5 ms·

Deaths 9/11 2,996 Deaths Covid-19 USA 621,000 207x Lack of understanding of large numbers is a flaw in the human mind we have to figure out how to fix.

techrat 5y ago
Ah yes, but Haliburton couldn't spend money on a 'war against mask wearing', so they were the true victims here. /s, of course. It's been obvious early on that the whole motive for our ratfucking of the middle east had nothing to do with the "WMDs" nor 9/11... lest we would have not gone under false pretenses, actually had gone after the country who financed the ones who flew the planes, nor remained as long as we had after Bin Laden was found. Instead we spent more money than had ever been spent before on one thing in our country's history... but on another country. That money went somewhere. Defense contractors. Meanwhile, infrastructure all across the US is derelict. Case in point, 47,000+ bridges in the US are now considered 'structurally deficient.' https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-than-47-000-structurally-deficient-bridges-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-t... Bin Laden himself said what his end goal was. > "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy," bin Laden said in a taped statement. Only the smallest sign of al-Qaida would "make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations." The article this quote was pulled from is from 2011. So, for at LEAST TEN YEARS, we knew the explicit goal was to prolong an unwinnable war in order to bleed the country dry. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-cost-of-bin-laden-3-trillion-over-15-years/238517/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-cos... Why couldn't these defense contractors be paid to bring things up to snuff here instead of pissing it away on a 'war against terror' that we had no hope to win? Bin Laden got what he wanted in the end.
runawaybottle 5y ago
Some related numbers for just Afghanistan: American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448. U.S. contractors: 3,846. Afghan national military and police: 66,000. Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144. Afghan civilians: 47,245. Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191. Aid workers: 444. Journalists: 72. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-... ——— It’s funny, over 60k Afghan police/military died, and our plan was to arm 300k of them and hope they like perpetual war against the Taliban. Yeah, I think they did a hard pass on that one and just wanted it all to stop.
- swader999 5y ago
  I think a lot of those trained had allegiances to the Taliban. Many reports of this but was ignored by higher ups.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    I think what we have here is a failure to understand population motivations. I do not want to overstate this, but it seems to be lost over the fact that it was two decades now. US was the invader here. You can train all you want, but those people are not idiots or easily swayed. They survived multiple regime changes, coups, upheavals and this is just another one of them. As insane as it sounds, in that frame of mind, Taliban is a lesser evil here compared to a foreign adversary that walks around like they own the place. Once you understand this, and by this I mean "the population does not want you here and sees you as the invader", none of this is a surprise. Next up, just wait till you hear what population of Iraq wants ( but we all know US simply cannot leave Iraq -- ever ).
- baybal2 5y ago
  That's a big undercount on the civilian, and opposing force side. If you count in excess deaths, and missing people, the count will more than double.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Regarding perpetual war, I'm not sure that was inevitable. Without massive corruption, incompetent leadership, and Russia providing weapons to the Taliban things might not have been so bleak.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Without massuve corruption life in Russia would not be bleak.
- asdff 5y ago
  They did a hard pass on that one when their commanders were embezzling their resources and they were expected to defend a nation with shoestrings and no backup or any more resources on the way. It was a suicide mission to not give up, plain and simple.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
teawrecks 5y ago
Assume it will never be fixed. What's another solution?
- nostrademons 5y ago
  Create a system where ignorance of the laws of large numbers means that you go bankrupt and have to work for someone else, thus putting the number-crunchers in charge. This is basically modern capitalism. It works, as a way of managing large numbers. Most people hate it, though, because it has a tendency of reducing humans to numbers.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "of reducing humans to numbers." Or making them slaves, exploiting children, etc. If the laws allow such
    - nostrademons 5y ago
      Same difference: "Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." -- Terry Pratchett Slaves, exploited children, etc. are just resources whose dollar value you try to maximize and whose wages you try to minimize.
      - travisgriggs 5y ago
        HN needs a +50 button for Pratchett references.
s5300 5y ago
I swear dude. I cannot understand just why it is that the average person seems to be so incapable at understanding statistics and large numbers. It's mind boggling. Ever since my freshman engineering stats class, it's like everywhere I look at where there's stupid bullshit happening, a large reason as to why the stupid bullshit is happening is because people have zero understanding of statistics and large numbers. It's always been incredibly intuitive to me as somebody schooled in the US public education system, and I wasn't even good at math until college because the school teachers were just terrible at teaching actual concepts. And like, I know that I am very much nothing special. But to too damn many people, it just seems to completely blow over their heads...
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Statistics are not intuitive, and it's the assumption that they are that leads people into error.
