[aub3bhat]

Oh please whatever your opinion might be saying

""" surprised anyone can still use the word "terrorism" with a straight face anymore """

Is quickest way to shut down conversation. Especially given horrific events in France, Ohio, Florida. Your argument is not only ridiculous its counter productive to anyone offering a balanced saner approach.

[aswanson]

You're more likely to die from a lightning bolt than a 'terrorist' attack. You're thousands of times more likely to die from bad driving habits or being overweight, so why is the terrorist bogeyman given so much concern in the political conversation?

[hyperdunc]

Because a lightning bolt is a much more random occurance. It doesn't have agency, an agenda or a trajectory within society. A lightning bolt isn't looking to instigate more lightning bolts.

In 10 years time the death stats for lightning bolts will be similar and for road accidents will probably have declined. Which way do you think the terrorists stats will go?

[aswanson]

Given the trends and the fact that it's a low probability event, I'd expect it to stay about where it is, about one death per year, or about as much as a chance as I have of getting killed by a piece of furniture: http://uk.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terroris... http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism-statistics-every-...

[hyperdunc]

Terrorism is less likely to remain a low-probability event because it contains the intention of death spurred by a toxic ideology that wishes to spread.

The comparisons given are accidents and happen through negligence or plain bad luck.

[aswanson]

If your premise is true that it will grow because it wishes to spread, then why has it empirically remained constant? Why isnt it more successful every year as it pushes growth?

[hyperdunc]

It has the strong potential to grow but right now there are enough people opposing its spread.

Even so, terrorism may have cumulative political and social effects. People don't like to know there are others out there who wish them harm. Once a certain threshold of resentment is reached within an affected society then suddenly massive unrest could erupt.

Some politicians are trying to mitigate this by suggesting we should just get used to the occasional terrorist attack and treat it like a lightning strike or a piece of heavy furniture falling over.

[aub3bhat]

Arguing deaths due to <x> happened more frequently than terrorism in some time period is useless, if the underlying process that generates those numbers are widely different.

Rather than thinking in terms of mortality rate over a period, its more accurate to think in terms of events. A single lightning bolt strike can at most affect 0 ~ 10 people with a gaussian distribution. A terrorist attack on the other hand has a long tail distribution and can cause 10^0 ~ 10^4 deaths.

There is no organized cult going around making lightening bolts with explicit intention of causing large scale harm. On the other hand there are several organized terrorist groups which are intentionally trying to do that. As far as being overweight or bad driving habits, billions of dollars are poured into health care system, automated driving and regulations with goal of reducing deaths due to them.

[aswanson]

Bad driving and cardiac/obesity DO cause more than 10^6 deaths per annum and get no where near the proportionate political/media attention that terrorism does. There are 10x the deaths in auto accidents than the worst terrorist attack in US history every single year. The DHS budget alone dwarfs any proportional safety return that could be made by simply raising the legal driving age by a year.

[aub3bhat]

>>The DHS budget alone dwarfs any proportional safety return that could be made by simply raising the legal driving age by a year.

What?? What does legal driving age has to do with DHS budget? You are simply rambling, different mortality causes have different risk models.

Or to explain simply you are comparing "Apples to Oranges".

[joncrocks]

I think what he's saying is that a disproportionate amount of time and money is spent on saving a tiny number of lives.

If your goal as a government is to minimise the number of lives lost that were preventable, then the argument is that there are many more effective ways of doing it other than spending huge amounts on security services.

I presume there's some stat somewhere that says that young drivers are more likely to be involved in fatal traffic accidents. No-one would claim that dying in these accidents is not tragic.

So if you were to raise the legal driving age by a year, you may end up saving lots of lives, and that would be a lot cheaper way of saving lives.

It's not a flawless argument, as one has to balance freedoms with restrictions and the fact that any historic analysis of attacks has to try and unpick the fact that security apparatus was in place in the past. Spending 0 money on security could have unforeseen consequences, and most people would accept that preparing and executing an attack would be easier.

[jliptzin]

First of all I agree with you, but let me state what I think the other side's argument might be. You can choose to eat healthy and exercise and reduce your chance of early death from obesity/health issues. You can also drive extra carefully, or take a plane, or not travel at all if you're that concerned about a car crash. With a terrorist attack though, it's mostly out of your control and literally anyone can be affected at any time and that's the scary part. That being said, people should take into account how minuscule that risk really is, but that's hard for the average joe to do when every attack is plastered all over the news for days whether it's something major or a lone gunman killing a few people.

[ItendToDisagree]

>You can choose to eat healthy and exercise and reduce your chance of early death from obesity/health issues. You can also drive extra carefully, or take a plane, or not travel at all if you're that concerned about a car crash.

Since "Terrorism" is a political problem, how about a political solution? Stop going into Muslim countries and murdering women/children and tearing down governments with no plan for rebuilding? Be more cautious about what you do on the world stage. Stop bombing brown people just because they don't support 'American interests' and such.

[kabdib]

The moment the T-word comes out, you can be sure it's a power grab of some kind. Just like it was "communists" in the 1950s.

I don't see any reason to compromise against a fake enemy.

[JustSomeNobody]

How many people die from terrorism in a year in the U.S.? Not many. How much money do we spend on it every year? Too Much. How often do politicians talk about it? Way Too Much. It's ridiculous. It is basically a non-issue here.

I bet the number of blacks killed by cops outnumbers the people killed by terrorists here in the U.S. Let's spend a trillion dollars fighting THAT problem!

edit: clarify

[wand3r]

More people die of auto erotic asphyxiation than terrorism annually (~682 people). You're insistence is what is rediculous, as parent pointed out if it was a problem--it isn't; then 0 cases have been publicly thwarted via this technique.

I don't buy in that this problem is large enough not that this solution would be acceptable if it was

[aub3bhat]

Arguing deaths due to <x> happened more frequently than terrorism in some time period is useless, if the underlying process that generates those numbers are widely different. There is no organized cult going around preaching auto erotic asphyxiation with explicit intention of causing large scale harm. On the other hand there are several organized terrorist groups which are intentionally trying to do that.

Unchecked Terrorism has non stationary distribution and can lead to deadlier events that are orders of magnitude larger. Further why pick a year and not a day? At any given day the number of deaths due to Terrorism are close to zero, except you know on a tragic day a decade ago in september.

[boomboomsubban]

> if the underlying process that generates those numbers are widely different.

So stop the underlying process? Terrorist organizations aren't quiet about their problems, that tragic day in September was in opposition to US interference in their lives. If our goal was combatting terrorism, we picked a terrible way of addressing the problem.

[aub3bhat]

>>that tragic day in September was in opposition to US interference in their lives.

To you these attacks are a valid grievance redressal mechanisms??? Is that the path every disenfranchised group should take?? If you are okay with such approach, no point in having a discussion.

[TeMPOraL]

It's not about whether you're ok or not with their methods. The question is, do you really, actually, want to stop terrorism, or are you just pretending, using the T-word as a political tool? The actions of not just US, but other western countries strongly suggest, that they don't actually care about stopping terrorism.

[boomboomsubban]

>To you these attacks are a valid grievance redressal mechanism?

No, but neither is the "War on Terror."

[mlindner]

Oh please, can you even look at what you're saying? Please look at some numbers before stating such ridiculous things.

[aub3bhat]

Merely looking at numbers without understanding the underlying statistical process that generates those numbers is not how you do risk estimation.

[mlindner]

Please illuminate me then. What is wrong with looking at pure causes of death?