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The fallacy of the comparison to heart disease/cancer/traffic accidents is that tremendous resources are spent preventing and then resolving those issues as wel

The fallacy of the comparison to heart disease/cancer/traffic accidents is that tremendous resources are spent preventing and then resolving those issues as well. They are side effects of living productively, however, so we can't rationally just ban cars. But we can put hundreds of thousands of officers on the road, and endlessly add regulations and safety features to our vehicles, etc. Snowden is a true hero in the sense of the word -- he is in actual, physical danger for what he has done for others -- however it is not a reasonable argument when people argue that terrorism is a non-issue because <body count> less than <some other body count>. Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count? If various groups could get a nuclear warhead or dirty bomb, do you really believe they wouldn't use it? If they could sabotage a major city's water supply or a nuclear power plant, do you think that would be below them? This doesn't seek to justify the NSA's all-encompassing surveillance at all (human intelligence is where it is at), however there is an actual possibility that they have actually preventing significant events. But the problem with proactive actions is that no one gives you credit for what didn't happen. As an aside, to add to what others mentioned about the enormous costs and economic damage that resulted from 9/11, for instance, another reason terrorism of even the smallest kind sees a dramatic response is that it is terrorism -- it terrorizes a whole populace. If someone randomly shoots people in parks, there will be a massive response because the impact is on everyone.

