Tuesday, November 20
From Dave Farber's IP list:
You don't have to like Richard Dawkins' politics or believe in the
>ontological reality of memes [see note below] to recognize that there's a
>remarkable similarity between epidemiological notions and the phenomena of
>terrorism. Smallpox was eradicated by the application of four basic
>principles that can easily be extended to apply to terrorism itself:
>
>* distinguish among toxins, diseases, and infectious agents: bombs,
>suicide detonations, and terroristic tracts and schools, respectively.
>* immunization of threatened populations: education in the futility of
>terrorism and provision of alternative conflict-resolution options. Many
>commentators have attributed terrorism to the helplessness of third world
>poverty; it would be marvelous to see actual data on "natural experiments"
>that show causation rather than mere correlation.
>
>* eradication of reserviors of infection ("draining the swamps") -
>destruction of terrorist training camps, replacement of governments
>supporting terrorism, and interdiction of organized financial support.
>
>* quarrantine of both reservoirs and individual infected victims:
>embargoes against state sponsors and imprisonment of terrorism advocates.
>This point suggests that censorship of communications may be more
>effective than sanctions against material trade. Of course there are
>enforcement problems for, say, books smuggled inside bags of grain.
>
>Clearly this vastly oversimplifies the problem of terrorism, but I hope it
>also shows the great opportunities for valuable research.
