Posted by sinusoidallysane
on March 3, 2009, 12:20 am
128.54.152.131
ok, I know we’re not really on this unit anymore (and I’m not entirely sure this makes sense either. . .)
anyway:
Often, the total cost of an act of terrorism goes far beyond the direct effect of the initial action the way a country reacts has a major effect on the long term consequences. This can be seen as somewhat analogous to pyrogenic infections (ones that cause fever (actually I’m not sure if this is a correct term or not)) as the elevated body temperature is the immune system’s response to the infection. While the fever helps combat the infections, it also can have very dangerous results to the infected person’s body, possibly resulting in death. So essentially, the infection does not kill the person directly but rather by causing the body to kill itself.
This situation can be similar to terrorism, but there is a key difference. The immune system is controlled by the autonomic nervous system (or something to that effect), which means that it is not consciously controlled, so there is (obviously) no long term planning involved. In contrast, governments can asses the situation and decide the best course of action. The government must then do its best to alleviate rather than aggravate the situation; however, determining the most correct choice of action can be extremely difficult.
Another piece of information that I find relevant (and often apply to many other things) is the second law of thermodynamics. One way of stating the second law is that nature tends toward disorder (because it is entropically more likely/favorable). For example, it is clearly easier to, say, knock down a stack of blocks than stack them in the first place. Creating disorder often works in favor of a terrorist group. Therefore, even if the target of the terrorist group is militarily superior (which it probably is, based on information discussed in class), those fighting against the terrorists are on the “hard” side simply because order is so much more difficult to create than disorder.
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