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> People are scared of terrorists. Are they? If they are it's irrational, you're far more likely to be killed by a falling fridge or alcohol induced liver dama
by steckerbrett 11y ago
> People are scared of terrorists.
Are they? If they are it's irrational, you're far more likely to be killed by a falling fridge or alcohol induced liver damage. Attacking a bogyman in an attempt to take eyes off what your government is really doing is quite sickening.
Everyone would be significantly better off if we stopped parading around with 'defense' funding and put it to something with a perceivable impact like public healthcare. It's ridiculous that people are justifying this sort of enormous waste of time and resources as worthwhile.
- collyw 11y agoSadly the Guardian did a study on it recently, and the UK public's number one fear was of a terrorist attack. The propoganda is working.
- steckerbrett 11y agoYes, undoubtedly. I often wonder how much of commentary on social media sites is shills.
- JupiterMoon 11y agohttps://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-online-polls-ways-british-spies-seek-control-internet/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/14/manipulating-o... Unfortunately they will be on this site as well and although the mods work hard on detecting voting rings and shills I doubt that they'll be able to detect state level work.
- crdoconnor 11y agoYou ask people what they consider a geopolitical threat (a pretty abstract concept at the best of times) and they say terrorism because that's what's talked about in the news all the time. You ask what they're actually afraid of and it's knife crime, snakes and dying alone. Dying in a terrorist attack is probably, like, #75 on that list.
- wfunction 11y ago> you're far more likely to be killed by alcohol induced liver damage Try telling that to someone who doesn't drink.
- steckerbrett 11y agoAs a population, not you specifically.
- clort 11y agobut it illustrates the problem beautifully. The thinking goes, its ok for the government to snoop on the everybody in the name of catching terrorists.. because I am not a terrorist and they won't snoop on me.
- wfunction 11y agoYes but the first person people care about is themselves, not the rest of the population.
- madaxe_again 11y agoThat's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.
- notahacker 11y agoAnd the terror attack is probably still more likely than having one's laptop seized under anti-terror laws...
- celticninja 11y agono it isnt, not by a long shot. If you look at the number of seizures under the terrorism act and compare that to number of terrorist attacks over the same period, i bet there have been more seizures than attacks.
- vidarh 11y ago
- m_fayer 11y agoThis used to be my argument with my very much scared and FOXNews watching family. Then I realized that what us hn reading empirically-oriented types see as rational applies to a tiny sliver of humanity. In fact most of humanity sees what we call rationality as idealistic nonsense. I also wish that this wasn't the case but you can't squeeze blood from a stone so we might as well make peace with it.