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Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration. Also these areas aren't cheap and Switzerland has a r

Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration. Also these areas aren't cheap and Switzerland has a reputation of being pretty closed to outsiders. London obviously has terrorism problems also, but none of the places you mention come close to it in terms of global repute.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration. In 2017, 14 injured and 3 dead due to terrorists according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_France#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... In contrast, 329 people were killed on French roads in June 2017 (3469 killed in 2016 total) (https://www.thelocal.fr/20170724/france-road-deaths-in-june-up-154-percent-on-previous-year https://www.thelocal.fr/20170724/france-road-deaths-in-june-...) Your risk assessment is v.poor.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  Not just poor but absent entirely more likely. Or rather based entirely on the sentiment of popular news media. I watch the BBC sometimes and they make it seem as though if you visited India you'd get raped as soon as you exit the airport. If you visited the USA you wouldn't make it out of the airport, shot dead at the baggage claim. If you visit Brazil, you'd dance around carnival style. When based on violent crime stats from these places, the first two are orders of magnitude safer than South America. With the terrorism stuff, it's just weird, as long as it wasn't a middle eastern looking person doing the killing, it's not something to be worried about even if more people were killed.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  2015 and 2016 in France averaged at over about 120 people killed in terrorist attacks per year. That's of course less than people killed in traffic, but it's still an extra threat to you that is (can be) constantly on your mind.
  - zelos 9y ago
    The absolute murder count in France is 10 times terrorism figure per year. The murder rate is less than a third that in the US and twice that in Germany. Are these really levels of threat that people worry about.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      I'm guessing a lot of murders go down among gangsters and within bad neighborhoods. Terrorism, on the other hand, deliberately targets places where middle class (and tourists) congregate.
      - Boothroid 9y ago
        Exactly, all you have to do is read about what really went down in the Bataclan, and which the French government tried to suppress. Only for those with a strong stomach.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      As I've said below, do you know what really happened in the Bataclan? If so you seem remarkably blithe.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > 2015 and 2016 in France averaged at over about 120 people killed in terrorist attacks per year. In the entire rest of the 21st century (2000-14, 2017), the total was 25 killed. 1980-99 only had 86 killed. Sure, you can pick the two single worst years to try and make your case but it's intellectually dishonest.
jcelerier 9y ago
> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration as a french, this is so overblown. You've got much more chance getting shot in the US than in France. Recent stats give 7800 murders in the US (only by gunshot!) since the beginning of the year, vs 729 overall murders in France: * https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1416-meurtres-par-armes-a-feu-aux-etats-unis.html https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1416-meurtres-par-a... * https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1201-homicides-commis-en-france.html https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1201-homicides-comm...
- s3nnyy 9y ago
  I will give an alternative explanation why people fear terrorism: Falling from a ladder also kills more people than terrorism, right, but this is not what people are afraid of. Watch this to understand that we're talking about two different distributions: https://youtu.be/9dKiLclupUM?t=367 https://youtu.be/9dKiLclupUM?t=367 Terrorism SUDDENLY increases the odds of you being killed by it. And that is what - rightfully - scares people. Example: Before 9/11 the chances of being killed by terrorism was let's say 0.000000.....1%. After 9/11 the chance SUDDENLY increased a hundredfold. That change in probability never ever happened in the distributions of car-accidents, being shot in the US or falling ladders.
phaemon 9y ago
If you're scared of mass immigration, you're going to be terrified by London...
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I don't live in London, and fwiw I think the capital illustrates well the failure of multiculturalism in the UK - increasing ghettoisation and insularity of immigrant communities, to the point where some live for decades in the UK without learning English. Is this desirable? I would argue it's a recipe for disaster, and in HN style, here's some directly relevant evidence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo... I'm quite happy living in the country - little chance of getting enriched by a truck of peace out here, fingers crossed.
perlgeek 9y ago
> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration Let me cite some numbers: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-0 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... "According to estimates from the 2013 ACS, the U.S. immigrant population stood at more than 41.3 million, or 13 percent, of the total U.S. population of 316.1 million. Between 2012 and 2013, the foreign-born population increased by about 523,000, or 1.3 percent." According to https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/11/germany-280000-new-migrants-last-year-far-lower-than-2015/96436502/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/11/germany... the "mass immigration" to Germany in 2015 was about 890k, which with a baseline population of about 82 Million is less than 1.1%. And that was the peak, and has radically declined since then. I don't have any numbers present right now, but I'm pretty certain that mass shootings in the USA have a higher death toll per capita than terrorism in western Europe. Update: According to [1] the US has 30 death per 10k population per year from mass shootings. [2] finds 22 death from terrorism in Germany in 2016 noteworthy high, which equates to ... well, you don't even have to do the math to see how much lower it is. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604 [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4052696/Germany-s-year-hell-country-rocked-seven-terror-attacks-leaving-22-dead.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4052696/Germany-s-ye...
- meric 9y ago
  You are comparing increase in total population to increase in foreign born population. If you convert both to use the same terms, one number is more than 6 times bigger than the other.
s3nnyy 9y ago
Why do you think Switzerland is very close to outsiders? 25% of people living in Zurich don't have a Swiss passport. It is actually the most international city in Europe (everybody thinks it's London but it's not). If you have an EU-passport, you can just move here and start looking for a job. If you can code, you can shoot me an email, and I can try to help. (I run coderfit.com, a tech-recruiting agency in Zurich)
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I'm going on what a mate said - she went out with a Swiss guy for years and said they weren't very accepting. Perhaps that's just the countryside though. Kind offer, trapped with a mortgage for the moment.