  - s5300 5y ago
    No, not all statistics are intuitive, definitely a reason why there's statistics, and then engineering statistics in most colleges. However, the simpler parts/beginning of either course... really do seem like they should be intuitive to anybody who made it with a D through middle school math. Basic applied ratios and such. Like the fact near 5 billion covid vaccines have been administered worldwide now and there are still people vehemently arguing about the horrible things that are going to happen to them specifically if they get a vaccine...
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      > there are still people vehemently arguing about the horrible things that are going to happen to them specifically if they get a vaccine... Can you make a steel man argument on their behalf? Or is that so preposterous that it beneath you and wouldn’t waste your time on that? Because I’m starting to wonder if people with strong opinions like yours seems to be really are any different than the true believers on “the other side”. Or if you just feel confident in your echo chamber as “unquestionably right” because you (or I) aren’t questioned. I find the more I know about a topic the less I make absolutes like the one I quoted. You can’t make legitimate arguments against the covid vaccines? Shouldn’t we all be able to?
glitchc 5y ago
It’s not the what, but the how. A terrorist attack on home turf is a slap in the face of every American. Outrage is to be expected.
- mikeodds 5y ago
  Take a look at how many people die from domestic shootings in the US
- markdown 5y ago
  Patriotism is a sickness that the world would be better without.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Is that what we want t tell all the revolutionaries around the world? Would the taleban take your words to heart?
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    I'd replace the word patriotism with jingoism. A certain amount of pride in your country seems reasonable.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  > A terrorist attack on home turf is a slap in the face of every American. Unless the terrorists are white guys angry that their choice didn't win an election. Then it's tirelessly defended.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    Or people of all colors and nations (some of them surely white guys) angry that the "white guy choice" did win the election. DC was quite boarded up [0] and it was not in fear of a Trump loose. Please don't be a racist and call the factions by what they are, not by their gender or skin color. [0] https://wjla.com/news/local/a-look-around-dc-hours-before-election-day-as-businesses-board-up-fencing-installed https://wjla.com/news/local/a-look-around-dc-hours-before-el...
randyrand 5y ago
years of expected life lost is the more important metric imo. would still be a big discrepency.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > years of expected life lost is the more important metric imo. If you start doing this, you start valuing peoples lives differently, which is a horrible thing. Going just from this, you could say that an Afghan citizen is worth about 82% of an US citizen (64 vs 78 years life expectancy) or that burning down a whole palliative care unit is less bad than shooting a 20 year old (or 16 year old Afghan). I can see where you are coming from, but this is really not a good road to go down.
  - amscanne 5y ago
    I hate to break it to you, but “quality-adjusted life years” [1] is already a standard metric for evaluating medical interventions. While the whole “death panel” thing is exaggerated, it is necessary that insurers (incl. single payer governments) have quantitative ways to evaluate different treatments. They won’t throw infinite $$ at every treat that is expected to add a tiny amount to your life. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year
bb88 5y ago
Things like 9/11 were easily played over and over again, and generated support for the afghan war in the first place. In NZ when the terrorists broadcasted the Christchurch mosque shootings on facebook, NZ took action swiftly -- banning most semiautomatic weapons. When BLM protests showed cops shooting, tasing, and running over people with patrol cars -- those images were more compelling than any story that could have been written. OTOH, Last year one nursing home in NJ had stacked up 17 bodies during a in a shed during a covid outbreak -- yet none of the gruesomeness was aired. I have not recalled seeing any videos of people falling dead due to a mass shooting in the US, other than maybe blurred out video. I'm not saying we should or should not see more graphic images, but it seems like self-censorship of the aftermath of violence or tragedy has unintended consequences.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I completely agree with that. because of HIPAA there hasn't been nearly enough media. There is more now I think a concerted effort to get testimonials of people in hospital their family dead saying they wish they got the vaccine. But it's too late. I think if we had Vietnam style video of death from the start we wouldn't have as large of a % living in alternate realities.
- asdff 5y ago
  It certainly does. Vietnam was the first war with embedded journalists showing the american people live footage of real combat. It was often gruesome. It lead to people protesting in the streets, burning draft cards, fleeing to Canada, and most of all made the Vietnam war into a political quagmire and put pressure on ending it. That sort of coverage of a conflict has noticeably never happened again. Anytime you see footage these days on the news it feels like B rolls or some stock footage of a couple solders walking around the desert or a truck driving along or some far off building exploding. The media hides the reality of war from the American public after seeing how the public has reacted in the past to this content. It's disingenuous, and you end up with kids joining thinking it will be like Call of Duty and coming back home with PTSD and no easy future due to their broken condition.
