news to know that people spend a lot of time being afraid of things that aren't likely to happen. (What don't you know about your toothbrush that could kill you? Probably very little.) Your model of humanity is one that's much more rational and thoughtful than what I've come to expect from my neighbors. Nobody is scared of a decline in social stab…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ergo impiorum designare omnia tempora "inter arma"
Translation from the Latin, with help from Google Translate: Amidst warfare, laws are silent. Therefore the wicked shall designate all times "amidst warfare". Edit: Searching for the first phrase, " inter arma enim silent leges ", found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_arma_enim_silent_leges Apparently, the original is from Cicero (slightly differently worded).
Thought I was reading House of Leaves there for a second.