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I never get this line of argument. Yes the probability of getting killed by a vehicle is perhaps higher based on Stats but this does not mean that we should not

I never get this line of argument. Yes the probability of getting killed by a vehicle is perhaps higher based on Stats but this does not mean that we should not pay a bit extra attention to these travel advisories, right ? Why does it have to be a zero sum thing ?

cjslep 11y ago
It is similar to spending 90% of a developers time optimizing code that only takes 5% of total time, and most of it is external API calls he or she can do nothing about. Still, in the case of human life, I have nothing against trying everything to make people aware. Its just the fearmongering bit I dislike. If I am going to spend a significant amount of time extending my life, I'm going to focus on the big things that prevent an early demise: exercise, diet, and having meaningful relationships.
dstyrb 11y ago
Agree, it's about possible reduction of harm. A notice that cars crash is not going to stop people from using cars. A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  There's also the relative-to-baseline nature. Foreign travel has always had risk; this alert declares the risks are temporarily higher. If the gov't said "For the next week, car travel will have heightened risk", people might take notice.
  - e12e 11y ago
    Actually, given the time of year, I'm guessing car travel will have heightened risk for next week. Due to snow/freezing in places. The risk (and change in risk) is probably much greater than this warning about "dangerous evil people in the foreign lands".
- morgante 11y ago
  > A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people. The problem is that foreign travel is safe and all this fear-mongering is unjustified. 99% of people who travel to a foreign country are completely safe. Saying anything to the contrary is pure fear-mongering.
  - codyb 11y ago
    It has to be higher than that. Probably 99.9, maybe 99.99%. Possibly greater. But yea.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - frandroid 11y ago
    And it's a much higher number than 99%. This page[0] reports 68M exits in 2014... How many Americans have died travelling abroad due to terrorism in 2014? 5? 50? 500? [0]: http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2014-O-001/index.html http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2014-O-001/index.html
  - krapp 11y ago
    On the other hand, if Daesh does kill a lot of Americans overseas anytime soon, it becomes a Republican stalking horse alongside Benghazi. I think it's less fear-mongering than election-season politics.
- icanhackit 11y ago
  A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people. Which is silly when they're more likely to die in a crash on the way to the airport than during flight or while abroad. It's completely illogical and actually gives weight to the actions of terrorists.
- corysama 11y ago
  Because it will deter a disproportionate number of people. This isn't a binary situation. Proportionality matters. If the World Health Organization issued a world-wide alert that going outside in the month of May 2016 will have an increased risk of death from bees, you might be annoyed to have to dig through obscure, possibly unpublished analyses to find that the increased risk was +0.001% due to projected shifts in the bee population relative to 2015. That straw-man example of announcing nearly nothing would probably be in practice more statistically relevant to people's lives than this one. Yet, here we are discussing how "foreign travel is not safe" with no information we can use to determine how much anyone should actually care.
x1798DE 11y ago
The point is you don't worry at all about those things (you would never let it affect your trip), so there is no reason to worry about these comparatively minor risks. It's like issuing an advisory about getting papercuts filling out paperwork in a war zone. No one is so marginal that it should make a difference.
vkou 11y ago
When the travel advisory includes the entire world (With the odd exception of the continental US - I guess the terrorists will never strike at home!), and the risk is so minuscule, it is indeed worse then useless.
- morgante 11y ago
  > With the odd exception of the continental US - I guess the terrorists will never strike at home! It's not that the travel advisory thinks the risk is actually lower in the US, it's that the internal US security is outside the purview of the state department.
fredkbloggs 11y ago
It's not "perhaps higher", it is orders of magnitude higher. It's not even meaningful to talk about the two risks side by side, because side by side one of them is so small as to be utterly irrelevant. Paying attention to this "advisory" means what, exactly? It doesn't say anything. It doesn't provide any information at all. It's just pointless fearmongering by the very people who have the most to gain by having you the citizenry be vaguely afraid of ill-defined threats who might or might not be trying to harm you in unspecified ways at unknown times at any location anywhere. So the only thing that paying attention to it does is make you afraid, and therefore perhaps more likely to approve of giving the federal government (who wrote this worthless piece of trash) yet more unconstitutional power over your life. It cannot possibly help you in any way, because it doesn't tell you anything. The best thing to do is demand the impeachment and removal from office of everyone responsible for this idiocy, and then vote out of office every single politician who supports, endorses, echoes, funds, or in any way permitted, encouraged, or enabled it. Every last one. That may not make you any less likely to be killed or injured by a criminal (of some kind, somewhere, sometime, maybe), but at least it will end the pointless asinine fearmongering that does zilch for public safety.
icanhackit 11y ago
I never get this line of argument. Yes the probability of getting killed by a vehicle is perhaps higher based on Stats Then you do get it. But because terrorism is scary it gets more mind-share than mundane but more deadly things like driving.
- e12e 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure heatstroke is more dangerous than terrorism too.
detroitcoder 11y ago
I make this type of argument pretty often and it is more to counteract the psychological impact of terrorism than anything else. We should feel that our safety is in jeopardy only relative to the likelihood of a given threat. Any more so only empowers the the people who are threatening us.