neither_color 5y ago
apples 2,996 oranges 621,000 I dont dispute your numbers at all...I just don't understand your point. They're just such vastly different situations managed by different sets of people for different reasons. The "war on terror" was excessive and over budget, but not 100% uncalled for. There WERE follow up terror attacks that happened(london bombing 2005, madrid bombing 2004, paris bataclan attack, etc) and there were some that were foiled, even if just by luck like the shoe bomber. I agree that Afghanistan went too far, too long and too expensive but what does that have to do with covid?
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Anti-terror efforts were called for. But there wasn't much overlap between what was called for and what we actually did.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    What does that have to do with covid though? Im not here to justify the war on terror Im just wondering what the basis of comparison is. Covid has affected nearly 100% of the population in almost every country either directly and indirectly, either by getting sick or not being allowed to work or shop or show their face in public. The reach of covid response has gone far beyond having to take our shoes off in airports. Is OP upset that the nobody has calculated whether it has cost trillions yet?
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      > What does that have to do with covid though? The argument is that the effort we spent in the war on terror, per motivating death, was massively greater than the effort we've spent fighting covid. > far beyond having to take our shoes off in airports That would be a valid comparison in TSA vs. covid response. This is about much more than the TSA!
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        > The argument is that the effort we spent in the war on terror, per motivating death, was massively greater than the effort we've spent fighting covid. We can't even get people to take the vaccine willingly after we made every vaccine free. When will we learn that money doesn't solve everything? It is only a sufficiently motivating factor to greedy people. Religiously motivated people are explicitly raised to be weary of money (you cannot serve two masters: choose God or mammon, where mammon is roughly translated as money, greed, or material wealth) -------------- We can't spend money to grow the Afghan army, because they weren't motivated by money. We can't spend more money to fight COVID19, because the anti-vaxxers aren't motivated by money either. Our vaccines are sitting in storage and expiring. We designed and built the vaccines in record time. I'm not entirely sure how else we could add money to this system and expect any benefits with regards to COVID19. Student nurses are regularly helping out in hospitals before they're even graduated, we're pulling retired doctors/nurses out of retirement to help fill hospitals. Etc. etc. Money isn't the solution anymore. We've spent as much as we're able. The remaining problems that face us are entirely independent of money. ---------- The only consistent thing between Afghanistan and COVID19 is that Americans have overspent money hoping that overspending will fix everything.
supperburg 5y ago
Can you provide a source for COVID deaths? Is there a source that gives the number of deaths that were caused by COVID and nothing else? They say that anyone who died and tested positive for the presence of COVID was considered a COVID death even if they got hit by a bus for example. And many elderly people died from it who were on the brink of death and were just as likely to die from some other minor insult. I wonder how many life hours were lost, I think that might be a more accurate metric. Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  >Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares. Many people do care about this and advocate for less car infrastructure, safer streets, better walkability and better public transport. Car centric design was the worst mistake of the last few decades.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    There is a clear positive return on those traffic deaths. We live far richer lives because of motor vehicles and what quick private transportation unlocks. I think car centric design is great personally.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Debatable but there is a lot of research showing long car commutes are taking a significant toll on mental health and physical health. We have constantly rising rates of depression, stress and obesity. All things that are partially linked to car usage. We live far richer lives due to a huge array of technological progressions. An anecdote but my life massively improved when I got rid of my car and moved somewhere where walking is my only transport method needed. I'm healthier, happier, and have more free time.
    - koyote 5y ago
      Do you think that a car centric society such as the US has benefited its residents more than a society which has moved away from car centric city design such as the Netherlands?
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Is it lack of understanding or simply a difference in priorities? It's very fashionable around here to call millions of people stupid for not sharing whatever the "right" opinion is.
- havelhovel 5y ago
  There have been numerous studies demonstrating our inability to rationally assess terrorism relative to other threats. Acknowledging our psychological shortcomings is the first step toward self-improvement.
diognesofsinope 5y ago
I chalk it up to politics (politicians) -- the reality is the Republicans would never live 9/11 down if they didn't go to war.
fukmbas 5y ago
NEVER FORGET
fengsui170 5y ago
Loss of 621k lives on one side or two or more doesn't really amount to War. Ike never lost 1 life in the mil. for the term of his admin. Eighth grader mil. brass knuckleheads promoted too far these days are puppets on the mil. industrial complexes's strings. Do the share buy backs the mil. firms do go ultimately to sovereign wealth hedgefunds such as the Communist Party behind smoke and mirrors?

