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Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

Enlighten us?

Risks of day-to-day activities are known, their distribution effectively fixed and the magnitude of the risk also understood. The probability of ladder falls tripling year-to-year is of order 10^-14. I understand that driving my car could potential result in my death. There is some variability in the risk depending on how careful I am, time of day, whether I am sober etc, and of course risk out of my hands from other road users. I can have a good understanding of the risk and factor that in whether to carry out a daily activity.

War and Terrorism is completely different. When they occur is unknown, whether the event is small or cataclysmic unknown, the secondary effects they have in a wide complex system unknown.

You can take the original argument even further to understand why it is silly. Atomic bombs have only been used against people twice, therefore the chance of you dying in a car crash are multi-million times higher than dying from an atomic bomb. Should there not be an intense focus on de-proliferation, de-escalation of conflicts because of this? The consequences of an nuclear attack are so great, we spend huge amount of resources to reduce the likelihood.

Terrorism is similar. It is not only the poor victims of the attack who suffer. Our societies function on a fairly fine balance, much of which is predicated on the ability of our governance to keep us safe. Rapidly increasing frequency of attacks and their effectiveness drive us closer to instability and can severely damage our economies.

You dying in a car crash is going to hurt your friends and loved ones. You being blown up along with 50 passengers on the underground, the fifth explosion that week can have dramatic and scary results for us all.

> Should there not be an intense focus on de-proliferation, de-escalation of conflicts because of this?

Sure, nuclear disarmament wouldn't hurt, but like you said: atomic bombs have only been used against people twice. There's no evidence that their use against people is likely to substantially increase over the next few years, so it's not something that is worth worrying about. Just like terrorism.

EDIT: And certainly it is not worth using the risk of atomic bombs as an excuse to invade the privacy and erode the freedoms of millions of people.

Do you think I'm correct in believing terrorism is likely to increase over the next few years?

No? Do you believe that?

Some sources claim the number of people who have died from terrorist activity has increased ninefold since the year 2000[1].

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-17/global-terrorism-index...

> There's no evidence that their use against people is likely to substantially increase over the next few years, so it's not something that is worth worrying about

It does not even matter whether there is evidence that the risk is likely to increase or not. Plus, it is arguable unknowable what the current risk may be now or in a few years time (plus, do you really trust NK's safety in chain of command and equipment?). Regardless, no matter how unlikely the event is to occur the magnitude or the event is so unbelievably massive that is something to be worthy of worrying about.

It all comes downs to understanding that despite a extremely low probability of occurring, some events are so earth shattering, you cannot discount it by its probability of happening.

On September 10th there was no evidence an attack on New York City was particularly likely (apart from in the minds of the terrorists). But September 11th came along and changed the West and Middle East for decades.

No, it didn't. Or, at least, it needn't have. 3,000 people died. Yes, it's tragic, but it's much less tragic than the hundreds of millions of others who have died since.

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/09/forget-911.html

That is literally the point I am making. You are misunderstanding me completely.

No matter how unlikely an extreme event might be, if/when it does occur it has earth shattering effects due to the complexity of the world. This is why we need to be so vigilant in protecting ourselves against these threats.

I finished with "But September 11th came along and changed the West and Middle East for decades." That is the point. 9/11 was tragic enough, but it triggered an avalanche of death and trillions of dollars spent. These sort of attacks have non-linear effects that cannot be predicted.

You originally stated you are more likely to die falling down the stairs therefore "Bomb attacks are not something you should be concerned by." My response is that terror attacks are like what we see in 9/11. Considering that event resulted in hundreds of millions of death due to the complexities of the world AND the risk distribution and magnitude is completely incomparable to known risks and their distributions, it is nonsense to dismiss the risks as you are more likely to die falling down the stairs.

so anti-terrorism hysteria is warranted because anti-terrorism hysteria has already triggered an avalanche of death and trillions of dollars spent.

The hundreds of millions that have died since 9/11 are in no way connected to 9/11. You're misunderstanding me. Hundreds of millions is the total deaths across the entire human population since then. And those people are each just as worthy as the 3,000 that died in 9/11.

I don't know how to say this without seeming rude, but you just don't get people. I fully agree with your logic. But you are emotionally illiterate, and people are emotional animals. If you don't make the effort to connect with people on an emotional level most of them will not listen to your rational arguments.

I absolutely feel your frustration. I share your basic outlook. But most people don't. You're not smarter, you're just not as easy to activate emotionally as they are. That's why advertising and propaganda in general doesn't consist of long earnest rational arguments of the sort found in academic journals. It consists of atavistic emotional manipulation because that is what works most reliably.

Has anyone ever handed you a political flyer that consisted of a wall of text that you glanced at but didn't bother to read because you just couldn't be bothered to navigate >1000 words of half-baked political theory that didn't really speak to you as an individual? Well that's how your arguments come across to most regular folk.

Being right is not important if you can't get people to pay attention. Citing comparative statistics is a wonderful way to get people to ignore you.

But the parent argument is that loss of privacy hasn't decreased the probability of terrorism attacks. "It's not working but lets keep doing it just because" isn't a sound argument. There might be number thrown about x many threats were stopped which may or may not be true(would still like to see numbers if someone has some reliable ones). But the loss of privacy is unquestionably true (unless I am missing something here).

How much of my personal information do you need before you can guarantee 0 terrorism attacks. If the answer is "never 0 with any mount of loss of privacy", I am not sure if it's a worthwhile goal (or a price to pay).

Terrorism, like gun violence, is the act of another person interfering with my life. Falling down stairs is an accident. It's pretty easy to see how one elicits fear and outrage and demands to take action and the other doesn't.

FYI, there’s nothing in the parent argument that suggests we shouldn’t do anything to stop terrorism. It’s only saying that sacrificing our privacy rights isn’t worth the false assurance of safety mass surveillance provides.

> dramatic and scary results for us all.

This is a call to reform your government's tendency to overreact, not sign away your rights.

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