kybernetikos 13y ago
> They are side effects of living productively, however, so we can't rationally just ban cars Terrorism and crime are side effects of living freely. > "Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count?" Not sure how that is relevant. In fact I take it more as an argument for how normal, non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios.
- corresation 13y ago
  Terrorism and crime are a side effects of living freely. And I didn't say otherwise. However that there are efforts to combat terrorism always gets compared to the traffic deaths/heart disease/cancer canard. It is a non-starter argument. non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios Expanded relates to expanded avenues of communications and organization. The NSA moves into collecting data in avenues that "the other side" didn't have not too many years ago. The world evolves on all sides. Further, as the critically important old saying goes: chance favors the prepared. There will come a day that a nuclear weapon gets in the hands of the "wrong" people (e.g. during a breakdown of the government in Pakistan, etc.). That chance event, which thankfully hasn't happened thus far, can have many possible outcomes.
  - MisterWebz 13y ago
    And the NSA will successfully catch the people who have stolen nuclear weapons by collecting worldwide unencrypted internet traffic?
easytiger 13y ago
Your argument is interesting but broken. One simply has to extrapolate that all reasonable efforts to avoid terrorism aside, terrorism is simply the same result of liberated living as driving a car
belorn 13y ago
If you want something more easy comparable, lets compare terrorism kills vs murder rates. How much police resource is spent per murder citizen vs killed by terrorism. Do anyone really think that the US would spend the same amount of money catching a shotgun wielding mass murderer who robs liqueur stores, or the same shotgun wielding guy that has a terrorism manifesto posted on youtube but with no prior kills on his hands. Who of the two is more likely to have biggest kill count in the end?
- refurb 13y ago
  I would say the terrorist is likely to have the highest body count in the end. Do some rough math on 9/11. 9 terrorists and 2977 deaths (331/terrorist). The most prolific mass murders have "alleged" death tolls in the hundreds, but most are only multiples of ten.
  - cmircea 13y ago
    That's mostly a consequence of planes and skyscrapers having lots of people. The death count could as well be seen with a place accidentally crashing into the Empire State Building.
  - thezilch 13y ago
    Not fair; the public was not prepared to deal with that situation; now they are. Pilots carry; attendants and passengers are knowledgeable to fight back. And that's including revoking most of what the TSA has become.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      Also, the cockpit doors are reinforced.
  - belorn 13y ago
    That is average number spread out over all the terrorists and not median. Trying to merge those two concept is a common way to use statistic to mislead. The question was if a shotgun wielding guy posting a video on Youtube is more likely to kill more people than a shotgun wielding mass murderer who robs liqueur stores. To clarify, he doesn't have a time machine to suddenly transfer himself to 2001.
dllthomas 13y ago
There are several issues here. First, the comparisons are often brought up in response to those claiming - directly or indirectly - that terrorism is an existential threat to America. The fact that we live with things that kill vastly more people puts the lie to that. Second, the issue is the marginal expenditure to marginal deaths. We spend tremendous effort and some freedom reducing auto accidents, and we reduce them substantially. We don't spend trillions more at this point, because we don't consider it worthwhile. Before 9/11, we had some level of expenditure (of effort, money, freedom) on preventing terrorism, and doubtless saw some reduction in terrorism over what it would have otherwise been, and had it down to some particular level. Since 9/11, we've been spending that plus trillions of dollars and more of our freedoms, and the most we can possibly do is reduce terrorism to zero - and even if the alternative were a significant increase in terrorism (something like 9/11 every other day, instead of - generously - once every several years) there would still be more room to save lives in these other ways. Finally, 9/11 had an enormous cost, but a lot of the psychological cost is due to fear mongering from people who lack the perspective the numbers bring. Another large portion of that cost is due to lack of resiliency in the companies with offices in the WTC, and companies doing business with those companies, &c. The former is addressed through education and leadership, the latter by encouraging behaviors that will also help in the case of (say) a massive hurricane. None of this is served by a panicked focus on terrorism.
- chatmasta 13y ago
  So am I, as a citizen, supposed to be content with a 9/11 scale terrorist attack happening "every few years?" If the idea of that frightens me, am I just falling victim to fear mongering? Do I "lack perspective?"
  - Goronmon 13y ago
    So am I, as a citizen, supposed to be content with a 9/11 scale terrorist attack happening "every few years?" We spend $0 a year on defense against alien invasions. Should I, as a citizen, be content with alien invasions happening every few years?
00rion 13y ago
There are two ways to prevent terrorism. You can a) focus on preventing the actual act and b) focus on preventing people from becoming motivated enough to commit the act. If we truly want to prevent terrorism, we need to focus on both. Currently, we only focus on the first. My point is, there are other ways of preventing terrorism than by eroding our freedoms and tracking everything everyone does.
- agilord 13y ago
  I am bold enough to say that even 'doing nothing' would be much more effective than what the US is doing right now. At least it won't increase the number of fanatics around the world who hate the US just because of the (from-their-perspective) unjust wars. Unfortunately, 'doing nothing' is not in the dictionary of 'serious' managers, politicians or generals.
grandalf 13y ago
If someone randomly shoots people in parks, there will be a massive response because the impact is on everyone This is precisely why terrorism is not a big deal. The people are not the ones demanding rendition, illegal wiretapping, drones, nude body scanners, etc. These things are being created the the corrupt public/private partnerships that the US Government has created b/c of poor oversight and little transparency. Suppose you want to strike terror into the American population. There are so many simple attacks that are impossible to prevent -- you could bring a few gallons of gasoline into a subway car and light it, you could open fire at a mall on black Friday, etc. Event the crudest, least effective permutation of these kinds of attacks would cause significant terror, yet nobody does them. I'd argue that there are simply too few people in the US who want to, and most who want to are incapable of the minimal functioning required to do so. 9/11 was a larger scale attack, but as we can see from other countries' situations, low tech, less lethal attacks are very effective too. Nothing that the US Government is doing can prevent against terror plots from succeeding. That ought to be obvious to everyone. The idea that the government has somehow spared us from attacks on the water supply or nukes is absurd, since there aren't even any terrorists willing to try the simplest, lowest-risk kinds of attacks. The counter-argument would appear to be that terrorists have an insane delight in over the top attacks that will be even more symbolic. But worldwide very little terrorism is like this, and so I view it as propaganda. When you think about it, most of the "terror" caused by 9/11 nationwide has been due to all the fear-mongering elected officials engage in. As we should have learned back on 9/11/2001 when the last plane was thwarted by its own passengers, people are resilient and will adapt to protect each other.
- 300bps 13y ago
  There are so many simple attacks that are impossible to prevent To add to your own excellent examples, you could blow up the people standing in the security line at an airport. Which I guess they could solve by having a security line before you get to the security line. Which you could then blow up. We're going to need a lot of additional security lines.
  - grandalf 13y ago
    True, even conspicuous failed attacks would instill terror, such as a mysterious abandoned car with lots of fertilizer in the trunk... the media would play up the terror angle and terror would be achieved even w/o any intent to create an explosion.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
> Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count? If various groups could get a nuclear warhead or dirty bomb, do you really believe they wouldn't use it? If they could sabotage a major city's water supply or a nuclear power plant, do you think that would be below them? Of course no one thinks those things. That's a straw man. There are a number of people who would be quite delighted to do each of those things. Everyone knows that. But you're acting as if we're standing at that precipice--as if requiring narrow warrants to tap search histories will all of the sudden enable these people to obtain and deploy a nuclear bomb. And the fact of that matter is: such events are unprecedented. There have not been hundred-thousand-death terrorist acts. You raise the possibility of them, but evidence suggests that it's actually very hard to pull off, and has been for a very, very long time, independent of various changes in surveillance technology and law. IF (and it's a big if) terrorist attacks were to increase sharply in response to a strict interpretation of wiretapping laws, why couldn't we just deal with it at that time? Why do you want to deal with it now? The terrorism rates could increase 100x before even registering as a public health issue. You're like someone who won't go on a date because they're worried about getting a divorce. Yes, sure, it's a possibility, but it's a long ways down the line, and we will have ample opportunities to try and solve each specific challenge along the way.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  > There have not been hundred-thousand-death terrorist acts. Little Boy and Fat Man would like to talk.