cjslep 11y ago

It is similar to spending 90% of a developers time optimizing code that only takes 5% of total time, and most of it is external API calls he or she can do nothing about. Still, in the case of human life, I have nothing against trying everything to make people aware. Its just the fearmongering bit I dislike. If I am going to spend a significant amount of time extending my life, I'm going to focus on the big things that prevent an early demise: exercise, diet, and having meaningful relationships.

dstyrb 11y ago

Agree, it's about possible reduction of harm. A notice that cars crash is not going to stop people from using cars. A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people.

sliverstorm 11y ago
There's also the relative-to-baseline nature. Foreign travel has always had risk; this alert declares the risks are temporarily higher. If the gov't said "For the next week, car travel will have heightened risk", people might take notice.
- e12e 11y ago
  Actually, given the time of year, I'm guessing car travel will have heightened risk for next week. Due to snow/freezing in places. The risk (and change in risk) is probably much greater than this warning about "dangerous evil people in the foreign lands".
morgante 11y ago
> A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people. The problem is that foreign travel is safe and all this fear-mongering is unjustified. 99% of people who travel to a foreign country are completely safe. Saying anything to the contrary is pure fear-mongering.
- codyb 11y ago
  It has to be higher than that. Probably 99.9, maybe 99.99%. Possibly greater. But yea.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- frandroid 11y ago
  And it's a much higher number than 99%. This page[0] reports 68M exits in 2014... How many Americans have died travelling abroad due to terrorism in 2014? 5? 50? 500? [0]: http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2014-O-001/index.html http://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2014-O-001/index.html
- krapp 11y ago
  On the other hand, if Daesh does kill a lot of Americans overseas anytime soon, it becomes a Republican stalking horse alongside Benghazi. I think it's less fear-mongering than election-season politics.
icanhackit 11y ago
A notice that foreign travel is not safe will deter some people. Which is silly when they're more likely to die in a crash on the way to the airport than during flight or while abroad. It's completely illogical and actually gives weight to the actions of terrorists.
corysama 11y ago
Because it will deter a disproportionate number of people. This isn't a binary situation. Proportionality matters. If the World Health Organization issued a world-wide alert that going outside in the month of May 2016 will have an increased risk of death from bees, you might be annoyed to have to dig through obscure, possibly unpublished analyses to find that the increased risk was +0.001% due to projected shifts in the bee population relative to 2015. That straw-man example of announcing nearly nothing would probably be in practice more statistically relevant to people's lives than this one. Yet, here we are discussing how "foreign travel is not safe" with no information we can use to determine how much anyone should actually care.

x1798DE 11y ago

The point is you don't worry at all about those things (you would never let it affect your trip), so there is no reason to worry about these comparatively minor risks. It's like issuing an advisory about getting papercuts filling out paperwork in a war zone. No one is so marginal that it should make a difference.

vkou 11y ago

When the travel advisory includes the entire world (With the odd exception of the continental US - I guess the terrorists will never strike at home!), and the risk is so minuscule, it is indeed worse then useless.

morgante 11y ago
> With the odd exception of the continental US - I guess the terrorists will never strike at home! It's not that the travel advisory thinks the risk is actually lower in the US, it's that the internal US security is outside the purview of the state department.

fredkbloggs 11y ago

It's not "perhaps higher", it is orders of magnitude higher. It's not even meaningful to talk about the two risks side by side, because side by side one of them is so small as to be utterly irrelevant. Paying attention to this "advisory" means what, exactly? It doesn't say anything. It doesn't provide any information at all. It's just pointless fearmongering by the very people who have the most to gain by having you the citizenry be vaguely afraid of ill-defined threats who might or might not be trying to harm you in unspecified ways at unknown times at any location anywhere. So the only thing that paying attention to it does is make you afraid, and therefore perhaps more likely to approve of giving the federal government (who wrote this worthless piece of trash) yet more unconstitutional power over your life. It cannot possibly help you in any way, because it doesn't tell you anything. The best thing to do is demand the impeachment and removal from office of everyone responsible for this idiocy, and then vote out of office every single politician who supports, endorses, echoes, funds, or in any way permitted, encouraged, or enabled it. Every last one. That may not make you any less likely to be killed or injured by a criminal (of some kind, somewhere, sometime, maybe), but at least it will end the pointless asinine fearmongering that does zilch for public safety.

icanhackit 11y ago

I never get this line of argument. Yes the probability of getting killed by a vehicle is perhaps higher based on Stats Then you do get it. But because terrorism is scary it gets more mind-share than mundane but more deadly things like driving.

e12e 11y ago
I'm pretty sure heatstroke is more dangerous than terrorism too.

detroitcoder 11y ago

I make this type of argument pretty often and it is more to counteract the psychological impact of terrorism than anything else. We should feel that our safety is in jeopardy only relative to the likelihood of a given threat. Any more so only empowers the the people who are threatening us.