Terrorism and risk-assessment

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but I really wish people would calmly look at the real practical risks of being the victim of a terror attack, weigh that against both the cost of the war on terror, and put everything in to perspective alongside other risks of death we assume in the United States every day.

    Total number of people who have been alive in the U.S.,  9/10/2001-9/10/2006:  ~330 million

    Total number of people killed in terrorist attacks in the U.S., 9/10/2001-9/10/2006:  2,752.

    Chance of death from terrorist attack for period 9/10/01-9/10/06:  1 in 119,912.

That's over only a sample of five years, mind you.  If we were to take a larger sample of time, the odds obviously begin to shrink tremendously.  Let's see where death by terrorism ranks among the causes of death put out by the National Safety Council (nsc.org).

     Heart disease   - 1 in 5

     Stroke          - 1 in 24

     Suicide         - 1 in 119

     Firearm assault - 1 in 314

     Drowning        - 1 in 1,008

Now let's get into the fun ones:
     Hot weather     - 1 in 13,729

     Bee sting       - 1 in 56,789

     Lightning       - 1 in 79,746

     Earthquake      - 1 in 117,127
Ooooh, close one there with the earthquakes, but still slightly more likely than terrorism's 1 in 119,912.

     Flood           - 1 in 144,156
Aha!  Finally, something less likely to kill you than terrorism in the U.S.

My point is, the war on terror is fucking bullshit.  Lightning has killed tens of thousands of people in American history.  Why don't we spent hundreds of billions of dollars to combat that?  Why?  Because it would be retarded and barely decrease the likelihood of death.  The war on terror is precisely the same.   Go grab someone by the shoulders in the street, shake them, and tell them to stop being afraid of terrorism in the US.

I like those odds!

I have never been afraid of terrorism
also fear is mans worse emotion, it leads to hate

>>3
gb2 Coruscant

>>4
Jedi became a noted religion in the last census

>>5
Jedi aren't terrrorists. Except dark jedi perhaps, but they consist of overweight geeks who's idea of striking back is h4xing WOW.

I wn at to be killed by lightning when I'm 80. That would be cool.

>>6
look at >>3
then you'll get it

>>8
oic >>3 is a good jedi

How I learned to quit worrying and love the terroism?

Everything is all right. Go back to sleep. Nancy and Harry and Hilary will protest us. There is nothing to fear. Your eyes are getting very heavy.

>>10
Should be "Dr. Neocon, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Doctrine of Preemptive War."

  Yes i'm sure that you're perfectly comfortable with someone killing torturing mutilating raping your entire family and everyone else in the country. And I am perfectly comfortable with killing anyone or any country to prevent it.
  However, since you won't defend yourself I'm no longer comfortable with defending you. You should die at your earliest convenience and become neodead.

The collapse of the WTC, the closing of the Dow, the national melancholy and schock... It is impossible to assess such events in deaths alone. Give it a rest would you >>1?

Fear is the strongest emotion. If it wasn't, humans would not have survived evolution.

>>13 In a few years everyone will deny it ever happened.

>>15
Never trust what you see on TV, the Enlightened Ones control it.

>>13
No, you can't assess such events (ONE event) in deaths alone.  But you can't assess the likelihood and impact of future events on just one very tragic event.  The fear of the public and of the government should not be allowed to cloud our judgement (as, in my opinion, it very clearly has) on the risks posed by international terror and the proper amount of money, resources, and lives to expend on its solution.

Don't worry, we've invaded Iraq and are having a nice cool war now.

yee

>>1

It's not just the risk of one person's death, but the impact on the community at large.  After 9/11, just as an example, Manhatten was shut down for most of the day, all flights in the US were grounded for 2-3 days, cell phone networks failed in NYC (mustly due to overuse), etc.  In the weeks afterward, people were scared shitless that another attack was planned.  There were all kinds of scares -- the only real one being the Anthrax thing (which had people all over the country scared to open the mail).  All of that plus the lost business and actual property damage fucked up the enitre country pretty good.  So that's big difference -- it's not just the event itself but the aftereffects.