techrat 5y ago

Ah yes, but Haliburton couldn't spend money on a 'war against mask wearing', so they were the true victims here. /s, of course. It's been obvious early on that the whole motive for our ratfucking of the middle east had nothing to do with the "WMDs" nor 9/11... lest we would have not gone under false pretenses, actually had gone after the country who financed the ones who flew the planes, nor remained as long as we had after Bin Laden was found. Instead we spent more money than had ever been spent before on one thing in our country's history... but on another country. That money went somewhere. Defense contractors. Meanwhile, infrastructure all across the US is derelict. Case in point, 47,000+ bridges in the US are now considered 'structurally deficient.' https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-than-47-000-structurally-deficient-bridges-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-t... Bin Laden himself said what his end goal was. > "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy," bin Laden said in a taped statement. Only the smallest sign of al-Qaida would "make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations." The article this quote was pulled from is from 2011. So, for at LEAST TEN YEARS, we knew the explicit goal was to prolong an unwinnable war in order to bleed the country dry. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-cost-of-bin-laden-3-trillion-over-15-years/238517/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/the-cos... Why couldn't these defense contractors be paid to bring things up to snuff here instead of pissing it away on a 'war against terror' that we had no hope to win? Bin Laden got what he wanted in the end.

runawaybottle 5y ago

Some related numbers for just Afghanistan: American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448. U.S. contractors: 3,846. Afghan national military and police: 66,000. Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144. Afghan civilians: 47,245. Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191. Aid workers: 444. Journalists: 72. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-... ——— It’s funny, over 60k Afghan police/military died, and our plan was to arm 300k of them and hope they like perpetual war against the Taliban. Yeah, I think they did a hard pass on that one and just wanted it all to stop.

