Terrorist chicken littles....

thank you for this post. And while in the garden....... plant a spine as well.

I shake my head and laugh at the melodramatics of Sean Hannity on this issue. Talk about fear-monger, he's is as bad as CNN.
I could only stand about 2 minutes of his diatribe yesterday. The politics of fear rolls on.....

I work at a small general aviation airport (the one with single engine Cessnas and Pipers) and we give tours of the school throughout the summer. We had one summer camp group that was supposed to come through yesterday and didnt and didnt show up. We called a few hours later and they said that all the parents were calling and freaking out that they didn't want their kids going to the airport.
It was then that I truly did realize that we are breeding a nation of pansies.

The real goal of Al-Qaeda is to weaken western culture by a long-term stragegy of attacking their economies. They seem to be succeeding quite well. Every time a plot like this happens, governments respond by spending gobs of money to placate the frightened masses with a show of smoke and mirrors and by adding an ever increasing list of rules and restrictions. Even if the plot is foiled, the economic impact is huge.

Grow a pair or get a brain?

Statistical analysis of risk can be a tricky topic. My mother's statistical life expectancy is 62 years; since my mother is 80, she is statistically, on average, dead. (But don't tell her.)

Whether it is a terrorist attack or a neighbor getting killed in a car wreck, most people slow down and think about risk more after a recent event. That pause for reflection is not necessarily cowardly, but an attempt to understand risks even though they do not understand the clear and dispassionate message of risk statistics.

Well, odds are all well and good, but although the odds against winning the Florida Lottery are about 14 million to one, against, I notice that somebody usually wins.

I"m not gonna change my life around on account of terrorists, but I don't see where a bit of common sense hurts anything.

Seems to me that these over-reactions come more from ignorance than from wussification. It's not a lot different from what we gripe about, here, about a lot of the Soccermom attitudes about guns. Ignorance, mostly...

Art

I don't think the thrust of the article was about not taking a pause for reflection, but about losing freedom and changing your lifestyle based on the fear of an extremely remote threat.

I rember thinking during the DC "sniper" incident, I wouldn't change a darn thing 'cause of that (those) lowlifes. Sure, I'd be more observant than usual, but I wouldn't hole up in my house like a bunker. Same thing for terrorists, I'm not changing the way I live my life at home for them. Heck, I'm in one of their former countries right now helping to take the fight to them! (I guess I've changed how I live abroad 'cause of them ) My odds of getting whacked over here (A-stan) are pretty statistically remote too.

Fallacious, based on using "local and personal" forms of terror. The odds start to go up when you introduce biological weapons, dirty bombs, and small nuclear devices.

The issue of preserving civil liberties is separate and distinct from the issue of the radius of destruction.

There is a serious problem with this guy's math.

If your chances of being killed in a motor vehicle crash in a single year is 1 in 6500, then, assuming there are the same number of fatalities each year, your lifetime chances of being killed in a motor vehicle crash are (guess what?) 1 in 6500.

Here's the problem with this guy's math. Let's assume that in Year One, there are 291 million Americans and 45,000 of them die that year of a motor-vehicle related injury. But then let's assume that the entire population is sterile but will live forever (if they don't die in a car crash) and that in Year Two, only 290,055,000 Americans are left, and the same percentage of people die in Year Two (0.00425 percent or 44,853 people). Each year, the overall number of people would decrease by 0.00425 percent, but the ratio of motor vehicle related deaths remains the same, in this case 1 in 6500. You could carry this on to it's ultimate conclusion, where in the year 8506 there are only 6500 people left on the planet, and statistically one of them is doomed.

In order to arrive at the 1 in 83 chance of dying, one would have to assume that in Year Two, 90,000 people die in car crashes, in Year Three, 135,000 people died, et cetera. In 78 years (the number given in the article), the death toll would be over 3 million that year and your odds would be 1 in 83.

(Thanks to Marge Inovera for helping me with this post)

Same logic - no guns for you. What's the odds that the average person needs to use one?

It's just a subtle rollover to the enemies of America. Guy probably is on the Saudi payroll.

Fallacious, based on using "local and personal" forms of terror. The odds start to go up when you introduce biological weapons, dirty bombs, and small nuclear devices.

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True at least for 2 out of those three ('cept those havn't happened, so it's hard to know the odds for a possibility). Dirty bombs are way overrated. The most casualties would be from the blast itself. Good 'ol HE. The radiation levels would be fairly localized and wouldn't go far at any high level of dosage. A few people would get radiation sickness and it would be a long time before OSHA (or EPA) would declare the area safe again. Great terrorist weapon though....people would freak out, driven by the morons in the media and act like a real nuke went off. That would be a whole different ballgame (a real nuke that is).

