Here’s what we should be saying to people who attack us, and to those who panic when we are attacked.
Risk is often calculated as Probability x Impact. As such, what I’m speaking of here is a colossal reduction in impact (and thus, risk).
Think about what happened in September of 2001. What was lost? 3,000 lives? A couple of buildings. Imagine what would have happened if our wound level matched that actual loss instead of being thousands of times more. Building value rounds down to zero, and the loss of 3,000 people, while tragic, doesn’t nearly compare to how many we lose constantly with no effect on morale whatsoever.
Here’s an alternative response to 9/11:
In short, if we can keep terror wounds minimized to the actual losses rather than adding an infinite degree of suffering to them (which then converts to impact), we actually lower our risk infinitely more than through prevention.
In short, an open society improves security by improving resilience, not by obsessing over prevention.