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Next time you see one of those "report any suspicious activity (for example, people taking photographs of public buildings...)" sort of signs? Think on this:
The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography.
The reason we're so hung on up on 'suspicious' people 'taking photographs'?
... “we’re a species of storytellers,” and thus persistently vulnerable to a particular variety of logic failure, the movie-plot threat.
From the Making Light post The power of storytelling…to make us stupid and crazy, educating and making me fear for humanity, all at once...
The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography.
The reason we're so hung on up on 'suspicious' people 'taking photographs'?
... “we’re a species of storytellers,” and thus persistently vulnerable to a particular variety of logic failure, the movie-plot threat.
From the Making Light post The power of storytelling…to make us stupid and crazy, educating and making me fear for humanity, all at once...
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