If terrorists started accounting for more deaths than say, drowning....would it be time to sacrifice freedom for safety then? We need to concentrate on effective countermeasures (and, of course, killin' 'em) and get away from this feel good, it looks like we're doing something to the sheep, crap. For example, old ladies having to surrender knitting needles and all of us getting long toenails when we travel is idiotic. The new air puffer explosive sensors are pretty good (at least on the right track). Non-invasive and actually can detect a real threat vs superficially dealing with silly little items.

"But 9-11 happened with box cutters, don't those items need to be controlled?" No, 9-11 happened because the terrorists were more determined to fly planes into buildings than the passengers were to stop them. They could have carried high tech ceramic or titanium knives instead of stupid box cutters...and still could irregardless of how sensitive the METAL detector at the airport is. Only now I'm without my nail clippers to defend myself.

If your chances of being killed in a motor vehicle crash in a single year is 1 in 6500, then, assuming there are the same number of fatalities each year, your lifetime chances of being killed in a motor vehicle crash are (guess what?) 1 in 6500.

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I don't follow your logic. If your risk of being killed in 1 year of driving is 1 in 6500, and the ratio of fatalities to drivers/passengers does not change, then your lifetime risk will be directly proportional to how many years you drive. Somebody who drives 1 year and then never drives or rides in a car again for the rest of their life will have a lifetime risk equal to 1 years' exposure, 1 in 6500. But someone who drives for 10 years will have 10 years of exposure at 1 in 6500 per year, so his lifetime risk is 10 in 6500 or 1 in 650.

Think of a lottery with randomly generated ticket numbers. If you buy 1 ticket, your "risk" of winning is 1 in 14 million. If you buy two tickets, your "risk" is 2 in 14 million. If you buy 7 million tickets, your "risk" is 7 million in 14 million, or 50/50.

My sister and her friend are flying to Florida right now, actually.

When asked if she was afraid of flying, she replied with "I'm not letting them ruin my damned vacation!"

The only thing truly annoying, she said, was that they had to repack everything because no liquid containers could be brought onto the plane.

I don't follow your logic.

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UGH. My brain hurts.

I'm working off of something my high school math teacher told me once, so I'm rapidly leaving the realm of proficiency on this subject. However, the basic premise is sound. He told me that if you flip a coin, you have a 50/50 chance of getting either heads or tails. No matter how many times you flip the coin, you have a 50% chance. I have read about this being true at the Roulette table, the game of Keno, et cetera. The odds never change.

However, you bring up cumulative odds. What are the odds of a coin coming up heads ten times in a row? For each throw, it's 50%, but are the cumulative odds 4.3 billion?

I may have spoken too soon, but something still doesn't feel right.

Don't your odds of dying in a car crash reset each year (assuming you are calculating them on an annual basis). Meaning, if I make through this year, then I still have a 1 in 6500 chance of dying in a car crash next year. I don't have more of a chance just because I am still driving. Maybe look at it this way, getting picked for a baseball team. Assume you have 27 people but you only need 9 for the team, so your odds are 1 in 3 that you will make the team. Those who are picked can't play next year, but there are new kids to replace them, so the pool is always 27. If I don't get picked this year, next year I still have a 1 in 3 chance of getting picked. I don't have a 2 in 3 chance, just because I am playing for a second year, right? As long as the pool of people keeps getting replaced, my odds are the same. And, it seems, that over my lifetime, I have a 1 in 3 chance of getting picked, because each year I had a 1 in 3 chance of getting picked. Using the logic of the writer, at some point, my odds of dying in a crash would have to be 1 to 1 (if I lived long enough).

This is the new scare topic! Fear = control.
1.Cold War
2.Coming Ice age
3. Global warming
4. Terrist threat
Am I on to something or will I be called a tinfoil hatter?

not much of a chance, and nothing to worry about, except....

for the tens of thousands of folks dead now, due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and becoming grist for some muslim terrorist's mill.
Hey, it never has been about probability, its always been about the stakes.

"Hey, it never has been about probability, its always been about the stakes."

Seems to me the stakes are twofold: First is the relatively unimportant threat of terrorism, insofar as danger to any one of us as an individual. Second, and far more important, it's the yielding of liberty to the central government. The loss of civil rights.

Forget about the numbered odds of the article. His salient point is in the ending:

"It's easy to overreact when an atrocity takes place—to heed those who promise safety if only we will give the authorities the "tools" they want by surrendering to them some of our liberty. (Snip)

However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter—because it doesn't really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized."

Pshaw....using this exact same logic, you can all see that the silly British were just plain stupid to be afriad of dying during the German bombing raids of 1940-1941, commonly known as "The Biltz."

