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Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

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Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#31

Post by SonicSoul »

henrikschroder wrote: post #18
wtvanhest wrote: post #15

There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity,…

> but the reality is that terrorism is real Many things are real. Lightning strikes. Car accidents. Meteorites to the head. Tsunamis. Smoking. Fat. Dying because of a terrorist attack is way, way, way, way down on the list of stuff you are likely to die from, so the only rational thing to do is to worry about the stuff ABOVE it on the list. Like driving. Or eating right. Or not smoking. Get your priorities right.

so you wouldn't worry about lightning storms in your sleep, but if you are out in the field during one you'll probably take some precautions? maybe get out from under the tallest tree? You probably wouldn't completely ignore it.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#32

Post by Tharkun »

rick888 wrote: post #25
cstavish wrote: post #7

It amazes me that people freak out when they see "Muslim-looking" people on flights. The politically-correct response is along the lines of "OMG That is highly prejudicial!", but that's irrelevant. From a purely practical perspective, why would a terrorist leader send an attacker whom many Americans immediately view as "suspicious", when he could send someone who appears more "normal"? On another note, people these d…

yeah, well, 9/11 still happened with people that didn't appear "normal". "The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America." We should bend over backwards to make the terrorists happy so they don't attack us? What if they hate us because we aren't part of their religion..is the answer to make the US a Muslim country? Negotiating with terrorists that clearly aren't…

Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities.

You seem to be very much stuck in an "us" and "them" mindset. You also seem to be missing several things. No one said anything about bending over backwards. As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.)

And who suggested making the US a "Muslim country"? The very notion is ridiculous. The US claims to be a "free" country after all, with freedom of religion. There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#33

Post by mikeash »

wtvanhest wrote: post #15

There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity,…

"Rather be safe than sorry" is not a very useful statement. Any time you step out of the house you're taking some sort of risk. Each person has their own tradeoff between reducing risk and living life, but except for a very few people (who are universally considered to be mentally ill), nobody sets that tradeoff at zero risk and zero life. To imply that you would want to take any measure to make travel safer no matter how small the risk already is makes no sense. If you are that sensitive to risk, you shouldn't be traveling at all.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#34

Post by mikeash »

huhtenberg wrote: post #9

That's all great, but consider a situation. I get on the plane and sit next to a guy who avoids eye contact, does not respond to Hi and then starts praying, seemingly detached from the reality. Shall I just ignore this and refuse to be terrorized? I will tell you more. As someone who rode on a subway train that was next to the one blown up in a terrorist attack, I will walk out of a coffee shop if I see a person leav…

You'd have even less of a chance of dying if you just stayed home all day. If you really believed in that "sliver of probability" stuff, you'd never go outside. By placing disproportionate emphasis on terrorism you're actually making yourself less safe, because it takes attention away from things which actually have a decent chance of killing you.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#35

Post by rick888 »

acabal wrote: post #8

Good article but it'll never be read by those who need to read it most. Unfortunately terror has now been institutionalized. The TSA is a massive bureaucracy that generates jobs and cash flow. It's not something that will ever be dismantled overnight. That's not even mentioning the political convenience it provides: with it politicians can keep us afraid, thus getting our votes when they promise to protect us. It goe…

The US is a more aware society. Just because they are talked about in the news, doesn't make someone afraid, just more aware of the dangers in society.

"fear of walking the streets alone at night"

It depends on where you live. If I'm in Detroit, then yes, I will be a little more apprehensive about walking on the streets alone at night. It's just common sense.

"Fear of someone spiking your Tylenol"

If someone hacked into your servers and destroyed data through a weakness, would you fix the weakness or just restore the data and go on with your day? The Tylenol weakness has been fixed. It's the smart thing to do.

"Uncontrollable fear of a country across the ocean maybe having WMD's."

I love how you slipped this one in here. I actually would love for the US to stop all military actions and then have a major terrorist attack. I know I would be the first to blame all of the people who said we were too "paranoid".

