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[Descan]

Don't you even dare compare me to slime like that.

Do you eat sugar?

HITLER ate sugar!

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Don't you even dare compare me to slime like that.

Oh no, that's why it's a bet. We've still got an investigation to watch unfold.

Just try to phase out this blindly fearing and being paranoid of the public safety reaction.. To someone blowing up a couple hundred folks in arguably one of the hardest countries to pull off such an operation. I'm mostly worried that it was pulled off in the first place, not that the government is actually trying to do something proactive to halt the still-on-the-loose bomber(s).

[SalmonGod]

Don't carry bongs around in the next two days in Boston if you're not a moron.

Do you really think that's all it's about?

Yeah Patriot act has a lot to do with searching people since you have probable cause to suspect there's a fucking bomber on the loose in Boston. Seriously. Stop this horseshit with throwing this into the political spectrum. It makes you people seem pathetic for whining that the police are trying to stop further people from being blown up. Makes legitimate pro-privacy arguments seem silly by connection. Public safety is not a government shell-game, it's only that to a conspiracy theorist.

I'll throw my money at a bet that this bomber started with the same silly paranoid thinking.

My point was that the steps authorities take under the pretense of security and counter-terrorism are mainly used for things that have nothing to do with either, and there is tons of hard data to prove it.  It's not conspiracy theory, it's fact that can be plainly seen in raw numbers.

And I'm not sure how you can blame anyone for bringing this up at a time like this, when political abuse of powers granted in the name of security and law enforcement has been the #1 political theme in the U.S. for over a decade - my entire adult life.

I'm not trying to dominate the conversation with this stuff, either.  I said in my very first post that I understand stuff like this appears insensitive to most people, but then again reacting emotionally to this stuff is the worst possible thing to do. 

It's hard to do, because terrorism is designed precisely to scare people -- far out of proportion to its actual danger. A huge amount of research on fear and the brain teaches us that we exaggerate threats that are rare, spectacular, immediate, random -- in this case involving an innocent child -- senseless, horrific and graphic. Terrorism pushes all of our fear buttons, really hard, and we overreact.

But our brains are fooling us. Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event. That's the very definition of news: something that is unusual -- in this case, something that almost never happens.

Events like these are incredibly rare, but they are also incredibly sensationalized.  There are literally thousands of greater threats to our well-being and we face many of them casually every single day, but they don't involve loud noises, bloody pavement, and screaming, so they don't grab our attention the same way.  Think about why this thread even exists.  Why aren't there threads for all the other things that happened that killed and injured many times more people yesterday?  Because we innately understand that those other events aren't going to have the cultural and political consequences that this one will, and those consequences are going to be the result of our ability or inability to maintain a proper perspective.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Don't you even dare compare me to slime like that.

Que?

[alway]

Events like these are incredibly rare, but they are also incredibly sensationalized.  There are literally thousands of greater threats to our well-being and we face many of them casually every single day, but they don't involve loud noises, bloody pavement, and screaming, so they don't grab our attention the same way.  Think about why this thread even exists.  Why aren't there threads for all the other things that happened that killed and injured many times more people yesterday?  Because we innately understand that those other events aren't going to have the cultural and political consequences that this one will, and those consequences are going to be the result of our ability or inability to maintain a proper perspective.

Very much this. Over 1000 people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's today*. Something which, quite frankly, is so much worse than a few people dying or losing limbs.  Over 1000 people will be diagnosed with it tomorrow. And another 1000+ the next day. The only people more terrified of a little bomb injuring 150 people in a 1-off event are ninnies whose only understanding of the world is based on the headlines of Lowest Common Denominator News.

And yet when an event like this rolls around, an event which quite frankly is to be expected every few years no matter what measures are taken, everyone screams and runs for the hills from teh evul terrerists. And who then read about Alzheimer's or heart disease and simply shrug it off with a short 'meh.' It's an issue of improper resource allocation; both mentally and in terms of action on a national level.

*actual figures are about half a million people per year in the US alone; so if you include worldwide, it's many times that number

[Mictlantecuhtli]

And yet when an event like this rolls around, an event which quite frankly is to be expected every few years no matter what measures are taken, everyone screams and runs for the hills from teh evul terrerists. And who then read about Alzheimer's or heart disease and simply shrug it off with a short 'meh.' It's an issue of improper resource allocation; both mentally and in terms of action on a national level.

Good thing to know some of us are willing to be so complacent.

[Max White]

Day two and tension is running high... So, still nobody claiming? Welp, seems like a nutbag to me.
Or it could have been some kid with access to the internet that didn't understand the implications of what they were doing.

[GlyphGryph]

Just try to phase out this blindly fearing and being paranoid of the public safety reaction.. To someone blowing up a couple hundred folks in arguably one of the hardest countries to pull off such an operation. I'm mostly worried that it was pulled off in the first place, not that the government is actually trying to do something proactive to halt the still-on-the-loose bomber(s).

First: NO ONE BUT YOU HAS SAID JACK SHIT ABOUT THE GOVERNMENTS ATTEMPTS TO FIND THE BOMBER. No one has fucking complained about that! YOU were the one who started getting pre-emptively pissy about the fact that people might.

People have expressed worry about the historically likely possibility that politicians are going to use this an opportunity to consolidate their power, as a political tool. Which is a pretty damned different thing from a heightened state of alert while a known criminal is on the loose who obviously likes blowing people up.

As to your worry that someone was able to pull this off in the first place (and your laughable statement that this is difficult in the US):
It's much harder to pull this off in many other countries that have this happen FAR more regularly. It was a hell of a lot harder to pull off bombings like this in North Ireland some years back, and yet it happened all the time. Do you know why?