zimpenfish 9y ago

> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration. In 2017, 14 injured and 3 dead due to terrorists according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_France#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in... In contrast, 329 people were killed on French roads in June 2017 (3469 killed in 2016 total) (https://www.thelocal.fr/20170724/france-road-deaths-in-june-up-154-percent-on-previous-year https://www.thelocal.fr/20170724/france-road-deaths-in-june-...) Your risk assessment is v.poor.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
Not just poor but absent entirely more likely. Or rather based entirely on the sentiment of popular news media. I watch the BBC sometimes and they make it seem as though if you visited India you'd get raped as soon as you exit the airport. If you visited the USA you wouldn't make it out of the airport, shot dead at the baggage claim. If you visit Brazil, you'd dance around carnival style. When based on violent crime stats from these places, the first two are orders of magnitude safer than South America. With the terrorism stuff, it's just weird, as long as it wasn't a middle eastern looking person doing the killing, it's not something to be worried about even if more people were killed.
taway_1212 9y ago
2015 and 2016 in France averaged at over about 120 people killed in terrorist attacks per year. That's of course less than people killed in traffic, but it's still an extra threat to you that is (can be) constantly on your mind.
- zelos 9y ago
  The absolute murder count in France is 10 times terrorism figure per year. The murder rate is less than a third that in the US and twice that in Germany. Are these really levels of threat that people worry about.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    I'm guessing a lot of murders go down among gangsters and within bad neighborhoods. Terrorism, on the other hand, deliberately targets places where middle class (and tourists) congregate.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      Exactly, all you have to do is read about what really went down in the Bataclan, and which the French government tried to suppress. Only for those with a strong stomach.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    As I've said below, do you know what really happened in the Bataclan? If so you seem remarkably blithe.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > 2015 and 2016 in France averaged at over about 120 people killed in terrorist attacks per year. In the entire rest of the 21st century (2000-14, 2017), the total was 25 killed. 1980-99 only had 86 killed. Sure, you can pick the two single worst years to try and make your case but it's intellectually dishonest.

jcelerier 9y ago

> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration as a french, this is so overblown. You've got much more chance getting shot in the US than in France. Recent stats give 7800 murders in the US (only by gunshot!) since the beginning of the year, vs 729 overall murders in France: * https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1416-meurtres-par-armes-a-feu-aux-etats-unis.html https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1416-meurtres-par-a... * https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1201-homicides-commis-en-france.html https://www.planetoscope.com/Criminalite/1201-homicides-comm...

s3nnyy 9y ago
I will give an alternative explanation why people fear terrorism: Falling from a ladder also kills more people than terrorism, right, but this is not what people are afraid of. Watch this to understand that we're talking about two different distributions: https://youtu.be/9dKiLclupUM?t=367 https://youtu.be/9dKiLclupUM?t=367 Terrorism SUDDENLY increases the odds of you being killed by it. And that is what - rightfully - scares people. Example: Before 9/11 the chances of being killed by terrorism was let's say 0.000000.....1%. After 9/11 the chance SUDDENLY increased a hundredfold. That change in probability never ever happened in the distributions of car-accidents, being shot in the US or falling ladders.

phaemon 9y ago

If you're scared of mass immigration, you're going to be terrified by London...

Boothroid 9y ago
I don't live in London, and fwiw I think the capital illustrates well the failure of multiculturalism in the UK - increasing ghettoisation and insularity of immigrant communities, to the point where some live for decades in the UK without learning English. Is this desirable? I would argue it's a recipe for disaster, and in HN style, here's some directly relevant evidence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo... I'm quite happy living in the country - little chance of getting enriched by a truck of peace out here, fingers crossed.

perlgeek 9y ago

> Personally I'm a bit scared of France and Germany what with recent terrorist attacks and mass immigration Let me cite some numbers: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states-0 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested... "According to estimates from the 2013 ACS, the U.S. immigrant population stood at more than 41.3 million, or 13 percent, of the total U.S. population of 316.1 million. Between 2012 and 2013, the foreign-born population increased by about 523,000, or 1.3 percent." According to https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/11/germany-280000-new-migrants-last-year-far-lower-than-2015/96436502/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/11/germany... the "mass immigration" to Germany in 2015 was about 890k, which with a baseline population of about 82 Million is less than 1.1%. And that was the peak, and has radically declined since then. I don't have any numbers present right now, but I'm pretty certain that mass shootings in the USA have a higher death toll per capita than terrorism in western Europe. Update: According to [1] the US has 30 death per 10k population per year from mass shootings. [2] finds 22 death from terrorism in Germany in 2016 noteworthy high, which equates to ... well, you don't even have to do the math to see how much lower it is. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604 [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4052696/Germany-s-year-hell-country-rocked-seven-terror-attacks-leaving-22-dead.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4052696/Germany-s-ye...

meric 9y ago
You are comparing increase in total population to increase in foreign born population. If you convert both to use the same terms, one number is more than 6 times bigger than the other.

s3nnyy 9y ago

Why do you think Switzerland is very close to outsiders? 25% of people living in Zurich don't have a Swiss passport. It is actually the most international city in Europe (everybody thinks it's London but it's not). If you have an EU-passport, you can just move here and start looking for a job. If you can code, you can shoot me an email, and I can try to help. (I run coderfit.com, a tech-recruiting agency in Zurich)

Boothroid 9y ago
I'm going on what a mate said - she went out with a Swiss guy for years and said they weren't very accepting. Perhaps that's just the countryside though. Kind offer, trapped with a mortgage for the moment.