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Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

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Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#61

Post by jmspring »

acabal wrote: post #43
rick888 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Your view is exactly the kind of fear I'm referring to. Re. Tylenol, 7 people died in an isolated area, and the response was national legislation and money and materials spent tamper-proofing every drug made since then. People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening). By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people…

"Re. military action, the occupation of Iraq had little to do with stopping "terrorists." If you recall, we invaded because of our fears of WMD's--which of course, turned out not to exist."

No, we invaded Iraq for oil and because a certain Commander CodPiece was a bit too big for his britches. Remember all those oil contracts that were put into place before we invaded? WMDs were an excuse, not the reason.

Many years later, the US is still bleeding money and lives because of this idiotic decision.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#62

Post by smhinsey »

jdietrich wrote: post #44
rick888 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> 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". So you'd happily see thousands of people killed as long as it proves you right? Classy.

> So you'd happily see thousands of people killed as long as it proves you right?

Recent American politics in a nutshell, I'm afraid. Football with words, but also stealth bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#63

Post by rjbond3rd »

wisty wrote: post #60
kstenerud wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two kinds of terrorists: The desperate and the insane. A life of terrorism is very unstable, and usually quite brutal and short. The desperate join up because the only other alternative is rolling over and either dying or becoming enslaved in some way. Theirs is a rational choice. The insane are men who crave power to such a degree that there is little they won't do to secure it, but in order to succeed the…

Studies by Israelis (who have tonnes of captured Pakistani terrorists) have shown terrorists are often from well-off backgrounds (but from a poor country), and otherwise "good" people (empathic, sense of social responsibility, etc). If your country is poor, and you happen to be from a privileged background, you might feel the need to give something back. If your community believes that "martyrs" are good, then terror…

Why would Israelis have any Pakistani terrorists? Is this a conspiracy theory?

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#64

Post by [deleted] »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #39
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.

[deleted]

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#65

Post by wtvanhest »

Silhouette wrote: post #24
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,…

I don't know what sort of maths you're arguing for here, but your argument doesn't make any sense to me at all. If we assume there are about 100,000 flights per day worldwide (a quick Google suggests this is a reasonable round-figure estimate) then there are 36.5 million flights per year. If there is 1 actual attack attempt per year, then your chance that a flight you are on is a target is only 1 in 36,500,000 or so.…

The problem with your logic is that the statistics you give are based on there being security. Without it, you have no idea how high the number of successful attacks on planes would be.

The chance of dying in a auto accident is still really low. Should we start allowing drinking and driving, no air bags, no speed limits etc. because those laws are annoying to you?

I, like everyone else would appreciate less restrictive security, but some level of security has to be present on aircraft. Without it, there would be far more incidents. Especially non terrorist activities like people bringing guns on board for hijackings etc. Security at airports is effective against a wide range of attacks, not just organized terrorism.

(I used 2000's number of flights to estimate today's. 20M)

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#66

Post by wtvanhest »

tommyudo wrote: post #10
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…

>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? That depends. Are his prayers Christian prayers, or Muslim prayers?

Not really, I think it would be strange regardless.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#67

Post by bronson »

cema wrote: post #38
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?

First sentence in the article: passengers refused to fly with two Arab-looking men looking at their watches.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#68

Post by wtvanhest »

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…

Is it everyone's belief who reads hacker news that the number of successful terrorism attacks would not go up if we eliminated all airport security?

It seems obvious to me that the following would occur more: 1) Mentally impaired people would attempt to hijack, bomb, or otherwise cause problems on planes with weapons. 2) Drunk or impaired by drugs (meth, coke, etc.) would attempt to hijack, bomb, or otherwise cause problems on planes. 3) Rouge individual terrorists would target planes rather than simply shoot up an office etc. 4) Organized terrorist organizations would target planes more often.

With the level of security we have today, it is still important to report what could be a terrorist attack in process. The person who reported the shoe bomber saved an entire plane full of people.

It is terrible that we live in a world where terrorism exists, but it does exist, and it will exist forever. The examples the author gave are described to make incidents involved seem ridiculous, but maybe there were other factors at play.

If you see something suspicious and you do nothing and a terrorist attack occurs that you could have prevented you are a coward who is responsible for the death of whatever number of people died in that attack.

You keep terrorists from winning by preventing successful implantation of their plans.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#69

Post by wisty »

rjbond3rd wrote: post #63
wisty wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies by Israelis (who have tonnes of captured Pakistani terrorists) have shown terrorists are often from well-off backgrounds (but from a poor country), and otherwise "good" people (empathic, sense of social responsibility, etc). If your country is poor, and you happen to be from a privileged background, you might feel the need to give something back. If your community believes that "martyrs" are good, then terror…

Why would Israelis have any Pakistani terrorists? Is this a conspiracy theory?

Typo. Palestinian. Fixed. Damn that was stupid.

Re: Refuse to be terrorized (2006)

#70

Post by shareme »

jmspring wrote: post #61
acabal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view is exactly the kind of fear I'm referring to. Re. Tylenol, 7 people died in an isolated area, and the response was national legislation and money and materials spent tamper-proofing every drug made since then. People are still scared of Halloween candy being tampered with (which in and of itself has never been recorded as happening). By that logic, we should have outlawed cars years ago; more than 7 people…

"Re. military action, the occupation of Iraq had little to do with stopping "terrorists." If you recall, we invaded because of our fears of WMD's--which of course, turned out not to exist." No, we invaded Iraq for oil and because a certain Commander CodPiece was a bit too big for his britches. Remember all those oil contracts that were put into place before we invaded? WMDs were an excuse, not the reason. Many years…

No, look at the Vice President and whose pocket he was in. Guess who the largest percentage of contracts for Iraq was? Iraq War was a jobs program for the industrial war machine framework. Not oil..gov contracts worth billions
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