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I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost littl

I find crazy the amount of resources we deploy to fight something: - that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. - cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. - has little long term consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions; - is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of policies, laws, politics and visions. But what's astonishing me the most is the fact that a lot of people don't see this and just freak out, despite that almost all of them have never been in direct contact with it or suffer direct consequences from it.

ross-life 11y ago
Because (it feels) like it's not possible to properly debate the subject in public. As a little/normal person the answer is always the same: "But but what if it was your mother/girlfriend/daughter that died in the attack?!". These are the same people that probably have been into contact with someone who has directly dealt with the consequences of police corruption, yet won't ever support "making the police's job harder". Once an attack "gets through", which will always happen eventually, anyone that didn't support the PersonalRights-Devouring Anti-Terrorist Bill will get crucified by the press and their opponents. Most people don't appear to care about numbers, or facts or evidence. They only seem to care about pushing their ideology (normally authoritarianism) that "makes them feel safe", rights and freedoms be damned (which is why I can never take the US's obsession with "rights and freedoms" seriously).
- sametmax 11y ago
  Yes but why do we fail to convince ? What can we do to help people not panicking ?
  - nxzero 11y ago
    You can't, let it go.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    If panic is to be averted, the leadership of the West has to show that they take the problem seriously. As long as people are tiptoeing around even calling the problem what it is, hard-line sentiment will grow. Tony Blair had some good thoughts on this lately: ""The centre has become flabby and unwilling to take people on. We concede far too much. There's this idea that you're part of an elite if you think in terms of respectful tolerance towards other people. It's ridiculous [...] You have to give a real solution and not one which is populist but false. If you don't give a solution, and you leave people with a choice between what I would call a bit of flabby liberalism and the hardline, they'll take the hardline I'm afraid." Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35862598 http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35862598
    - GordonS 11y ago
      > Tony Blair had some good thoughts on this lately Sorry, but Tony Blair is a war criminal - why on earth would anyone care what he has to say?
krzrak 11y ago
It's because this "something" is attractive for media, causes lot more fear than "boring" stuff like car crashes or diseases and, of course, can be politically exploited.
marcoperaza 11y ago
>that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. has little long terme consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions 9/11 was an extra 20% on top of US murders in 2001. The Paris attacks also clock in at an extra 20% of the murder rate in France. Larger versions of sophisticated ambushes like the ones in Paris or Mumbai could very conceivably run up death tolls in the thousands. These people would kill millions of us if they could, so why exactly should we let down our guard? Not to mention that murder is not the totality of terrorism's effects. When people critical of Islam are repeatedly targeted by terrorists, we all lose our freedom to speak our minds. We live in societies almost completely free of political violence, which has allowed an amazing flourishing of industry, technology, and culture. Terrorism is a huge threat to that. Europe in particular has a serious problem on their hands, given how many European-born Muslims are alienated from and hostile to Western society. >is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of policies, laws, politics and visions. Huh? Isn't this true for any societal issue?
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  There's a difference between "letting down your guard" and being selective about the policies you're willing to adopt to effectively fight terrorism. Unless you're willing to defend the patriot act, wars on terror, the parts of the TSA that are obviously just security theater, police militarization, etc as reasonable, then you have to accept that we overreacted. Those parts of our reaction are emphatically not part of our "guard," and getting rid of them is not in any way lowering our guard. Quite the opposite due to their propensity for misuse.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    I agree with some of what you're saying, and there's a whole separate debate to be had there. Today, in this thread, I'm only interested in refuting this idea that terrorism is an overblown threat. It absolutely is not. If anything, the threat is being understated by the current administration in the US, using arguments along the same lines as sametmax's.
rayiner 11y ago
People don't view the impact of death merely in terms of body count. If we did, we wouldn't care about serial killers or child abductions or people shot by police. We devote major resources to fighting terrorism not because of the body count, but because we feel it deeply unjust to allow terrorists to kill innocent people to make a political point, especially when that political point is an attack on fundamental precepts of our society. Terrorism isn't just an attack on people; it's intended to be an attack on our institutions and our society.
- nkozyra 11y ago
  One other difference - at least in terms of perception - is that the threats you listed are relatively static over time. Terrorism is a movement that involves recruitment and contains inherent plans to expand. To be the first to invoke Godwin's here, the Nazis did not statistically represent a significant daily threat to health and safety in 1928, either. Looking at present body counts as a gauge for what's worth "freaking out" about seems incomplete.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Exactly, terrorism is a high-variance event and we can't extrapolate that future violence will resemble current violence. A single catastrophic attack, like a nuke in a city, makes everything that happened before irrelevant. 9/11 itself was a huge escalation, the most deadly terrorist attack in history by far. Future death tolls are limited only by the capabilities of the terrorists and our ability to stop them. They would kill millions of us if they could.
    - GordonS 11y ago
      > Future death tolls are limited only by the capabilities of the terrorists and our ability to stop them. They would kill millions of us if they could This is rather sensationalist. There are infinite ways that anyone with a bit of intelligence could hurt or kill large numbers of people with small arms, explosives, chemicals, vehicles etc - and yet we see time and time again that terrorists usually display extreme incompetence (e.g. underpants bomber). The few terrorists that there are, just aren't very good at it. The idea of terrorists getting hold of a nuke and actually being able to use it effectively is, frankly, ridiculous.
seivan 11y ago
You should tell that to women and kids who were hit by chemical bombs from British Muslims in Rojava.
- dang 11y ago
  Most of your posts continue to be political rants despite our asking you more than once not to do this. If you keep doing it, we're going to ban your account.
  - seivan 11y ago
    That happene when the likes of you become mods. I went back far enough to check. But hey, don't let that make you wonder.
    - dang 11y ago
      I'm concluding that you haven't any interest in not abusing HN, so your account is banned. Your view of how HN moderation has changed is quite wrong. PG would have banned you many times over (and IIRC actually did).
leaveyou 11y ago
Yeah, soon we will be like "God forbid if we run out of terrorists.." because peace could really ruin our economy.
gerbilly 11y ago
I think humans have a cognitive bias that makes them fear risks more if they perceive "ill will" behind it. A natural disaster is scary and can kill a lot of people, but to most people it feels more impersonal. When someone is targeting people directly (serial killers, murderers, terrorists) it feels scarier because there is an intention to harm. This bias is stronger that probability. Even if someone lived near a volcano that had a 5% chance of killing you every year, I bet that same person would be more scared of a terror attack that had .01% chance of killing you per year. This is reflected in our legal institutions. If you kill a person accidentally, even through neglect, that is involuntary manslaughter, but if you kill deliberately, that is murder.
kgilpin 11y ago
I live in Boston. I had friends that were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit, then terrorists blew up our marathon and my kids had to stay inside all day during the ensuing manhunt. So that's twice I have been personally affected, and I am really just an ordinary citizen.

