Checking for assertion costs. You have extra operations that you may not want to exist in the final product. If assertions where always going to work, then people would start using them less "to not kill performance".
And believe me, there are a lot of people out there who consider the extra checks a performance kill and would avoid it. These are the same people who actually have to use assert more!
Asserts are made for stuff that should NEVER HAPPEN, i.e. If it does than there is a bug in your code that your need to fix. Releases are builds that are "supposed" to be bug free, and killing application with the assert for the user is as bad as any other faulty behaviour.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.