Steven Pinker
The multiple, and serial, failures of 9/11. John Mueller: "The [US] counterterrorism apparatus has been prone to neglecting to estimate probabilities rationally, envisioning the threat to be existential, believing there was no room for error, neglecting plausible counter-hypotheses, massively extrapolating, exaggerating the importance and potential destructiveness of foiled plots, misidentifying terrorist motivations, increasingly fearing returnees, and espying connections to foreign groups where none existed. Yet, would-be terrorists have shown little competence or capacity and few of them are likely to have done much damage even if their various, and sometimes almost comical, efforts had not been disrupted." https://muellerbbbb.substack.com/p/the-multiple-and-serial-failures?r=17uk7&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web