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A review by atxspacecowboy
ISIS: The State of Terror by Jessica Stern
4.0
I am pretty aware of the atrocities of ISIS but this book is still rather shocking. From Obama's "they're a JV team wearing Lakers jerseys--not Kobe Bryant" comment to social media's lack of censorship of clear crimes against humanity, it's just gross.
Take aways:
"There is no evidence that a major terrorist event is eminent, but ISIS controls many times more money and men than Al Qaeda did in 2000."
"ISIS is a publicity whore."
The liberality of American social media platforms (especially Twitter) allowed ISIS to grow exponentially faster than traditional methods of spreading their poison.
"More than half the battle against the West and for the hearts and minds of our Umma is taking place in the battlefield of the media."
"Perception of risk is highly correlated with levels of news coverage."
There is little correlation between objective risk and perception of danger.
"People evaluate choices with respect to the status quo. We overvalue losses relative to gains. We will pay more to avoid the loss of something we already have than we would to acquire it. We also overestimate the likelihood of rare events and underestimate the likelihood of more common ones. We are at risk of overreacting to relatively minor incidents because they represent a loss relative to the status quo and because of our tendency not to distinguish adequately between 10 deaths and 10,000."
Take aways:
"There is no evidence that a major terrorist event is eminent, but ISIS controls many times more money and men than Al Qaeda did in 2000."
"ISIS is a publicity whore."
The liberality of American social media platforms (especially Twitter) allowed ISIS to grow exponentially faster than traditional methods of spreading their poison.
"More than half the battle against the West and for the hearts and minds of our Umma is taking place in the battlefield of the media."
"Perception of risk is highly correlated with levels of news coverage."
There is little correlation between objective risk and perception of danger.
"People evaluate choices with respect to the status quo. We overvalue losses relative to gains. We will pay more to avoid the loss of something we already have than we would to acquire it. We also overestimate the likelihood of rare events and underestimate the likelihood of more common ones. We are at risk of overreacting to relatively minor incidents because they represent a loss relative to the status quo and because of our tendency not to distinguish adequately between 10 deaths and 10,000."