4 ms·

> you're far more likely to be killed by alcohol induced liver damage Try telling that to someone who doesn't drink.

by wfunction 11y ago

steckerbrett 11y ago
As a population, not you specifically.
- clort 11y ago
  but 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 ago
  Yes but the first person people care about is themselves, not the rest of the population.
madaxe_again 11y ago
That's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.
- notahacker 11y ago
  And the terror attack is probably still more likely than having one's laptop seized under anti-terror laws...
  - celticninja 11y ago
    no 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
    Over the last five years, the UK has had more well publicized incidents of people having their laptops seized (2) or destroyed at the insistence of GCHQ (1) than terror attacks causing bodily harm (2). Both of the terror attacks in question were stabbings of individual victims (Mohammed Saleem and Lee Rigby). Both were killed. So in fact, assuming conditions remain as they've been for the last five years (and for several years before that), one appears to be at least as likely to have ones laptop seized than getting harmed in a terror attack. On the other hand, the harm of the latter is still clearly worse, given that both victims were murdered. There were also 3 bombing attempts (all by the same far right extremist - Pavlo Lapshyn - trying to kill muslims, but spectacularly failing because nobody were present when his bombs went off). A further two planned attacks never happend (one involved a plan to bomb an EDL rally, but the would-be terrorists arrived to late and left without doing anything; one involved plans that were never attempted set into life at the time the people in question were arrested). The calibre of would-be terrorists in the UK thankfully seem to be rather low.
    - notahacker 11y ago
      As of last year ten people in total had been subjected to the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures that was used to confiscate Kermani's laptop[1]. I guess that's now up to at least eleven, but it's a number low enough to believe the majority of people subjected to them actually were very closely linked with planned acts of terrorism. British would-be terrorists are as you point out, not spectacularly effective, but did manage to kill fifty people in a single set of rather more indiscriminate attacks a decade ago plus some relatively minor attempts since then. So we have two extremely infrequent occurrences, but on the whole I'd consider the police - however unwise their actions were in this instance - to be somewhat less likely to target me than bombers, as well as my fate at the hands of the former more likely to be favourable even if I was operating at the cutting edge of journalism. [1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terrorism-prevention-and-investigation-measures-in-2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terrorism-prevent...
  - ionised 11y ago
    Not at all.
- wfunction 11y ago
  Maybe, but at that point does your brain think in terms of probabilities and expected values anymore (if it ever did)? For example, when you're comparing prices at a store, you might be so rational that you perfectly compute the expected payoff for each product and choose the optimal one. But does your brain work the same way when deciding whether to steal the product too? If the expected payoff for that was higher, would you just go ahead and steal it? Don't you think people might not think the same way about the more common cases and the less common cases?
  - steckerbrett 11y ago
    I often find myself doing it to the point of ridiculousness, there's a 0.01% chance you have one of your organs flipped horizontally. Statistically a lot of people in this forum have their heart on the wrong side of their body or a non-standard kidney.

> you're far more likely to be killed by alcohol induced liver damage Try telling that to someone who doesn't drink.

steckerbrett 11y ago

As a population, not you specifically.

clort 11y ago
but 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 ago
Yes but the first person people care about is themselves, not the rest of the population.

madaxe_again 11y ago

That's probably still more likely than being in a terror attack.

notahacker 11y ago
And the terror attack is probably still more likely than having one's laptop seized under anti-terror laws...
- celticninja 11y ago
  no 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
  Over the last five years, the UK has had more well publicized incidents of people having their laptops seized (2) or destroyed at the insistence of GCHQ (1) than terror attacks causing bodily harm (2). Both of the terror attacks in question were stabbings of individual victims (Mohammed Saleem and Lee Rigby). Both were killed. So in fact, assuming conditions remain as they've been for the last five years (and for several years before that), one appears to be at least as likely to have ones laptop seized than getting harmed in a terror attack. On the other hand, the harm of the latter is still clearly worse, given that both victims were murdered. There were also 3 bombing attempts (all by the same far right extremist - Pavlo Lapshyn - trying to kill muslims, but spectacularly failing because nobody were present when his bombs went off). A further two planned attacks never happend (one involved a plan to bomb an EDL rally, but the would-be terrorists arrived to late and left without doing anything; one involved plans that were never attempted set into life at the time the people in question were arrested). The calibre of would-be terrorists in the UK thankfully seem to be rather low.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    As of last year ten people in total had been subjected to the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures that was used to confiscate Kermani's laptop[1]. I guess that's now up to at least eleven, but it's a number low enough to believe the majority of people subjected to them actually were very closely linked with planned acts of terrorism. British would-be terrorists are as you point out, not spectacularly effective, but did manage to kill fifty people in a single set of rather more indiscriminate attacks a decade ago plus some relatively minor attempts since then. So we have two extremely infrequent occurrences, but on the whole I'd consider the police - however unwise their actions were in this instance - to be somewhat less likely to target me than bombers, as well as my fate at the hands of the former more likely to be favourable even if I was operating at the cutting edge of journalism. [1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terrorism-prevention-and-investigation-measures-in-2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terrorism-prevent...
- ionised 11y ago
  Not at all.
wfunction 11y ago
Maybe, but at that point does your brain think in terms of probabilities and expected values anymore (if it ever did)? For example, when you're comparing prices at a store, you might be so rational that you perfectly compute the expected payoff for each product and choose the optimal one. But does your brain work the same way when deciding whether to steal the product too? If the expected payoff for that was higher, would you just go ahead and steal it? Don't you think people might not think the same way about the more common cases and the less common cases?
- steckerbrett 11y ago
  I often find myself doing it to the point of ridiculousness, there's a 0.01% chance you have one of your organs flipped horizontally. Statistically a lot of people in this forum have their heart on the wrong side of their body or a non-standard kidney.