[d4nt]

I don't think the parent post was suggesting we don't care about it. Just questioning why we care about it more than, say, serial killers.

> Terrorism isn't just an attack on people; it's intended to be an attack on our institutions and our society.

The fact that you're calling it terrorism instead of murder, and that we're discussing this in the context of an OP about the development of new technologies to detect explosives, shows that it's working.

[rayiner]

Terrorism and murder are two entirely different things. What distinguishes various types of killing is intent. Killing someone because they stepped onto your drug dealing territory is an act motivated by a very different intent than killing someone to make a political point.

[d4nt]

I accept that people kill people for lots of different reasons. And that sometimes its sensible to consider intent (e.g. when passing a sentence).

But we've ended up in a position where killing people because they stepped onto your drug dealing territory will get you a mention on the evening news, followed by a trial by jury, while everyone gets on with their lives.

But killing people because you believe you're in a holy war will get you wall to wall news coverage for several days, any associates in foreign countries will be summarily killed by drone attack, and whatever particular tactics you used (shoe bomb, liquid explosives in drinks bottle, attacking outspoken news publication) will be memorialised across the globe within days in the form of updated security procedures or public reaction.

I don't particularly fear being killed by a religious fanatic, it's so rare it would be irrational to fear that. But I do fear the disintegration of my open and free society due to a social engineering hack called "Terrorism".