91–100 of 197 posts
"400,000 Americans have been shot and killed since 9/11;" http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/27/polic... Since we're fucking around with numbers can someone figure out the probability of being killed by another American than a terrorist?
Being a middle income white person not involved in crime, I suspect my risk for being killed by the police is below average. As I live in London and travel on public transport my risk for being killed by a terrorist is above average.
Being a middle income white person not involved in crime, I suspect my risk for being killed by the police is below average. As I live in London and travel on public transport my risk for being killed by a terrorist is above average.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, 10 million people is roughly a third of the population of Canada. AFAIK, nothing in recorded history ever killed that many people in a single day. (To give some perspective, the atomic bombs in WWII "only" killed in the range of a hundred thousand people) If you look at a major terrorist attack death toll, you'll probably find that it's within one order of magnitude of, say, a major riot death toll.
I don't think that this is true. The worst terrorist attacks look to be about an order of magnitude worse than the worst riots.
http://www.sickchirpse.com/top-10-most-devastating-terrorist...
http://listverse.com/2014/02/07/10-deadliest-riots-in-histor...
According to those, worst terrorist attack was 9/11, with ~6k deaths in a single day. Most of the riots in the riot list had larger death tolls (ranging from anywhere between ~7k in a single day, to over 1M over a period of time).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed it is sensationalism. And it highlights the fact that we're expending far too much effort and money on handwavy "solutions" to handwavy "terrorism."
They don't see it that way. Obviously our efforts have been so fruitful that terrorism has been wiped out.
If that's the perception, maybe we need to direct the same effort to the now more serious problem of police shootings of citizens, so those can be wiped out to the same low level as the terrorism threat has been reduced to.
And we are even more likely to be killed by each other (homicides, vehicle accidents) and ourselves (suicides, vehicle accidents). Honestly I take issue with the statistic. Many criminals are shot and killed by the police for good reasons. I would like to see the statistic for the likelihood of being killed when not in the commission of a crime or unlawfully resisting arrest. This is just sensationalizing the issue.
And you are five times more likely to be killed at a railroad crossing then by a police officer.[1] Headlines like these are obviously created for sensationalism , and while you will be hard pressed to find someone with a bigger animus towards the current USCJS then I, I think we should all be on the lookout for hyperbole, no matter what underlying meme it may be promoting. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol…
This extensively documented site ( http://www.killedbypolice.net/kbp2013.html ) suggests that 768 people were killed by police in 2013, compared to the 784 people murdered by trains. If my math is correct, 784/768 is not five. Additionally, that site's statistics are only for may-december, so the actual number is probably around 50% higher.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’re talking about really low probability deaths then you need to consider really unusual cases. Fires gun at fleeing suspect, bullet hits _ -> deaths. Now, how does _ end up with 10 million deaths? Well, the US Air Force for example has accidently dropped nuclear warheads on several occasions. They are designed to be really tough, but there is probably a non-zero chance a bullet could end up setting a defective…
But it's far, far higher chance that terrorists would kill 10 million tomorrow than police. All it takes is for a terrorist group to get their hands on nukes.
First, getting a nuke while hard is not enough. Killing 10 million people takes either a really big nuke in just the right spot, or a large number of nukes.
Second, having a nuke is not enough you need to be able to correctly detonate on command which it which is harder than you might think.
Third, you need to transport it to a useful location as there not stored in the middle of city's.
Fourth, you need to decide using them is more useful than threating to use them.
Fifth, if your comparing them to US police then they need to target the US.
So, no it takes far more than picking one up to kill 10 million people.
PS: Simply killing lots of people is not that useful to a terrorist organization. Making nukes less useful than you might think.
And you are five times more likely to be killed at a railroad crossing then by a police officer.[1] Headlines like these are obviously created for sensationalism , and while you will be hard pressed to find someone with a bigger animus towards the current USCJS then I, I think we should all be on the lookout for hyperbole, no matter what underlying meme it may be promoting. [1] http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't hyperbole that US cops are far more violent and unstable than the cops of other developed countries. Look at how many people Germany kills per year. Now look at how many people China kills per year. Now look at the US...
Does Germany have an equivalent to South Chicago or North St. Louis? Because we've got one of those in just about every major U.S. city. It seems relevant.