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And it's still true advice. What you're feeling now is just fear and panic. This is the entire point of a terrorist attack: it's psychological warfare. Make peo
by randommodnar 11y ago
And it's still true advice. What you're feeling now is just fear and panic. This is the entire point of a terrorist attack: it's psychological warfare. Make people think they are in grave, imminent danger, to coerce them into some action.
If you were actually more likely to die in a terrorist attack than being shot by a toddler in the USA, it probably wouldn't be a terrorist attack, it'd be something more like... an actual war.
- sergiotapia 11y agoPeople in stretchers today would disagree with you.
- randommodnar 11y agoThis is the fear talking. An understandably emotional argument. The people in stretchers dying from all the more common causes of death than terrorism, like being accidentally shot, would like to disagree with you.
- pram 11y agoTerrorists don't kill people, guns do
- randommodnar 11y agoTerrorists kill very few people. People driving cars kill far more people. 9 people are killed in America every day related to distracted driving. In four days distracted and texting Americans kill more people than terrorists did in Belgium. Let's have an uproar about that.
- jabgrabdthrow 11y agoWhat? They would disagree that the point of terrorism is psychological warfare? You could just say "too soon", no need for emotional arguments.
- throwaway21816 11y agoIm sure statistics helped the people who died today
- randommodnar 11y agoSeriously? That's what you come up with? Statistics didn't help them any less than it helps the people accidentally killed by firearms in the US. Those people are dead too. And there are more of them. And it's just as senseless. Honestly wtf.
- throwaway21816 11y agoUsing gun deaths in the united states as against global terrorism is a flawed comparison. The US has more gun deaths than the united kingdom but it also has more guns and more people. When you expand the scope of terrorism related deaths to the entire world of course it is low, nobody in iceland has to worry about being bombed but someone in brussles, turkey, iraq or syria might disagree. I will take accidental gun deaths in the US over terrorism any day. I invite anyone on HN to go stand in northern iraq and I will stand at a shooting range all day.
- johncolanduoni 11y agoYou're right, accidental gun deaths are a bad and overly politically charged example to make the (valid) point about risk assessment. Car accidents are a much better example that are still far more likely to kill you in most nations, including Brussels (I'm not sure about Syria and Iraq, but I suspect there you are probably right).
- randommodnar 11y agoYour own comparison is flawed. Standing in northern Iraq vs standing at a shooting range? What the fuck is this? Accidental gun deaths don't just happen at shooting ranges. It's children shooting their friends or parents at home. It's bystanders in gang violence. Take any other statistic for accidental or otherwise entirely preventable deaths. People get into a fucking panic and gloss over all kinds of much more important problems because TERRORISM. This is the whole point of terrorism! To cause FEAR and PANIC in order to force us to take some political action. I'm more worried about whether I'll make it home without getting killed on the highway! Howabout airline crashes? 34 people were bombed in Brussels? Guess what, 136 people died in airline crashes last year, and ~650 the year before! Are we going into a fucking panic about that? Of course the people who just got bombed will disagree... but they will have an entirely biased opinion that has absolutely no relevance to the overall reality. Why the heck do people keep repeating this line? Go ask somebody who was hit by lightning if we should be worried about getting hit by lightning! It's irrelevant!