A bit too late, something relevant to the original topic. Quote about the revenge instinct, from the Peter Watts’s speech here, linked from here. The economics of revenge may be strongly relevant to the attacker’s behavior.
I have a sense of where we came from as a species, and I know that ethics and morality are not human traits; they're mammalian ones. Capuchins feel empathy. Chimps have a sense of fair play. Any number of social species have what you might call a justice instinct: a drive to punish cheaters and freeloaders.
Our own species is hardwired for revenge, to the point that we'll go out of our way to punish those who have trespassed against us, even if meting out that punishment costs us more than it costs our transgressor. We will cut off our noses to spite our faces. This holds right across the board from financial games in which people feel cheated out of small sums of money, all the way up to suicide bombers— who, despite what the public seems to think, are apparently not a bunch of ignorant wild-eyed religious zealots after all. They actually tend to be intelligent, well-educated, well-employed— even secular, sometimes. One characteristic they tend to share, though, is low self-esteem. A sense of humiliation, both personal and cultural. These people regard their own lives as so cheapened that they will actually gain value if traded in against higher-value targets. Net profit, in other words. Revenge economics.
But this isn't so much economics as simple brain-stem biology.
Become better assholes. Guns, Hummers and Espresso makers were the first three hallmarks of assholes that I could think of yesterday! Good assholes learn to fly under the radar and pass my little asshole exam without letting on they are really an asshole. But the thing is, their (our) cravings remain the same: things that kill, things that fuck up the environment, and things that sneer at other people. CHRIST!!!
I am proposing background checks for all espresso machines, Saturday Night Specials (stovetop moka pots) all the way up to MiniGuns (Hammacher Eagles).
Bear in mind, though, that one could easily argue that what you get out of a stovetop moka pot isn’t exactly espresso (not enough pressure say the cognoscenti), so that might open the proposed legislation to all kinds of challenges. That’s certainly a loophole that needs to be closed if you wish to ensure that unlicensed espresso-like products don’t just suddenly flood the market.