kybernetikos 13y ago

> They are side effects of living productively, however, so we can't rationally just ban cars Terrorism and crime are side effects of living freely. > "Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count?" Not sure how that is relevant. In fact I take it more as an argument for how normal, non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios.

corresation 13y ago
Terrorism and crime are a side effects of living freely. And I didn't say otherwise. However that there are efforts to combat terrorism always gets compared to the traffic deaths/heart disease/cancer canard. It is a non-starter argument. non-expanded powers have been surprisingly effective at stopping worst-case scenarios Expanded relates to expanded avenues of communications and organization. The NSA moves into collecting data in avenues that "the other side" didn't have not too many years ago. The world evolves on all sides. Further, as the critically important old saying goes: chance favors the prepared. There will come a day that a nuclear weapon gets in the hands of the "wrong" people (e.g. during a breakdown of the government in Pakistan, etc.). That chance event, which thankfully hasn't happened thus far, can have many possible outcomes.
- MisterWebz 13y ago
  And the NSA will successfully catch the people who have stolen nuclear weapons by collecting worldwide unencrypted internet traffic?

easytiger 13y ago

Your argument is interesting but broken. One simply has to extrapolate that all reasonable efforts to avoid terrorism aside, terrorism is simply the same result of liberated living as driving a car

belorn 13y ago

If you want something more easy comparable, lets compare terrorism kills vs murder rates. How much police resource is spent per murder citizen vs killed by terrorism. Do anyone really think that the US would spend the same amount of money catching a shotgun wielding mass murderer who robs liqueur stores, or the same shotgun wielding guy that has a terrorism manifesto posted on youtube but with no prior kills on his hands. Who of the two is more likely to have biggest kill count in the end?

refurb 13y ago
I would say the terrorist is likely to have the highest body count in the end. Do some rough math on 9/11. 9 terrorists and 2977 deaths (331/terrorist). The most prolific mass murders have "alleged" death tolls in the hundreds, but most are only multiples of ten.
- cmircea 13y ago
  That's mostly a consequence of planes and skyscrapers having lots of people. The death count could as well be seen with a place accidentally crashing into the Empire State Building.
- thezilch 13y ago
  Not fair; the public was not prepared to deal with that situation; now they are. Pilots carry; attendants and passengers are knowledgeable to fight back. And that's including revoking most of what the TSA has become.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Also, the cockpit doors are reinforced.
- belorn 13y ago
  That is average number spread out over all the terrorists and not median. Trying to merge those two concept is a common way to use statistic to mislead. The question was if a shotgun wielding guy posting a video on Youtube is more likely to kill more people than a shotgun wielding mass murderer who robs liqueur stores. To clarify, he doesn't have a time machine to suddenly transfer himself to 2001.

dllthomas 13y ago

There are several issues here. First, the comparisons are often brought up in response to those claiming - directly or indirectly - that terrorism is an existential threat to America. The fact that we live with things that kill vastly more people puts the lie to that. Second, the issue is the marginal expenditure to marginal deaths. We spend tremendous effort and some freedom reducing auto accidents, and we reduce them substantially. We don't spend trillions more at this point, because we don't consider it worthwhile. Before 9/11, we had some level of expenditure (of effort, money, freedom) on preventing terrorism, and doubtless saw some reduction in terrorism over what it would have otherwise been, and had it down to some particular level. Since 9/11, we've been spending that plus trillions of dollars and more of our freedoms, and the most we can possibly do is reduce terrorism to zero - and even if the alternative were a significant increase in terrorism (something like 9/11 every other day, instead of - generously - once every several years) there would still be more room to save lives in these other ways. Finally, 9/11 had an enormous cost, but a lot of the psychological cost is due to fear mongering from people who lack the perspective the numbers bring. Another large portion of that cost is due to lack of resiliency in the companies with offices in the WTC, and companies doing business with those companies, &c. The former is addressed through education and leadership, the latter by encouraging behaviors that will also help in the case of (say) a massive hurricane. None of this is served by a panicked focus on terrorism.

chatmasta 13y ago
So am I, as a citizen, supposed to be content with a 9/11 scale terrorist attack happening "every few years?" If the idea of that frightens me, am I just falling victim to fear mongering? Do I "lack perspective?"
- Goronmon 13y ago
  So am I, as a citizen, supposed to be content with a 9/11 scale terrorist attack happening "every few years?" We spend $0 a year on defense against alien invasions. Should I, as a citizen, be content with alien invasions happening every few years?

