On Terror

Why attacks are *always* successful, why we *always* react, and how we could *theoretically* stop them.

We live in a world of terror attacks, annually in Kenya, every other day in American schools. We are horrified, scramble on social media to find updates from friends and loved ones, swell with pity for with those who have been harmed, feel solidarity with our nation.

It’s the “It could have been me!” response that makes terrorism truly effective.

“I was planning to go to that hotel in two weeks!”

“My friend, Ken, was having a meeting just next down the street when the attack happened.”

Both of these statements are true.

But also quite true, it is statistically impossible for me to not have a personal connection. As many people as we know in a city the size of Nairobi, it only takes one or two degrees of separation to mentally involve ourselves.

An iphone software update saved my friend Stephanie from the Westgate Mall attack. Kenyan internet in 2013 was maddeningly slow, so she waited nearly an hour for the update to download to install, which meant instead of sitting in a cafe at the epicenter of the event, she was still in transit. It could have been her.