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Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

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Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#581

Post by hallomac2013 »

rayiner wrote: post #534
scarmig wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the innocent people being blown up in Iraq certainly weren't accidentally being blown up. And we had a much bigger role in creating the situation in Iraq than we did the situation in Boston...

A bombing in Boston hits home to people in New York, because people can relate to their countrymen better than they can to random people on the other side of the planet with a different culture and history. This is human nature.

Honestly, humans ought to be better than this outdated and questionable nature.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#582

Post by nandemo »

d0mine wrote: post #577
nandemo wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never quite understood that argument. It's not about it being insensitive, just irrelevant. It seems to have an implicit but completely unsupported premise that every death is equal. First, there's age: deaths from heart disease tend to happen at old age. In most cultures, death at old age is considered less tragic than the death of an infant or young adult. Also, there's the perceived "naturality" of death: dea…

Here's a more elaborate version of the same argument by Bruce Schneier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5555939

I think they're very different arguments. uber is saying that this incident is relatively insignificant, since more people died of heart attack today. Schneier is saying that (i) we overstate the impact/probability of terrorist attacks. Note that this is not the same as merely comparing number of bombing deaths with deaths from natural causes; if this was happening every week, surely it would be considered a worrying development, even if the number of daily bombing deaths was still less than deaths by heart disease or car accidents. And (ii) that we should refuse to be terrorized as that gives power to terrorists.

I think (i) isn't a very solid argument since we can't estimate the probability of future terrorist attacks the same way we can calculate the probability of winning the lottery, or as we can estimate the probability of x deaths by heart attack in the next 5 years. For example, suppose we count the number of bombings against civilians in pre-2nd-intifada Israel. In 1999 there were 2 bombings. In 2000, when the intifada started, 5. In the following 2 years, 40 then 47. I haven't checked, but I suppose the same pattern would hold for pre- and post-invasion Iraq (note that this isn't an argument pro or anti the invasion).

I'm not saying that the same thing is likely to happen in the US, I'm just pointing out a weakness in the argument. Overall, though, I think Schneier has a point.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#583

Post by chrischen »

tbrooks wrote: post #379

Really PG? https://twitter.com/paulg/status/323909260826259457

Watsi's a nonprofit, so I'm pretty sure neither YC or PG are getting rich off of it.

I think it's a good reminder that serious shit isn't going down just in Boston right now, and that you can help people suffering right now, wherever they are.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#584

Post by stevekemp »

jenius wrote: post #381
jacquesm wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does that help? You could still stick a bomb in amongst the trash. Ok, it's no longer enclosed in a container that will make the blast worse but you could stick plenty of malice into a bomb the size of a football which would easily go into that bag.

totally agreed that this hardly helps with hiding a bomb, but still a really interesting response, upvote from me : )

Annoyingly the UK decided that the sanest solution to bombs-in-bins was to remove bins from places like airports and train-stations.

A real pain if you've got food and rubbish to dispose of.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#586

Post by toyg »

ricardobeat wrote: post #536
andypants wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are all facing away from the explosion. The first explosion happened on the side with the flags, you can see the smoke is thickest there. Just pointing out an observation. There could be other officers already on the scene of the explosion, and these guys are handling the crowds.

Yes. At least four of them are running away from the bomb site, the other two are staring at a fallen athlete. Maybe they though he was shot or something, I just can't make sense of it, hence the question.

After 9/11 (and umpteen IED in Iraq and Afghanistan), it was drilled into most emergency services personnel NOT to rush on the site of an explosion, for fear of secondary devices.

These guys are doing that: moving people away from the blast area, both for their safety and to make it easier for paramedics and bomb squad to reach it, while helping whoever cannot move.

I usually don't like police forces the world over (and Boston has some nasty precedents), but this picture makes them look well-trained, reactive and downright heroic -- which is probably not the case, they're just professionals trying to do their job.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#588

Post by RivieraKid »

Permit wrote: post #554
RivieraKid wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disproportionate to how many people died. And calm down please.

When has the news ever covered stories solely in proportion to the number of people who died? I don't understand how you could be astonished by this...

Well, when I was reading it on HN I thought "There was a bomb in Boston and two people died, what's so intersting about this, why it's on HN and why are people in the comments so emotional?" I'm not from the US but even where I live this is top news. I felt similarly with the boring and overhyped Fukushima crisis.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#589

Post by erpa1119 »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #2

Edit: Boston police reporting at least 2 dead, 22 injured and 10 people losing limbs. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/15/explosion-reported-near... Looks like there were two explosions. Picture: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BH6fCgFCQAERWMB.jpg:large More details http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro/Explosions-reported-nea... "Witnesses said several victims lost limbs, and the area was being evacuated. Many of the in…

6:39AM 3 dead, 126 wounded, what a terrible incident this has been.

Re: Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line

#590

Post by RivieraKid »

nandemo wrote: post #520
uberuberuber wrote: post #475

In the sturm und drang that has resulted from this tragedy, and the weeks to come of hand wringing about terrorists/crazyfolk/etc across the major news networks, I hope against hope that we can stow our reptilian brains for a brief while… In the 3 hours that have passed since the top comment was made, 205 people in the US have died from heart disease(1), an almost entirely preventable disease. This observation may be…

I've never quite understood that argument. It's not about it being insensitive, just irrelevant. It seems to have an implicit but completely unsupported premise that every death is equal. First, there's age: deaths from heart disease tend to happen at old age. In most cultures, death at old age is considered less tragic than the death of an infant or young adult. Also, there's the perceived "naturality" of death: dea…

But still, considering the significance of this bombing, some people are reacting so emotionally, it's almost pathetic. Compared to 9/11, this is nothing, only 3 people died. Even if we ignore predictable deaths that you mentioned, there similarly tragic and unpredictable deaths happening all the time that get much smaller attention.
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