ross-life 11y ago

Because (it feels) like it's not possible to properly debate the subject in public. As a little/normal person the answer is always the same: "But but what if it was your mother/girlfriend/daughter that died in the attack?!". These are the same people that probably have been into contact with someone who has directly dealt with the consequences of police corruption, yet won't ever support "making the police's job harder". Once an attack "gets through", which will always happen eventually, anyone that didn't support the PersonalRights-Devouring Anti-Terrorist Bill will get crucified by the press and their opponents. Most people don't appear to care about numbers, or facts or evidence. They only seem to care about pushing their ideology (normally authoritarianism) that "makes them feel safe", rights and freedoms be damned (which is why I can never take the US's obsession with "rights and freedoms" seriously).

sametmax 11y ago
Yes but why do we fail to convince ? What can we do to help people not panicking ?
- nxzero 11y ago
  You can't, let it go.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  If panic is to be averted, the leadership of the West has to show that they take the problem seriously. As long as people are tiptoeing around even calling the problem what it is, hard-line sentiment will grow. Tony Blair had some good thoughts on this lately: ""The centre has become flabby and unwilling to take people on. We concede far too much. There's this idea that you're part of an elite if you think in terms of respectful tolerance towards other people. It's ridiculous [...] You have to give a real solution and not one which is populist but false. If you don't give a solution, and you leave people with a choice between what I would call a bit of flabby liberalism and the hardline, they'll take the hardline I'm afraid." Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35862598 http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35862598
  - GordonS 11y ago
    > Tony Blair had some good thoughts on this lately Sorry, but Tony Blair is a war criminal - why on earth would anyone care what he has to say?

krzrak 11y ago

It's because this "something" is attractive for media, causes lot more fear than "boring" stuff like car crashes or diseases and, of course, can be politically exploited.

