
Terrorism is not about terror - Artistry121
http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror
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Artistry121
Terrorism is about finding an "in" group. How do you combat this?

My favorite quote about how the internet impacts terrorism: "If we see
terrorism as more of a tribal or gang activity than political activism or
warfare, then online connections become especially important to our analysis,
otherwise we will be fooled by so-called lone wolves. Earlier ‘lone wolves’
like bombers Timothy McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph turn out on closer
inspection to have ties, social & otherwise, to like-minded people; McVeigh
lived with several other extremists and was taught his bomb-making skills by
the Nichols, who also built the final bomb with him, while Rudolph remained on
the run for several years in a community that wrote songs and sold t-shirts to
praise him and was ultimately caught clean-shaven & wearing new sneakers. Lone
wolves who genuinely had no contact with their confreres, such as Ted
Kaczynski, are vanishingly rare exceptions among the dozens of thousands of
terrorist attacks in the 20th century, and as rare exceptions, otherwise
implausible explanations like mental disease account for them without
trouble."

