Post: #1

There's a recurring theme that I've seen a lot lately, comparing the risk of dying in a terrorist attack to various other risks like being struck by lightning. I first encountered this idea in a George Carlin sketch in the 90s. Taken to its most absurd extreme, you might see a graph like this posted on twitter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBghcZNUQAA6rJ9.jpg

There is truth to the idea, which is why it's seductive and why I am dedicating a threat to debunking it. Terrorism does garner an outsized emotional reaction to actual risk, but we should not be too quick to dismiss the entirety of the reaction as inappropriate. The picture above is idiotic because it ignores the simple fact that all people die eventually by some cause. If you list all of the causes of death, including deaths by chronic late-life diseases, then no fucking shit, terrorism is not the leading cause of death. To understand why terrorism matters more than heart disease or even murder, you have to look at it in the context of its threat to social order.

An act of terrorism is a flagrant violation of every social norm and an affront to society itself. Acts of terrorism are politically motivated. Terrorists seek to damage a polity by destroying trust in the social order. Thus, it is incumbent on the society to assess the threat realistically and respond appropriately, or else the social order will disintegrate.

All people, particularly people with western individualistic values, accept a level of personal responsibility and make decisions based on their tolerance for risk. Driving a car involves an explicit decision to assume the risk of dying in a random accident in order to accomplish more in life than you would otherwise. If you're caught in a thunderstorm, you can take explicit precautions to avoid being struck by lightning. Non-political crime often happens in the margins of society where the social order is already weak, and there's plenty of public resources already devoted to trying to solve that problem. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've got.

Terrorism, meanwhile, does not happen on the margins but instead targets well-ordered society. Terrorism kills people who trust the social order to protect them. Terrorism works by destroying this trust. There's no reasonable expectation that a resident of the UK should be at risk from being brutally murdered by a stranger on London Bridge or at an Ariana Grande Concert. This high social trust is why the UK can get away with such a restrictive policy on carrying weapons in public. Terrorists seek to use shocking carnage to demonstrate that this trust in the government is misplaced.

It's true that there's an ever-present risk that some drug-addled psychotic will go on a rampage at any time. That's also a shock to the social order. But there's a difference between a random one-time shock and deliberate, repeated shocks carried out over time. The former must be dealt with on a case by case basis. It's unclear whether we really gain anything by trying to solve for Columbine or Sandy Hook. Ignoring might work just as well as trying to fine-tune our system to account for every possible scenario. Systemic terrorism, however, can not simply be ignored, because that's just an invitation to engage in more terrorism. The government must recognize the threat to social trust and act in a manner that restores the broken trust. And the longer you wait to restore that trust in a moderate, measured, humane way, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences of social breakdown.

Post: #2

Yes, in order to help refine further ideas regarding this specious "argument", I'll point out what Douglas Murray did a while back: Lightning bolts or other accidents or inanimate objects don't come from an organized, well defined, global threat. Implicit in that recognition is that if you are honest and recognize it for what it is you can stop it.

The idea is a spin-off of the globalist bullshit "Just live with it, it's not so bad. Look at these stats!"

"Wait a minute sir, you want me to not care about very specific people trying to kill the whole lot of us, and not one at a time, but over long periods of time and increasingly in numbers if they can?"

Yet another example that progressivism and similar ways of thinking are not only delusional, they are actually quite destructive.

Post: #3

It would be nice to have a similar graphic that applies your principles with some sort of ratio based on a "self preventable" quotient, for adults age 18-55.

Another one might be "Causes of death of white females ages 12-18 in England in 2017"

Post: #4

Blaster, thanks for the thread.

However, there's just too many ways in which the PC-left and SJWs are wrong and/or outright mendacious, as usual.

A graph full of circles is almost always trying to lie to you, especially a circle graph without labels so you're left wondering if it's the radius/diameter or area that's the measure of concern.

Secondly, that graph has different labels on different circles scattered across the internet, according to a few shot-gun searches.

Lastly, and most importantly, most people (and especially leftists) don't understand conditional probability and/or thinking at the margins (different meaning of 'margins' than in your post).

Post: #5

(06-06-2017 08:04 PM)christpuncher Wrote:  Another one might be "Causes of death of white females ages 12-18 in England in 2017"

Savage, and oh so meme worthy.

Post: #6

As I said in another thread.

Every lie and deceit is on the table for the enemies of Western civilisation to bind your hands while their lackeys slit your throat.

It's no exaggeration to say that the same person that tells you that you worry too much about statistically irrelevant terrorism is the first to demand that private gun ownership be banned because some drunken idiot shot his cheating wife and then turned the gun on himself.

It's not about facts or reason.

Its about ending you and and everyone like you.