00rion 13y ago

There are two ways to prevent terrorism. You can a) focus on preventing the actual act and b) focus on preventing people from becoming motivated enough to commit the act. If we truly want to prevent terrorism, we need to focus on both. Currently, we only focus on the first. My point is, there are other ways of preventing terrorism than by eroding our freedoms and tracking everything everyone does.

agilord 13y ago
I am bold enough to say that even 'doing nothing' would be much more effective than what the US is doing right now. At least it won't increase the number of fanatics around the world who hate the US just because of the (from-their-perspective) unjust wars. Unfortunately, 'doing nothing' is not in the dictionary of 'serious' managers, politicians or generals.

grandalf 13y ago

If someone randomly shoots people in parks, there will be a massive response because the impact is on everyone This is precisely why terrorism is not a big deal. The people are not the ones demanding rendition, illegal wiretapping, drones, nude body scanners, etc. These things are being created the the corrupt public/private partnerships that the US Government has created b/c of poor oversight and little transparency. Suppose you want to strike terror into the American population. There are so many simple attacks that are impossible to prevent -- you could bring a few gallons of gasoline into a subway car and light it, you could open fire at a mall on black Friday, etc. Event the crudest, least effective permutation of these kinds of attacks would cause significant terror, yet nobody does them. I'd argue that there are simply too few people in the US who want to, and most who want to are incapable of the minimal functioning required to do so. 9/11 was a larger scale attack, but as we can see from other countries' situations, low tech, less lethal attacks are very effective too. Nothing that the US Government is doing can prevent against terror plots from succeeding. That ought to be obvious to everyone. The idea that the government has somehow spared us from attacks on the water supply or nukes is absurd, since there aren't even any terrorists willing to try the simplest, lowest-risk kinds of attacks. The counter-argument would appear to be that terrorists have an insane delight in over the top attacks that will be even more symbolic. But worldwide very little terrorism is like this, and so I view it as propaganda. When you think about it, most of the "terror" caused by 9/11 nationwide has been due to all the fear-mongering elected officials engage in. As we should have learned back on 9/11/2001 when the last plane was thwarted by its own passengers, people are resilient and will adapt to protect each other.

300bps 13y ago
There are so many simple attacks that are impossible to prevent To add to your own excellent examples, you could blow up the people standing in the security line at an airport. Which I guess they could solve by having a security line before you get to the security line. Which you could then blow up. We're going to need a lot of additional security lines.
- grandalf 13y ago
  True, even conspicuous failed attacks would instill terror, such as a mysterious abandoned car with lots of fertilizer in the trunk... the media would play up the terror angle and terror would be achieved even w/o any intent to create an explosion.

erikpukinskis 13y ago

> Do you think those who wish to do you harm don't want to exponentially increase that count? If various groups could get a nuclear warhead or dirty bomb, do you really believe they wouldn't use it? If they could sabotage a major city's water supply or a nuclear power plant, do you think that would be below them? Of course no one thinks those things. That's a straw man. There are a number of people who would be quite delighted to do each of those things. Everyone knows that. But you're acting as if we're standing at that precipice--as if requiring narrow warrants to tap search histories will all of the sudden enable these people to obtain and deploy a nuclear bomb. And the fact of that matter is: such events are unprecedented. There have not been hundred-thousand-death terrorist acts. You raise the possibility of them, but evidence suggests that it's actually very hard to pull off, and has been for a very, very long time, independent of various changes in surveillance technology and law. IF (and it's a big if) terrorist attacks were to increase sharply in response to a strict interpretation of wiretapping laws, why couldn't we just deal with it at that time? Why do you want to deal with it now? The terrorism rates could increase 100x before even registering as a public health issue. You're like someone who won't go on a date because they're worried about getting a divorce. Yes, sure, it's a possibility, but it's a long ways down the line, and we will have ample opportunities to try and solve each specific challenge along the way.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
> There have not been hundred-thousand-death terrorist acts. Little Boy and Fat Man would like to talk.