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Sure, but I'm saying a single event caused this. You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't a

by rdouble 13y ago

Sure, but I'm saying a single event caused this. You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't add up to one major terrorism event. I'm not saying I agree with the way the USA handles terrorism, but it does seem like something you want to avoid. If there was another 9/11 or a Boston bombing happened every year, the country's economy would be massively screwed. My numbers are all from wikipedia's page about the economic aftermath of 9/11 and a Boston Herald article about the Boston bombing.

vidarh 13y ago
The Banqiao Reservoir Dam failures in 1975 cost an estimated 171,000 lives and made 11 million people homeless. That was a single event too. By your line of reasoning that makes 9/11 pretty much irrelevant and we should all care about dam security instead, ignoring that it was an extreme outlier, and that aggregate deaths from other causes quickly outdistanced dam failures again. Clearly there are psychological issues at play that makes us care greatly about large disasters, but that still does not make it rational to compare individual events to decide what resources to use to fight a type of event as a whole over long periods of time.
- honzzz 13y ago
  You mentioning 'psychological issues' reminded me of the (super interesting) book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. In that book there is something about our ability to asses risk and emotionally perceive danger that is biased by dangers that typically occurred during many thousand years of human evolution - physical violence is evolutionary very old and that's why we react to it strongly. On the other side there are things that might be more dangerous (like obesity which kills way more people than terrorism) but evolutionary these are relatively new and we have yet to develop the 'sense of danger' to them. [I am just paraphrasing that book - any mistakes made here are mine and Daniel Kahneman is totally innocent in this.]
300bps 13y ago
You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years I'm talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years an the sum of all terrorist attacks over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't add up to one major terrorism event. How so? 420,000 people died in car accidents. 2,700 people died in the biggest terrorism event to ever hit the U.S. So that's deaths. Economic impact - no brainer, car accidents have bigger economic impact. By any measure, car accidents have a bigger impact in aggregate than terrorist attacks in aggregate. If there was another 9/11 or a Boston bombing happened every year, the country's economy would be massively screwed. I don't even know what to say to someone that writes this.
- rdouble 13y ago
  Well to be honest, I don't know what to say to you, either.
- bluedino 13y ago
  Comparing the Boston Bombing to 9/11 doesn't really make sense. The OKC bombing, that's a much better comparison. Attacks on the level of the Boston Bombing happen every day in various countries around the world. But something like 9/11 or OKC, that kind of stuff doesn't happen every day. One of those was by far the most incredible act of terrorism in the modern world. Heck, even car bombs that kill 100+ seem to happen every couple months.

by rdouble 13y ago

vidarh 13y ago

The Banqiao Reservoir Dam failures in 1975 cost an estimated 171,000 lives and made 11 million people homeless. That was a single event too. By your line of reasoning that makes 9/11 pretty much irrelevant and we should all care about dam security instead, ignoring that it was an extreme outlier, and that aggregate deaths from other causes quickly outdistanced dam failures again. Clearly there are psychological issues at play that makes us care greatly about large disasters, but that still does not make it rational to compare individual events to decide what resources to use to fight a type of event as a whole over long periods of time.

honzzz 13y ago
You mentioning 'psychological issues' reminded me of the (super interesting) book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. In that book there is something about our ability to asses risk and emotionally perceive danger that is biased by dangers that typically occurred during many thousand years of human evolution - physical violence is evolutionary very old and that's why we react to it strongly. On the other side there are things that might be more dangerous (like obesity which kills way more people than terrorism) but evolutionary these are relatively new and we have yet to develop the 'sense of danger' to them. [I am just paraphrasing that book - any mistakes made here are mine and Daniel Kahneman is totally innocent in this.]

300bps 13y ago

You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years I'm talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years an the sum of all terrorist attacks over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't add up to one major terrorism event. How so? 420,000 people died in car accidents. 2,700 people died in the biggest terrorism event to ever hit the U.S. So that's deaths. Economic impact - no brainer, car accidents have bigger economic impact. By any measure, car accidents have a bigger impact in aggregate than terrorist attacks in aggregate. If there was another 9/11 or a Boston bombing happened every year, the country's economy would be massively screwed. I don't even know what to say to someone that writes this.

rdouble 13y ago
Well to be honest, I don't know what to say to you, either.
bluedino 13y ago
Comparing the Boston Bombing to 9/11 doesn't really make sense. The OKC bombing, that's a much better comparison. Attacks on the level of the Boston Bombing happen every day in various countries around the world. But something like 9/11 or OKC, that kind of stuff doesn't happen every day. One of those was by far the most incredible act of terrorism in the modern world. Heck, even car bombs that kill 100+ seem to happen every couple months.