swader999 5y ago
I think a lot of those trained had allegiances to the Taliban. Many reports of this but was ignored by higher ups.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  I think what we have here is a failure to understand population motivations. I do not want to overstate this, but it seems to be lost over the fact that it was two decades now. US was the invader here. You can train all you want, but those people are not idiots or easily swayed. They survived multiple regime changes, coups, upheavals and this is just another one of them. As insane as it sounds, in that frame of mind, Taliban is a lesser evil here compared to a foreign adversary that walks around like they own the place. Once you understand this, and by this I mean "the population does not want you here and sees you as the invader", none of this is a surprise. Next up, just wait till you hear what population of Iraq wants ( but we all know US simply cannot leave Iraq -- ever ).
baybal2 5y ago
That's a big undercount on the civilian, and opposing force side. If you count in excess deaths, and missing people, the count will more than double.
ineedasername 5y ago
Regarding perpetual war, I'm not sure that was inevitable. Without massive corruption, incompetent leadership, and Russia providing weapons to the Taliban things might not have been so bleak.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Without massuve corruption life in Russia would not be bleak.
asdff 5y ago
They did a hard pass on that one when their commanders were embezzling their resources and they were expected to defend a nation with shoestrings and no backup or any more resources on the way. It was a suicide mission to not give up, plain and simple.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

teawrecks 5y ago

Assume it will never be fixed. What's another solution?

nostrademons 5y ago
Create a system where ignorance of the laws of large numbers means that you go bankrupt and have to work for someone else, thus putting the number-crunchers in charge. This is basically modern capitalism. It works, as a way of managing large numbers. Most people hate it, though, because it has a tendency of reducing humans to numbers.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "of reducing humans to numbers." Or making them slaves, exploiting children, etc. If the laws allow such
  - nostrademons 5y ago
    Same difference: "Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." -- Terry Pratchett Slaves, exploited children, etc. are just resources whose dollar value you try to maximize and whose wages you try to minimize.
    - travisgriggs 5y ago
      HN needs a +50 button for Pratchett references.

s5300 5y ago

I swear dude. I cannot understand just why it is that the average person seems to be so incapable at understanding statistics and large numbers. It's mind boggling. Ever since my freshman engineering stats class, it's like everywhere I look at where there's stupid bullshit happening, a large reason as to why the stupid bullshit is happening is because people have zero understanding of statistics and large numbers. It's always been incredibly intuitive to me as somebody schooled in the US public education system, and I wasn't even good at math until college because the school teachers were just terrible at teaching actual concepts. And like, I know that I am very much nothing special. But to too damn many people, it just seems to completely blow over their heads...

pessimizer 5y ago
Statistics are not intuitive, and it's the assumption that they are that leads people into error.
- s5300 5y ago
  No, not all statistics are intuitive, definitely a reason why there's statistics, and then engineering statistics in most colleges. However, the simpler parts/beginning of either course... really do seem like they should be intuitive to anybody who made it with a D through middle school math. Basic applied ratios and such. Like the fact near 5 billion covid vaccines have been administered worldwide now and there are still people vehemently arguing about the horrible things that are going to happen to them specifically if they get a vaccine...
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > there are still people vehemently arguing about the horrible things that are going to happen to them specifically if they get a vaccine... Can you make a steel man argument on their behalf? Or is that so preposterous that it beneath you and wouldn’t waste your time on that? Because I’m starting to wonder if people with strong opinions like yours seems to be really are any different than the true believers on “the other side”. Or if you just feel confident in your echo chamber as “unquestionably right” because you (or I) aren’t questioned. I find the more I know about a topic the less I make absolutes like the one I quoted. You can’t make legitimate arguments against the covid vaccines? Shouldn’t we all be able to?

glitchc 5y ago

It’s not the what, but the how. A terrorist attack on home turf is a slap in the face of every American. Outrage is to be expected.

