Mumbai attacks: What should vs what will

November 30th, 2008 | politics

Over the last weekend, I was glued to the television and Twitter in horrific despair at the Mumbai blasts.

A lot has already been said about what should be (and should have been) done. I am more interested in forming a descriptive mental model about what is happening, rather than a prescriptive model of what should.

Public and political sentiment sometimes moves like a glacier, and sometimes like a waterfall. Crises create so much panic and so many unscripted moments that they reveal a lot of truth about the world we live in. They are like the glimpse into the real personality of the beauty pageant contestant when she suddenly trips on stage. Crises reveal a rare view of truth in a world full of wish-thinking and make-believe.

This change in public sentiment is not an ephemeral spiritual thing, but rather one that can be measured through the rigors of science and statistics.

And so here is one chillingly revealing statistic from another crisis, the Asian tsunami:

In Ireland, 87 per cent of the population believe in God, a survey by the Market Research Bureau of Ireland found in January. Rather than rocking their faith, 19 per cent said tragedies such as the Asian tsunami, which killed 300,000 people, bolstered their belief.

Sydney Morning Herald

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
-Albert Einstein

image credit:: jeffmcneil

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Mumbai attacks: What should vs what will

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