[thawkins]

I cant understand this obsession with terrorist death risk, the over reaction to what is actualy a relativly low risk, according to recent stats, over that last 10 years you have been 8 times more likely to have been shot and killed by a cop than killed by a terrorist, and i dont see the resulting "War on Cops". If you look at almost every other major risk factor they all by far outweigh being killed by terrorism. Driving a car, crossing a road, heart desease, obesity, travel of any kind.

Society has apparently lost its ability to weigh up risk in tne face of shock terror acts. If we want to save lives there are far cheaper, less invasive areas we can focus our attention on.

[wpietri]

I sometimes wonder about this too. But then I'll turn on the radio or get trapped in an airport with a TV set to the news. I feel my anxiety level creep up and up. Not from the factual content, which is familiar to me from print news. But from the emotional tone.

In some ways this is unsurprising. The business model of most broadcast media is to sell viewers to advertisers. The people running them are steeped in modern managerial thinking, where most individuals are yoked to a system of gaming specific metrics (e.g., viewers, pageviews, revenues, share price). We're (correctly) hardwired to treat danger as a priority. The obvious outcome is a sophisticated machine that can produce fear on demand.

For me, the winning move is not to play. I don't watch broadcast media. I don't listen to the radio. I use an ad blocker. I consider carefully what I click on. My anxiety level stays comfortably low. But I'd love to find a way to help more people.

[freshhawk]

I think you've basically explained the political effectiveness of terrorism. It perfectly taps into a particular human bias, if society had any ability to weigh risks (has it ever?) then political terrorism wouldn't exist. But since society is made up of humans, who are irrational, it does exist and it works extremely well.