It's funny because the reason people can sit and talk about all of these things we don't need is because all of the precautions we have in place are working. Kind of like the person that's bi-polar that stops taking their meds because "I feel fine, why should I keep taking them"?

"Until we learn to control that basic fear response, the TSA will still be around and people will still be scared of sitting next to a dark-skinned man kneeling in prayer."

Until the people in the middle east get their shit together, we will need it. We don't know how many attacks have been prevented because of high security (IE: not even bothering to try).

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#36

Post by wtvanhest »

henrikschroder wrote: post #18
wtvanhest wrote: post #15

There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity,…

> but the reality is that terrorism is real Many things are real. Lightning strikes. Car accidents. Meteorites to the head. Tsunamis. Smoking. Fat. Dying because of a terrorist attack is way, way, way, way down on the list of stuff you are likely to die from, so the only rational thing to do is to worry about the stuff ABOVE it on the list. Like driving. Or eating right. Or not smoking. Get your priorities right.

A single successful attack causes Billions of dollars in losses. Look at load factors after September 11th. Planes were empty for months.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#37

Post by rick888 »

Tharkun wrote: post #32
rick888 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, well, 9/11 still happened with people that didn't appear "normal". "The way to fight it is to alter the conditions. To do this we must understand why people hate America." We should bend over backwards to make the terrorists happy so they don't attack us? What if they hate us because we aren't part of their religion..is the answer to make the US a Muslim country? Negotiating with terrorists that clearly aren't…

Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities. You seem to be very much stuck in an "us" and "them" mindset. You also seem to be missing several things. No one said anything about bending over backwards. As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere,…

"Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities."

Nice way to get out of a discussion.

"As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place?"

You said we should try to figure out why they are angry with us..as if it's the fault of the US for getting attacked (blaming the victim).

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.)"

Nice flamebait. In Many other countries, they have full-on profiling with armed guards on each plane. It seems to work pretty well on the middle east.

"There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please."

I never said they shouldn't be stopped. However, if there are a high number of attempted attacks and the description of the attackers match the type of people coming onto the plain, the TSA should be allowed to question/detain those people.

It's this type of thinking that stops a newspaper from putting a description of a criminal because it's not politically correct.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#38

Post by cema »

cstavish wrote: post #7

It amazes me that people freak out when they see "Muslim-looking" people on flights. The politically-correct response is along the lines of "OMG That is highly prejudicial!", but that's irrelevant. From a purely practical perspective, why would a terrorist leader send an attacker whom many Americans immediately view as "suspicious", when he could send someone who appears more "normal"? On another note, people these d…

  It amazes me that people freak out 
  when they see "Muslim-looking" people on flights.
I may not be flying often enough, but I am flying both in the USA and International, and I have never seen this happening. (Maybe someone was freaking out quietly and I have not noticed.)

Is this your experience, or are you extrapolating from what you have read about it?

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#39

Post by coffeedrinker »

jamesbkel wrote: post #30

This has always been one of my biggest issues with "counter-terrorism". If the costs of fighting terrorism outweigh the damage that a genuine terrorist group could inflict... who really wins? As a US citizen, I don't doubt that some of our spending has directly stopped particular terrorist plots. However, my point for the past ~10 years has been: they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them aroun…

>they [terrorists] are tricking us into burning money chasing them around the world

The terrorists are not the ones gaining financially and they are not the ones tricking us.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#40

Post by jerf »

wtvanhest wrote: post #15

There are roughly 20 Million Flights world wide per year. During the period of those 5 incidents, there were over 220,000 flights. (4 days) Yes, it would suck to be on one of those flights, but your chances are extremely low. 00.0023% of flights are impacted. You have less than a 1 in 43,000 chance of being on one of those flights. But... if you are on one of those flights where there is suspected terrorist activity,…

You got downvoted because you did the statistical equivalent of begging the question. Assuming that you are going to be attacked and killed by terrorists, the odds of you dying via terrorist attack are 100%. P(A|A) = 1. (I know you didn't go to this extreme, but you did the same basic thing.) This is not an interesting result.
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