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UK Terror Plot
The unfolding news about the aircraft bombing plans in the UK hits me pretty hard. I travel to London once a year or so, and two of my closest friends (and their families) live in or around the city. Given that the UK authorities managed to nip this plot early in its life, there's no way to know just how long it would have taken for the plans to be carried out.
The panic among the authorities in the UK and US is indicative of just how unprepared we really are for these kinds of possibilities. The likelihood of dying from terrorism is no lower than being struck by lightning, but unlike lightning strikes -- or auto accidents, or slips in the bathtub, or the other commonplace sources of mortality against which terrorism can be compared -- death from terror events hits large numbers of people at the same time. The statistics of terrorism may be reassuring, but statistics rarely trump emotion.
Here are the web resources I'm following for this subject:
Comments
John Robb of Global Guerrillas also has a personal blog that he updates more often than Global Guerrillas:
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/
Posted by: gmoke | August 11, 2006 12:50 PM
Thanks, gmoke -- that's a keeper.
Posted by: Jamais Cascio | August 11, 2006 2:35 PM
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2006/08/fighting_for_co.html#comment-20923229
"...there are no 4GW warriors around fighting for greater connectivity, no Global Guerillas for an Open Society..."
You think Nicholas Negroponte's $100 Laptop Project isn't an example of Global Guerrillas for an Open Society? I have my suspicions that given Mr Negroponte's family connections he might even consider himself some kind of warrior as well or, at least, a 4GW diplomat.
Today I was at MIT to look at the results of a student project to build four alternative fuel, 300 mile per gallon vehicles over the summer months. 50 or more students from 15 countries came together to do an open source construction hack. The participants were drawn from teams that have built world class competition human power and solar vehicles. Sounds like they could be considered 4GW seabees.
And then there's all that stuff worldchanging.com covers and Cameron Sinclair and the Jhai Foundation and the Barefoot University and a whole bunch of other NGOs and individuals who are doing 4GW work whether or not they consider themselves Global Guerrillas Warriors.
"Global Guerrillas for an Open Society." Might be worth a proposal to George Soros.
Posted by: gmoke | August 10, 2006 at 11:45 PM
gmoke, you are exactly right.
Posted by: John Robb | August 11, 2006 at 05:52 AM
Thanks for the support but being right and being effective are two entirely different things.
I wonder what strategies and tactics would make "white" global guerrillas more effective than "black" global guerrillas.
That's a discussion I'd like to help start.
Posted by: gmoke | August 12, 2006 9:05 PM