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Comment by Totoradio | Hacker News Reader

I used it during the Paris attacks in november, and it indicated to everyone I know that I was safe, without the need for everyone of them to message me. Of course, the close friends and family still called/texted, but for literally everyone else in my facebook friends, it was useful.

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I fail to see how that is useful - of course you're safe - out of a city with a population in the millions hundreds died - it makes no more sense to check on your safety due to an event than this than on a daily basis, as you're more likely to have a heart attack in your sleep.

All this does is further warp and distort our idea of what is dangerous in life and what is not.

We have found Sheldon Cooper.

In the 90s there was an accident at a concert my aunt and uncle were attending. Tens of people died, many more injured. We couldn't reach them for days, had no clue what their condition was. Turned out they had left the concert early, and, this being the 90s, hadn't heard about the accident until they got home (much easier back then to live under a rock with respect to news events). A feature like this would have saved us all a lot of fretting.

While it's true that 99.99% of people in the cities of these various attacks are safe, that doesn't prevent others from worrying about them when these events hit the news. And it's not just for terrorist attacks, they've also applied it to natural disasters (which will impact a lot more people).

I still think we overemphasize the threat of terrorism and it plays directly I to the neocons narrative. I wish we stopped playing their game. If you're worried about someone, reach out to them directly. I can see the value of this in case of a tragedy that affects thousands but not here.

That doesn't obviate the need to communicate with others (whose concern is rational or not). The communication systems after things like this are down because of (according to you and others here) irrational people concerned about those they love and care about. A system like this has applications to any sort of disaster, and one of the primary benefits is in reversing the order of communication. Instead of 10s of people contacting each resident and swamping both the person and the network, the resident can push information out to the global network. They communicate one time (ok, practically this isn't sufficient to communicate their status to everyone and some will still call them or reach out via other channels), and everyone that cares can check on their status.

While it's very important to use tragedy to further your political agenda you should note that neocons don't hold power now yet the government is still "playing their game" with terrorism events.

What are you talking about? The Republicans control Congress, and Obama is a neocon-lite. And as for the upcoming election, Hillary is a full-up neocon and warmonger.

That's why terror attacks work - we (the media) go ape shit after them. If no one bat an eye, they would loose the effect and appeal.

Precisely. As a kid I learned to stop being bullied by ceasing to grant the reaction that they were after.

As long as we keep on demonstrating that their strategy is effective they will continue to pursue it.

Whatever, it's human nature to want to know your loved ones are OK. If my wife and kids were in the area of an attack, of course I would want to know that they were all right, even if I rationally understood the chances were high that they were fine. In fact, parents just want to make sure their children are alright even if they're in a different country from a disaster, because tragedy reminds us of how fragile life is and makes us want to reach out to the people we love. If you want a tangible benefit, this reduces the load on cell phone lines that used to get totally jammed after a disaster.

Incredible level of insensitivity. Sadly not every family today, or last time in Paris, is able to say of course my relative is safe. There is grief, broken lives and broken communities right now.

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