Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 73 posts

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#51

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

iopq wrote: post #40
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong about point 4. Could you outline such a plan? As a counter-example: CIA trained operatives with decades of experience and a 20+ person team launching a coordinated attack could only kill 3,000 -- and that was only because of underlying weaknesses in our security policy. The 9/11 attacks were so easy to counter, they didn't even work through one full morning. (By which I mean, 25% of the planes we…

Something like poisoning the water supply, maybe?

The city Im in uses about 100 million gallons per day. Delivering a toxic dose to tens of thousands would require poisoning a targeted 10 million gallons without being detected early.

Im not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying adding hundreds or thousands of gallons of poison to a distributed system isn't easy nor is it something a few pissed off people can do alone. You're well in to the realm of controlled/watched substances, advanced chemical synthesis, and dozens of people carrying out an attack against hardened targets.

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#52

Post by arjie »

morganvachon wrote: post #42
cooper12 wrote: post #31

Leave it to HN to completely ignore the point of the article and nitpick statistics. Guns kill more people than terrorism, period. Regardless of the actual numbers, the article's point still stands.

> Guns kill more people than terrorism, period. People with guns kill more people than terrorism. Guns aren't sentient (yet). Guns are inanimate tools; it's a people problem, not a tool problem. Just as you wouldn't say that cars kill people and try to ban cars when it's actually irresponsible drivers (drunk, inattentive, etc) that cause the accident, you can't blame an inanimate object for what its user does with it…

Assuming you're not a native speaker, that's an example of synecdoche. Just like The White House does not issue proclamations (it refers to the person occupying the office of the President, who occupies The White House).

One could also say, "The suits are coming for your money." but articles of clothing do not, as a rule, walk around robbing people.

Anyway, I'm pro-gun, but 'guns' kill people is just saying that gun users kill people with guns.

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#53

Post by coldtea »

maxerickson wrote: post #37
iopq wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing is that even if you BAN guns, it would not affect gang shootings because gang members would get guns illegally.

it would not affect gang shootings Saying this categorically is going too far. I absolutely agree that banning guns wouldn't end gang shootings. I do think it would have quite some impact.

Would it though? How well does it work on, say, Mexico? Or Eastern Europe?

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#54

Post by dmoy »

Houshalter wrote: post #44
dsp1234 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest statistics that I can find on the CDC's website (final data for 2014) shows that the number of homicide deaths in the US for that year was 10,945, which far outstrips terrorism deaths. Since I don't intend on shooting myself, the probability of me being shot is immediately a fraction of the number quoted in the article. While I did not review the data for 2005-2013 and 2015, if the trends are similar in th…

I think his point is that both risks are tiny for most people. As an "average" American, I have basically 0 fear of being murdered or being in a terrorist attack. The average commenter here is probably significantly more at risk of dying in a car accident. One thing to note about terrorist attacks, is they follow a power law. The vast majority of terrorist attacks are complete failures that cause barely any casualtie…

If some terrorist nuked NYC, there wouldn't be 15m deaths (there could be well over 1m deaths). The chance of a terrorist attack killing 15m is probably much closer to 0.000001% than it is to 1%.

The estimated immediate casualties from another nuclear state air-burst nuking every major US city simultaneously is only like 60m. A terrorist attack would be able to achieve significantly less.

I get your general point, but what I'm going for is roughly: humans are total crap at properly estimating, predicting, and gauging the risk of crazy anomalous events like that. (I think if we weren't so bad at it, less people would play the lotto for one...)

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#55

Post by maxerickson »

coldtea wrote: post #50
maxerickson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fourth, terrorism can also bring much more horrible outcomes than the regular gun death, even more than a mass shooting. Some crazies can kill literally tens of thousands via some (not that elaborate) plan. And while it might not always be possible to predict or prevent such a thing, one can still fear it (and fear to further stir the conditions that might make it happen). I've only done the lazy thing of looking at…

> I've only done the lazy thing of looking at Wikipedia, but it appears that the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11 is the only event carried out by non state actors in recent history that killed more than 1000 people. That doesn't offer much guarantees though. Before that one, the ceiling was much lower for attacks in the US (or even elsewhere), but it suddenly got to 3000 at one go. Here's a kind of disaster that ca…

His analogy is specious. One reason that there is little violence caused by legal immigrants is that there have been screening processes in place. Equating the status quo of US immigration policy with dismantling nuclear deterrents is ridiculous.

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#56

Post by coldtea »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #48
coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're wrong about point 4. Could you outline such a plan? As a counter-example: CIA trained operatives with decades of experience and a 20+ person team launching a coordinated attack could only kill 3,000 -- and that was only because of underlying weaknesses in our security policy. The attack you mention was mostly meant to be symbolic and grandiose: not to do the most damage numbers-wise. From bombing a s…

In the one example we have of it, a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway at rush hour killed 12 people and seriously injured 50 more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack Guns and bombs are actually far more effective. Skimming the list of terrorist attacks in 2016, the most deadly seem to be bombs and teams of gunmen (mostly in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Nigeria). https://en.wikiped…

>In the one example we have of it, a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway at rush hour killed 12 people and seriously injured 50 more.

It also says that it caused "temporary vision problems for nearly 5,000 others" and that "hospitals saw 5,510 patients, seventeen of whom were deemed critical, thirty-seven severe and 984 moderately ill with vision problems".

So this says more about the particular gas used or venue chosen, than about the effectiveness of such an attack to reach thousands. A different gas could have had more devastating effects, and same for a different setting (e.g. a closed stadium).

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#57

Post by coldtea »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51
iopq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like poisoning the water supply, maybe?

The city Im in uses about 100 million gallons per day. Delivering a toxic dose to tens of thousands would require poisoning a targeted 10 million gallons without being detected early. Im not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying adding hundreds or thousands of gallons of poison to a distributed system isn't easy nor is it something a few pissed off people can do alone. You're well in to the realm of controlled/watc…

>The city Im in uses about 100 million gallons per day. Delivering a toxic dose to tens of thousands would require poisoning a targeted 10 million gallons without being detected early.

How about just that of a huge building, say a hotel or hospital?

>nor is it something a few pissed off people can do alone.

Who said anything of a "few pissed off people doing it alone" though?

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#58

Post by juskrey »

roywiggins wrote: post #22
juskrey wrote: post #15

Terrorism scales, it is fat tailed distribution (9/11 again, anyone?). Cancer, guns and car accidents - no. Article is plain bullshit.

A 9/11 every year still wouldn't make terrorism more dangerous than guns, by my reckoning. That's only a few thousand a year, gun violence kills tens of thousands. Unless you work in a tall building of course...

I think you don't understand what "to scale" means.

Re: The psychology of why we're irrationally more scared of terrorism than guns

#59

Post by maxerickson »

coldtea wrote: post #53
maxerickson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would not affect gang shootings Saying this categorically is going too far. I absolutely agree that banning guns wouldn't end gang shootings. I do think it would have quite some impact.

Would it though? How well does it work on, say, Mexico? Or Eastern Europe?

Why would Mexico be instructive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Mexico#Type_of_fir...

This isn't a great table, but which Eastern Eupopean country do you think has worse problems with gun violence than the US? They tend to have stricter laws on guns and less intentional homicide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_guns_and_...

Post reply on HN