mikeodds 5y ago
Take a look at how many people die from domestic shootings in the US
markdown 5y ago
Patriotism is a sickness that the world would be better without.
- mc32 5y ago
  Is that what we want t tell all the revolutionaries around the world? Would the taleban take your words to heart?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I'd replace the word patriotism with jingoism. A certain amount of pride in your country seems reasonable.
rodgerd 5y ago
> A terrorist attack on home turf is a slap in the face of every American. Unless the terrorists are white guys angry that their choice didn't win an election. Then it's tirelessly defended.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Or people of all colors and nations (some of them surely white guys) angry that the "white guy choice" did win the election. DC was quite boarded up [0] and it was not in fear of a Trump loose. Please don't be a racist and call the factions by what they are, not by their gender or skin color. [0] https://wjla.com/news/local/a-look-around-dc-hours-before-election-day-as-businesses-board-up-fencing-installed https://wjla.com/news/local/a-look-around-dc-hours-before-el...

randyrand 5y ago

years of expected life lost is the more important metric imo. would still be a big discrepency.

Sebb767 5y ago
> years of expected life lost is the more important metric imo. If you start doing this, you start valuing peoples lives differently, which is a horrible thing. Going just from this, you could say that an Afghan citizen is worth about 82% of an US citizen (64 vs 78 years life expectancy) or that burning down a whole palliative care unit is less bad than shooting a 20 year old (or 16 year old Afghan). I can see where you are coming from, but this is really not a good road to go down.
- amscanne 5y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but “quality-adjusted life years” [1] is already a standard metric for evaluating medical interventions. While the whole “death panel” thing is exaggerated, it is necessary that insurers (incl. single payer governments) have quantitative ways to evaluate different treatments. They won’t throw infinite $$ at every treat that is expected to add a tiny amount to your life. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year

bb88 5y ago

Things like 9/11 were easily played over and over again, and generated support for the afghan war in the first place. In NZ when the terrorists broadcasted the Christchurch mosque shootings on facebook, NZ took action swiftly -- banning most semiautomatic weapons. When BLM protests showed cops shooting, tasing, and running over people with patrol cars -- those images were more compelling than any story that could have been written. OTOH, Last year one nursing home in NJ had stacked up 17 bodies during a in a shed during a covid outbreak -- yet none of the gruesomeness was aired. I have not recalled seeing any videos of people falling dead due to a mass shooting in the US, other than maybe blurred out video. I'm not saying we should or should not see more graphic images, but it seems like self-censorship of the aftermath of violence or tragedy has unintended consequences.

dillondoyle 5y ago
I completely agree with that. because of HIPAA there hasn't been nearly enough media. There is more now I think a concerted effort to get testimonials of people in hospital their family dead saying they wish they got the vaccine. But it's too late. I think if we had Vietnam style video of death from the start we wouldn't have as large of a % living in alternate realities.
asdff 5y ago
It certainly does. Vietnam was the first war with embedded journalists showing the american people live footage of real combat. It was often gruesome. It lead to people protesting in the streets, burning draft cards, fleeing to Canada, and most of all made the Vietnam war into a political quagmire and put pressure on ending it. That sort of coverage of a conflict has noticeably never happened again. Anytime you see footage these days on the news it feels like B rolls or some stock footage of a couple solders walking around the desert or a truck driving along or some far off building exploding. The media hides the reality of war from the American public after seeing how the public has reacted in the past to this content. It's disingenuous, and you end up with kids joining thinking it will be like Call of Duty and coming back home with PTSD and no easy future due to their broken condition.

neither_color 5y ago

apples 2,996 oranges 621,000 I dont dispute your numbers at all...I just don't understand your point. They're just such vastly different situations managed by different sets of people for different reasons. The "war on terror" was excessive and over budget, but not 100% uncalled for. There WERE follow up terror attacks that happened(london bombing 2005, madrid bombing 2004, paris bataclan attack, etc) and there were some that were foiled, even if just by luck like the shoe bomber. I agree that Afghanistan went too far, too long and too expensive but what does that have to do with covid?