Here's a link that shows that the best estimates of British deaths during "The Blitz" were only about 40,000.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~finnegam/war/blitz.htm

That's five thousand FEWER deaths than caused by car accidents in a year in the US.

How silly the Brits were to get all worked up over something as minor and trivial as the so-called "Blitz" during 1940 and 1941.

They should have just gone on like there was no Blitz. Statistically speaking, it was hardly worth worrying about..........

hillbilly

I can't comprehend such a world view.

However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter—because it doesn't really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized."

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Art, are you advocating we just do nothing? The herd mentality? Those few zebras or Wildebeasts that the lions eat are just an acceptable sacrifice? We can handle thousands of dead American men, women and children, since those numbers are miniscule when compared to 300 Million?

I fully agree that the over reaction of our government takes us further down the slippery slope of diminished freedoms. However, I still feel we are at war, not against 'terrorism'. That is just a tactic. We are at war with those that use this tactic to promulgate their agenda. In WWII, there were diminished freedoms, and Americans pulled together to end the war. It sure seems different now, with so many of us not even being aware that we are in a shooting war, and that Americans are dying. Or that just don't care.

Oh yeah.....silly American civilians were also completely stupid to be afraid of dying in a Japanese air attack on US soil during WWII.

I mean, c'mon......even those pesky, meaningless, statistically insignificant Islamic fascist terrorists managed to kill more Americans on US soil than the Japanese Imperial Naval air forces could.

Even if you count the few Americans killed by those completely silly balloon bombs in the Pacific Northwest, you've got a very statistically insignificant number of American civilians killed on US soil by Japanese air power in the whole of WWII.

Yes, we should react to all this "Islamic terrorism" silliness by just simply ignoring it.....precisely as we would a school yard bully.....just ignore them and they'll go away.

And even if they don't go away, they'll still kill only a statistically insignificant number of us.....

hillbilly

If you think of yourself as {A citizen of the USA and part of the whole mass of people here} then the threat seems scary and something must be done(TM)

If you think of yourself as {I, solo traveler of planet earth out to make a buck and have some fun} the terrorist attacks mean nothing.

I took his comment

However, with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our lives as though terrorism doesn't matter—because it doesn't really matter. We ultimately vanquish terrorism when we refuse to be terrorized."

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to be related to civilians. Of course, the government, military/police and intel apparatus act as if terrorism matters. It is their job to deal with it. Civilians just need to be more alert and observant, but this too is hardly just related to terrorism, they should be for general safety. Other than that, the best thing the average citizen can do is live a productive fear-free life.

Soldiers go overeas to protect the America they love, not have everyone back there give into fear anyway and stop living life while they're gone.

Terrorists use "terrorism" because they are too weak politically and militarily to get results any other way. Terrorism is unique in that it's level of success is entirely dependent and decided by the TARGETS! You see, the terrorists don't get a say in how "terrorized" we are by them or how we react (or overreact, destroying what we value and what they hate). If we refuse to be terrorized, then the impact of their attack is contained within that attack itself. There is no magnification or far-reaching impact dis-proportionate to the attack itself.

While I love all the statistical analysis I find it amusing.

(BTW when you place your bet on a roulette wheel you are paid 35 to 1 on one square, there are 38 numbers on a wheel. Odds to the house, and it doesn't matter if you are on your first spin or your 1,000,000th, the odds don't change.)

What we should be talking about is RISK. If you live as I do, in flyover country, you have a risk of tornados and nasty thunderstorms. You have no risk of hurricanes.

If you live on Dauphin Island, Alabama (where I used to rent a home for vacation, until an oil derrick blew up on shore, and the home disappeared, thanks Katrina...) you have a lot of RISK of hurricanes, and probably less risk from tornados (if they are non hurricane related) than middle America.

Soooo. RISK. If you can eliminate risk, you will do it based upon your ability to do so. If you can't control the weather, earthquakes, and Mother Nature, you buy insurance and take other measures when threatened (boarding up, etc.) With the current terrorist threat, we can, and have, tried to control the risk, by killing these vermin or incarcerating them.

Is the WOT worth it? Should we be concerned? You as an individual have to answer that question. Is the RISK acceptable to you? Should we pull out of Afganistan and Iraq, since some people feel we are wasting our time there? Should we remain unaware when dozens of people are picked up for suspicion of terrorist intentions toward US in other countries? Should we tell our government not to do anything about this issue? Should we tell them we won't blame them if we or our loved ones die?

As Mark Twain said (paraphrasing), "there are three kinds of lies, lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Mark Twain said:

There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics.

However, I, on an individual level, refuse to stop living my life due to the remote threat of violence from someone. That would be kind like never going shopping because someone may hold you up for your wallet. I get hungry occassionally, so I go to the grub shop. With a CCW. Problem solved.