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The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

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Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#81

Post by anigbrowl »

jlgreco wrote: post #59
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No red dawn fantasies, just realpolitik ones. I would consider it a destruction of our society if our economy was not "recognizable as an economy at all." Indeed, the current recession only wiped out about $600 billion of GDP at the worst, and look at how much suffering it caused. I'm willing to vote for the US to send quite a few more drones to Pakistan to avert a possible 10x 9/11 event, even if we could technicall…

You define "society" far too narrowly. A society is not an economy, a government, or even a piece of land enclosed by a border. It is an abstract idea, a sort of shared culture and basic methodology. Here is the real trick though, this "New Rome" is not a city. We don't have a seat of power from which we derive our identity and shared culture, or any sort of sackable cultural Mecca which we define ourselves by. You c…

You really ought to look into the history of the dark ages, because under the Pax Romana Europe enjoyed an extremely well-developed civil society that brought self-evident benefits to the participants, just like our culture of appreciation for scientific progress, the arts, and political theories...a culture which is not nearly as universal as you seem to imagine.

Also, the word you should be using is 'hordes.' Hoards are things like piles of gold or other valuables.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#82

Post by ptaipale »

Cieplak wrote: post #33

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

BTW, as far as I understand, this quote is nowadays used in a way that rather different or even contradicting with its original one. Originally, Franklin was rallying up militia to take up arms against roving bands, or perhaps even "extremists" as they might be called today.

So "purchasing safety" was "not joining armed forces that fight criminals and enemies". This was before the revolution, and what Americans call "the frontier" was in Pennsylvania.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#84

Post by ErrantX »

anigbrowl wrote: post #73
afhof wrote: post #19

Its too bad that most people don't have a basic appreciation of statistics or probability. Its too bad Schneier only spends a tiny paragraph on it: "Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event". The chance that a person will die from a bombing, or be shot, or their plane crash, or a hurricane kill them is so small that there is almost NO reason to be afraid of…

most people have a better grasp of probability than you suggest. What they're scared of is not so much the remote possibility of being a bombing victim, but the complete lack of control they would have in such a situation. there's a much higher chance of being in a car accident than in a bombing, but you can mitigate your risk of a car accidnet by paying attention to your own and others' driving, and in most cases yo…

Yes, and that's the GPs point; that paralysing fear outweighs the logic of the situation. Indeed, I'd suggest your own comment about being able to mitigate a car accident is a prime example of our difficulty with assessing the probability of risk (you may have more control of the situation; but that does not reduce the probability of you being killed by a car).

Many many things could kill us suddenly and without warning (even heart failure!). We are disproportionately scared of some things (eg flight) because they "seem" scary, and are blasé to actually risky things because they seem familiar.

And excellent book on this is "Risk; the science andpolitics of fear" which uses case studies and real data to examine this phenomenon.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#85

Post by anigbrowl »

ScottBurson wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No red dawn fantasies, just realpolitik ones. I would consider it a destruction of our society if our economy was not "recognizable as an economy at all." Indeed, the current recession only wiped out about $600 billion of GDP at the worst, and look at how much suffering it caused. I'm willing to vote for the US to send quite a few more drones to Pakistan to avert a possible 10x 9/11 event, even if we could technicall…

What if the drones are more likely to cause a 10x 9/11 event, by helping al Qaeda's recruiting efforts? I don't know that that's a likely outcome, but I think it's possible. In any case, I think this idea that we can pre-emptively kill everyone who might possibly attack us at some point in the future is both dangerous and evil.

We've killed an awful lot fewer people with drones than we used to do with aerial bombing, even since the start of the 'war on terror.' It's like the difference between sniping and heavy artillery.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#86

Post by setrofim_ »

anigbrowl wrote: post #73
afhof wrote: post #19

Its too bad that most people don't have a basic appreciation of statistics or probability. Its too bad Schneier only spends a tiny paragraph on it: "Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event". The chance that a person will die from a bombing, or be shot, or their plane crash, or a hurricane kill them is so small that there is almost NO reason to be afraid of…

most people have a better grasp of probability than you suggest. What they're scared of is not so much the remote possibility of being a bombing victim, but the complete lack of control they would have in such a situation. there's a much higher chance of being in a car accident than in a bombing, but you can mitigate your risk of a car accidnet by paying attention to your own and others' driving, and in most cases yo…

You're right but that's precisely the point -- what matters to your safety is the probability, not how much control you feel you have. Yes, you can do more to mitigate the risk of being in a car accident than to mitigate the risk of being a victim of a bombing attack. But even if you do all you can, you are still more likely to be in a car accident than in a bombing (and thus, rationally, should be more concerned about the former than the latter).

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#87

Post by TillE »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #61

"It turns out that terrorism is much harder than most people think. It's hard to find willing terrorists, it's hard to put a plot together, it's hard to get materials, and it's hard to execute a workable plan. As a collective group, terrorists are dumb, and they make dumb mistakes; criminal masterminds are another myth from movies and comic books." He is very wrong. He is confusing foot soldiers with their leaders. T…

As yet, there's no indication that this is foreign terrorism. Remember Oklahoma City.

There's been no claim of responsibility, and it seems like these were not suicide bombings. These are interesting data points.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#88

Post by ptaipale »

untog wrote: post #8

It was a great moment of national pride for me (which are rare in the UK) in the wake of the 7/7/2005 bombings. People were back on the Tube and buses the next day, refusing to allow their lives to be disrupted further. I've always taken solace from those people- I hope that the people of Boston can be equally inspiring.

I think this is what happens pretty much everywhere. People just carry on.

News media gives us a rather distorted image of how things stand. I remember when living in Beijing during the Kosovo bombing campaign in 1999. The Chinese naturally took great offence for deaths in their embassy.

CNN was day after day showing video of violent anti-US demonstrations outside US embassy in Beijing. Foreigners were warned of sticking their nose out. I took a walk in the Sanlitun embassy area. The closest thing to a riot I saw was an overweight woman walking her poodle. The demonstrations were well organised in front of the cameras, without causing disruption elsewhere. They were mostly over in a day; CNN just kept replaying the same footage for a week.

Chinese colleagues were clearly angry, but they also just carried on, as always.

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#89

Post by buro9 »

ronnier wrote: post #57

"Keep Calm and Carry On". This phrase from the British has peaked in recent times. http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Calm%20and%20Carry%20... A week hardly passes that I don't see it on a shirt, a coworkers wall, or in a meme.

It certainly beats the prior poster in 1939 of "Freedom Is In Peril Defend It With All Your Might".

Re: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On

#90

Post by buro9 »

untog wrote: post #8

It was a great moment of national pride for me (which are rare in the UK) in the wake of the 7/7/2005 bombings. People were back on the Tube and buses the next day, refusing to allow their lives to be disrupted further. I've always taken solace from those people- I hope that the people of Boston can be equally inspiring.

London had 30 years of training.
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