One of the more interesting lines of thought arising out of this
discussion for me is about what, if anything, can be done to counter the
effects of these instances of (stochastic - hahahah :) ) terrorism. What
should businesses and economies do - should they attempt to predict
these events? Or should they do something else?
Although particular businesses (or even particular national economies)
may be affected by acts of terror, such as the Mumbai attacks, and it
may be possible to try and identify what a particular group such as,
say, Al Qaeda, might do, it may be best to not try to predict these
events at all. This is because the probability of an event happening at
any given place is very small, and also because it is almost impossible
where exactly these terrorists will pop up next.
The best solution is to simply build a certain of level of 'robustness'
into 'vulnerable' systems beforehand.
Anand