Dylan16807 5y ago
Anti-terror efforts were called for. But there wasn't much overlap between what was called for and what we actually did.
- neither_color 5y ago
  What does that have to do with covid though? Im not here to justify the war on terror Im just wondering what the basis of comparison is. Covid has affected nearly 100% of the population in almost every country either directly and indirectly, either by getting sick or not being allowed to work or shop or show their face in public. The reach of covid response has gone far beyond having to take our shoes off in airports. Is OP upset that the nobody has calculated whether it has cost trillions yet?
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > What does that have to do with covid though? The argument is that the effort we spent in the war on terror, per motivating death, was massively greater than the effort we've spent fighting covid. > far beyond having to take our shoes off in airports That would be a valid comparison in TSA vs. covid response. This is about much more than the TSA!
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > The argument is that the effort we spent in the war on terror, per motivating death, was massively greater than the effort we've spent fighting covid. We can't even get people to take the vaccine willingly after we made every vaccine free. When will we learn that money doesn't solve everything? It is only a sufficiently motivating factor to greedy people. Religiously motivated people are explicitly raised to be weary of money (you cannot serve two masters: choose God or mammon, where mammon is roughly translated as money, greed, or material wealth) -------------- We can't spend money to grow the Afghan army, because they weren't motivated by money. We can't spend more money to fight COVID19, because the anti-vaxxers aren't motivated by money either. Our vaccines are sitting in storage and expiring. We designed and built the vaccines in record time. I'm not entirely sure how else we could add money to this system and expect any benefits with regards to COVID19. Student nurses are regularly helping out in hospitals before they're even graduated, we're pulling retired doctors/nurses out of retirement to help fill hospitals. Etc. etc. Money isn't the solution anymore. We've spent as much as we're able. The remaining problems that face us are entirely independent of money. ---------- The only consistent thing between Afghanistan and COVID19 is that Americans have overspent money hoping that overspending will fix everything.

supperburg 5y ago

Can you provide a source for COVID deaths? Is there a source that gives the number of deaths that were caused by COVID and nothing else? They say that anyone who died and tested positive for the presence of COVID was considered a COVID death even if they got hit by a bus for example. And many elderly people died from it who were on the brink of death and were just as likely to die from some other minor insult. I wonder how many life hours were lost, I think that might be a more accurate metric. Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares.

SilverRed 5y ago
>Traffic deaths in USA over 2 years ~80,000. Nobody cares. Many people do care about this and advocate for less car infrastructure, safer streets, better walkability and better public transport. Car centric design was the worst mistake of the last few decades.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  There is a clear positive return on those traffic deaths. We live far richer lives because of motor vehicles and what quick private transportation unlocks. I think car centric design is great personally.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    Debatable but there is a lot of research showing long car commutes are taking a significant toll on mental health and physical health. We have constantly rising rates of depression, stress and obesity. All things that are partially linked to car usage. We live far richer lives due to a huge array of technological progressions. An anecdote but my life massively improved when I got rid of my car and moved somewhere where walking is my only transport method needed. I'm healthier, happier, and have more free time.
  - koyote 5y ago
    Do you think that a car centric society such as the US has benefited its residents more than a society which has moved away from car centric city design such as the Netherlands?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

Is it lack of understanding or simply a difference in priorities? It's very fashionable around here to call millions of people stupid for not sharing whatever the "right" opinion is.

havelhovel 5y ago
There have been numerous studies demonstrating our inability to rationally assess terrorism relative to other threats. Acknowledging our psychological shortcomings is the first step toward self-improvement.

diognesofsinope 5y ago

I chalk it up to politics (politicians) -- the reality is the Republicans would never live 9/11 down if they didn't go to war.

fukmbas 5y ago

NEVER FORGET

fengsui170 5y ago

Loss of 621k lives on one side or two or more doesn't really amount to War. Ike never lost 1 life in the mil. for the term of his admin. Eighth grader mil. brass knuckleheads promoted too far these days are puppets on the mil. industrial complexes's strings. Do the share buy backs the mil. firms do go ultimately to sovereign wealth hedgefunds such as the Communist Party behind smoke and mirrors?