[tptacek]

You find it incomprehensible of late, but you've made similar arguments on this site in the past; for instance, the Rawlsian logic you're objecting to here is the same as the logic you use to justify antiterrorism work. So whatever the issue is here, I don't think it's your background in engineering.

[rayiner]

I don’t support anti terrorism because I put myself in the shoes of victims of terrorism. I do it because I think terrorism requires harsh responses to maintain norms against political violence. So for example I would abolish the TSA because I’m not afraid of actually being the victim of a terrorist attack.

It’s possible this sentiment is punitive—I just want to see terrorists punished—and such a response isn’t necessary to maintain the state’s monopoly on violence. But I would submit that extreme responses to e.g. Islamism is important to keep a real threat to order at bay. We’ll probably have a real A/B experiment with this in Bangladesh now that Hasina—who was doing a good job crushing the Islamists—has been overthrown. Will Bangladesh turn into Pakistan in the absence of that enforcement? We will see.

[tptacek]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10563156

Can you reconcile this with the comment I just replied to?

[rayiner]

It’s the same thought. Terrorist attacks are directed to the nation as a whole even if they kill a small percentage of the population. That makes them different from events that just happen to kill the same number of people.

[selimthegrim]

The biggest problem in Pakistan right now is the Army propping up everything. But I doubt that’s what you were driving at.

If even half of what I read about Hasina is true she has completely gone around the bend and has no business running any country anymore.