marcoperaza 11y ago

>that causes little deaths compared to most diseases or social issues. cost little compared to most economical or educational issues. has little long terme consequences on the country compared to internal and external policies, laws, politics and visions 9/11 was an extra 20% on top of US murders in 2001. The Paris attacks also clock in at an extra 20% of the murder rate in France. Larger versions of sophisticated ambushes like the ones in Paris or Mumbai could very conceivably run up death tolls in the thousands. These people would kill millions of us if they could, so why exactly should we let down our guard? Not to mention that murder is not the totality of terrorism's effects. When people critical of Islam are repeatedly targeted by terrorists, we all lose our freedom to speak our minds. We live in societies almost completely free of political violence, which has allowed an amazing flourishing of industry, technology, and culture. Terrorism is a huge threat to that. Europe in particular has a serious problem on their hands, given how many European-born Muslims are alienated from and hostile to Western society. >is a direct consequence of social, economical and educational issues and a by product of policies, laws, politics and visions. Huh? Isn't this true for any societal issue?

jjoonathan 11y ago
There's a difference between "letting down your guard" and being selective about the policies you're willing to adopt to effectively fight terrorism. Unless you're willing to defend the patriot act, wars on terror, the parts of the TSA that are obviously just security theater, police militarization, etc as reasonable, then you have to accept that we overreacted. Those parts of our reaction are emphatically not part of our "guard," and getting rid of them is not in any way lowering our guard. Quite the opposite due to their propensity for misuse.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  I agree with some of what you're saying, and there's a whole separate debate to be had there. Today, in this thread, I'm only interested in refuting this idea that terrorism is an overblown threat. It absolutely is not. If anything, the threat is being understated by the current administration in the US, using arguments along the same lines as sametmax's.

rayiner 11y ago

People don't view the impact of death merely in terms of body count. If we did, we wouldn't care about serial killers or child abductions or people shot by police. We devote major resources to fighting terrorism not because of the body count, but because we feel it deeply unjust to allow terrorists to kill innocent people to make a political point, especially when that political point is an attack on fundamental precepts of our society. Terrorism isn't just an attack on people; it's intended to be an attack on our institutions and our society.

nkozyra 11y ago
One other difference - at least in terms of perception - is that the threats you listed are relatively static over time. Terrorism is a movement that involves recruitment and contains inherent plans to expand. To be the first to invoke Godwin's here, the Nazis did not statistically represent a significant daily threat to health and safety in 1928, either. Looking at present body counts as a gauge for what's worth "freaking out" about seems incomplete.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Exactly, terrorism is a high-variance event and we can't extrapolate that future violence will resemble current violence. A single catastrophic attack, like a nuke in a city, makes everything that happened before irrelevant. 9/11 itself was a huge escalation, the most deadly terrorist attack in history by far. Future death tolls are limited only by the capabilities of the terrorists and our ability to stop them. They would kill millions of us if they could.
  - GordonS 11y ago
    > Future death tolls are limited only by the capabilities of the terrorists and our ability to stop them. They would kill millions of us if they could This is rather sensationalist. There are infinite ways that anyone with a bit of intelligence could hurt or kill large numbers of people with small arms, explosives, chemicals, vehicles etc - and yet we see time and time again that terrorists usually display extreme incompetence (e.g. underpants bomber). The few terrorists that there are, just aren't very good at it. The idea of terrorists getting hold of a nuke and actually being able to use it effectively is, frankly, ridiculous.

seivan 11y ago

You should tell that to women and kids who were hit by chemical bombs from British Muslims in Rojava.

dang 11y ago
Most of your posts continue to be political rants despite our asking you more than once not to do this. If you keep doing it, we're going to ban your account.
- seivan 11y ago
  That happene when the likes of you become mods. I went back far enough to check. But hey, don't let that make you wonder.
  - dang 11y ago
    I'm concluding that you haven't any interest in not abusing HN, so your account is banned. Your view of how HN moderation has changed is quite wrong. PG would have banned you many times over (and IIRC actually did).

leaveyou 11y ago

Yeah, soon we will be like "God forbid if we run out of terrorists.." because peace could really ruin our economy.

gerbilly 11y ago

I think humans have a cognitive bias that makes them fear risks more if they perceive "ill will" behind it. A natural disaster is scary and can kill a lot of people, but to most people it feels more impersonal. When someone is targeting people directly (serial killers, murderers, terrorists) it feels scarier because there is an intention to harm. This bias is stronger that probability. Even if someone lived near a volcano that had a 5% chance of killing you every year, I bet that same person would be more scared of a terror attack that had .01% chance of killing you per year. This is reflected in our legal institutions. If you kill a person accidentally, even through neglect, that is involuntary manslaughter, but if you kill deliberately, that is murder.

kgilpin 11y ago

I live in Boston. I had friends that were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit, then terrorists blew up our marathon and my kids had to stay inside all day during the ensuing manhunt. So that's twice I have been personally affected, and I am really just an ordinary citizen.