Because it's this simple: Stopping stuff like this is much, much harder than doing stuff like this. If enough people want to do stuff like this, you can't stop it. You just can't. The only real protection is people not wanting to kill you; living in a society where it's seen as unacceptable and the vast majority of people believe that. It's like murderers: If someone halfway capable really, really wants to kill you, they're probably going to. (Unless you're incredibly wealthy and well protected, and even that isn't usually enough to keep you alive)

The US has been blessed not by any amount of spectacular security, but by the simple fact that most people in our country do not want to blow other people up. This is our first, and most effective safeguard, protection, and security against stuff like this. The fact that people do not generally want to murder other people is the fact that holds our society together. If even 1% of people tomorrow wanted to set off a bomb, that's it - we're done. There's no stopping it from happening. Lots of people are going to get blown up. Even our security, what of it is effective, tends to be geared around this - making it unappealing to take this action.

Are there real security improvements we could make, that would either make this less desirable as an action or raise the competency requirements of the planners (thus reducing number of successes)? Maybe! Note that most people have gone out of their way to say they hope that if changes are made, they hope those changes to be reasonable and effective. Those aren't the sort of changes people here would have a problem with.

Unfortunately, those aren't the sort of changes people overcome by fear tend to want. They want big. They want showy. They don't want safety - they want a security blanket, something they can cling to to assuage their fear, something they can use to cover their eyes and pretend everything is going to be alright THIS time, while the real problems go unaddressed. And we have a country run by politicians who are all too happy to give that to people in lieue of real solutions, and who have shown time and time again that they see events like these as an opportunity.

I think Boston is handling this well so far, truth to be told. The people of Boston are not acting afraid. The politicians and the police are NOT cultivating fear. They are engaging in a bit of action meant primarily to reassure people, but even that seems to have a reasonable amount of desire for effectiveness behind it. It gives me hope that at least for the foreseeable future, the response will be a good one, and that people will fight through this, find the guy responsible, sentence him for his crimes, and move on after helping each other back to their feet.

I just hope that those who see something like this as an opportunity to make you afraid don't get to use it as such.

[werty892]

And yet when an event like this rolls around, an event which quite frankly is to be expected every few years no matter what measures are taken, everyone screams and runs for the hills from teh evul terrerists. And who then read about Alzheimer's or heart disease and simply shrug it off with a short 'meh.' It's an issue of improper resource allocation; both mentally and in terms of action on a national level.

Good thing to know some of us are willing to be so complacent.

The issue with diseases and such is that, really, right now nothing can be done about that. If you could prevent those 1000's of Alzheimer's cases from happening, that would be on national news. But you can prevent something like this. And that is why people panic.

[Scoops Novel]

No more flaming. They'll be idiots on both sides of the argument and no one here is one of them. I came here for information, not to read complaints from people with clearly the same base goal of minimizing the damage, long-term and short-term, where I'm fairly confident each can see the others point, which we all get the gist of, much as I'd like to read the links. We're not going to have naive idealistic elitists running around here, and neither do we have emotional reckless reactionaries either.

Fact's and speculation supported by critically analyzed thoughts please.

[Zangi]

Day two and tension is running high... So, still nobody claiming? Welp, seems like a nutbag to me.
Or it could have been some kid with access to the internet that didn't understand the implications of what they were doing.

I'm banking on the possibility that if it is, Al Queda, they'll send a VHS tape from one of their caves.  Via Snail Mail.  But yea, a nutbag... or nutbags seems more likely at this moment in time, to me at least.

+1, Indeed, people are not simply sitting on their arses twiddling thumbs ya know...  and noone here is asking them to do so.

Though, in my opinion, it is utter stupidity to try something else so soon after this.  Public Alert is pretty durn high right now... and will be for the next few weeks/months.  Of course, the Police/FBI will be on alert for the next few years...

[Scelly9]

I'm guessing multiple crazies.

[Aqizzar]

So, the bombs were made of pressure cookers, probably filled BBs and/or nails and etc in the loose metal department, and left in duffel bags with some sort of crude timer.  I heard the primary explosive ingredient was black powder, which would make sense for what has been described as a low-velocity explosion.

We also know nobody has stepped up to claim credit.  It is practically without exception for organized international terrorist rings to claim credit for violent acts, sometimes even for ones they didn't commit to sound more badass.

Now I'm just a random jackass on the Internet, so nothing I say is worth spit.  But we know the style and activity since has been pretty similar to Lone Wolf attackers in America before, and that the bombs were made entirely of materials available at any Cabela's or Gander Mountain.  Call me crazy, but I think that narrows the profile of the suspect.


And now to go back to being disgusted by the slew of merchandizing and fake charities that sprang up overnight.

[Scelly9]

merchandizing

Oh god what.

[misko27]

I want to say one thing. Just one.


One of the goals terrorist may and do have is to, in fact, get the government to over-react. Not The government using it as a excuse, the Government itself over-reacting due to internal affairs or the will of the people, depending on government type. When it over-reacts, the extremists gain followers. People begin to realize The government is corrupt/insane/bad and move against it. This is, often, the purpose of terrorism.


Now, it should be noted, this is not always bad. It can show off weaknesses in a corrupt government. But, that does not, and should never, excuse the action itself. Governments that arrive of terrorism are often of themselves, corrupt, repressive, and following the "will of the people", far more often then changes that happen through peaceful methods.


With this in mind, I would not be hasty to accuse the government of improper behavior, nor vindicate it of anything. That is exactly want they want. They think their ideology, no matter how rational or insane or rarely held, can only come through violence. So stop arguing. Now.

Anyway, my mom's professional opinion is a lone nutter, possibly right-wing. He certainly is somewhat more aware of his shit then the regular radical, given the bombs occurring nearly simultaneously. He acted to injure and kill, not destroy, hence the ball bearing.