Prior to 9/11, at least in the U.S., hijackers typically "simply" wanted money or to be flown elsewhere. As long as those demands were met, there were no casualties. So it wasn't that it was "too risky" to fight back - it was that hijacking was generally not considered life-threatening. The original reactions on 9/11 were not due solely to "social engineering", but to prior experience.
That high-pitched noise you heard was the point, zinging swiftly over your head. All the pre-9/11 "experts" who told us to bend over and let the goat enthusiasts have their wicked way with us, didn't do so in a nuanced, situationally-aware fashion. They said, "always cooperate with hijackers." The fact that organizations existed the purposes of which were to kill Americans and destroy American resources, was blithely ignored by the "experts". Only through long conditioning did they cow the general public enough that four or five dudes with really short knives could hijack a plane. While the last plane was still in the air, the general public realized what bullshit that had been.
When "experts" talk about "risk", it's never "things are pretty good and getting better". (I.e., it's never the truth.) They always want us to fear more, and as a result pay more. It's not different now.
No, didn't miss the point - just didn't agree. Pre 9/11, we didn't have a plethora of "risk" experts telling us what to do. Most people listened to news - good, bad, or indifferent - parsed it for themselves and acted accordingly - not according to what the seldom-heard-from experts said.
How old are you? How long ago did you start watching the news? Because your rosy description of news media in times past does not accord with my recollection. Keep in mind that CNN started in 1980, and has always been a parade of blustery talking heads, in between the on-scene disaster reports. A particularly vivid memory of "expert" opinion (of risks to children), much hyped in the media, later debunked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse#Investigat... Earlier in the last century "yellow journalism" featured the same sort of media output, but the reason that term fell out of use was not because Hearst died but because all journalism changed to that color. I mean, how was our war with Iraq different from our war with Spain?
It's tempting to see 9/11 as some sort of watershed, especially if it had a personal impact. In fact, it was just a bit more of the same. What the "experts" are telling us now, is also that.
