Why are we so afraid of terrorism when deaths are few and far between compared to automobile accidents ect?
I’m not.
Because it’s a very useful tool for politicians to use to manipulate popular opinion.
Also, instinct.
Moved to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I should clarify. While the concept of dying in a terrorist attack is certainly a scary thought, I am not actually worried about it happening.
People are not very good at assessing risk.
Well, there’s a bit of a clue in the name “terrorism”. The whole point of terrorism is to terrify; you kill somebody not because anything is achieved by killing those people in particular, but to terrify the population at large and so weaken political support for whatever it is that you are fighting against.
That, of course, might explain why people are scared of terrorism - a competently-executed terrorist campaign will, by definition, terrify - but it doesn’t follow that they should be. As others have pointed out, the risk of actually being injured by terrorist violence will mostly be tiny, and certainly much smaller than many risks that we face every day without a thought. But our attitude to risk is not governed simply by how likely the risk is to materialise in practice; we’re just not wired that way.
My greatest fears are alligators, crocodiles, and brain aneurysms.
We shouldn’t be afraid, and in fact most people aren’t afraid, or, at least, overcome any nagging fears of terrorism and still carry on with normal daily life, flying, driving, etc.
Fear is useful exactly to the extent that it motivates us to do things to decrease the risk. There’s precious little I can do about terrorism, so there’s correspondingly little reason for me to be afraid of it. I’m more afraid of my nation’s and the world’s response to terrorism, and that’s something I can do at least a little about.
I think people fear terrorism because of the randomness of it all. You could be walking down the sidewalk on a sunny afternoon and be killed instantly by a car bomb, or run over by a terrorist truck driver, with absolutely no warning. That’s not likely to happen in the US, but there are a lot of places where it has happened. You don’t have to be a soldier or a politician to be a victim. Any random person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time can die instantly. The terrorists don’t care who they kill or maim. It doesn’t really matter to them, and I think that’s what scares most people about terrorism.
For what it’s worth, I’m a lot more worried when I’m in a car than in a public place walking around, where mass shootings could happen, or terrorist attacks.
That being said, auto safety can’t really be improved much as far as national policy goes. But we can do something about terrorism nationally. We could do a lot about auto safety at the state and local level, but the public wants easy access to cars, loose enforcement, and a lot of dead bodies. The public would actually be enraged like never before if effective enforcement on careless or stupid driving was implemented.
I’d be afraid of terrorism, for one example - if we see a domestic uptick in drone attacks on various public spaces, especially stadia.
Given recent events it would be far more rational to fear retired accountants, but you don’t live in a rational society.
Actually I’d way more fear the accountants in your rational society.
You have it all wrong - it’s the retired proctologists who will be reigning unbridled terror on the masses.
Or Trevor Bauer might have a really shitty day and smuggles in one of his drones into Progressive Field.
He can unleash havoc on everyone while standing on the mound!:eek:
I offer this cite as a rebuttal to the claim that we are “so afraid of terrorism”. Last month only 1% said “terrorism” when asked “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?”
LOL. Gun control is a zero problem.
People prefer dangers that are familiar, kill a few people over a long period, and over which they have some perception of control, over dangers that are unfamiliar, kill a lot of people rarely, and over which they feel they don’t have control. That’s why people are afraid of nuclear power and not every other form of energy, or more afraid of flying than driving. And why they are afraid of terrorism (to the extent that they are - see HurricaneDitka’s cite). The US is not used to terrorism in the way that, say, Israel is, terrorists kill or try to kill a lot of people at once, and terrorism is random as dolphinboy mentions. 911 was frightening because it struck against people just going about doing their jobs and living their lives - they weren’t military or even worshipping in a mosque or synagogue.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but people don’t always make sense.
It’s like outlawing bump stocks, or the NFL players protesting police shootings of blacks rather than black shootings of other blacks - if they were reacting to the total numbers, they would have been taking a knee during the National Anthem for the last twenty years. But the perception is that doing something or other about police shootings is easier than addressing the problems of black-on-black crime, because police are responsive to public pressure, and drug thugs are not.
Regards,
Shodan
Pretty much this. I mean, we have a great example right in this thread:
Text book.
As for the OP, basically, people always worry more about low probability events that grab the public attention or are very widely covered in the news or just resonate with whatever people are really afraid of. So, a person might be terrified of flying (I know several people who refuse to fly) while driving and texting, or people who are scared of Ebola or some other obscure disease getting them while happily eating that second Big Mac, large fries, and trough sized coke. UTJ there is scared of guns and accountants because of Vegas while probably blithely dismissing threats in his or her life all the time. The probability of being killed by a terrorist in the US is about on par with dying from swallowing a toothpick…actually, you are probably more likely to be killed by swallowing a toothpick. But people are still terrified of it.
This isn’t to say that terrorism isn’t an issue or we shouldn’t do something about it. If you live in many other countries it’s much more of an issue, and the threat of terrorism to the US and our allies interests is certainly very real, but it’s not something that day to day Americans (or Europeans) needs to dwell on.
Another person in the camp of the best way to defeat terrorism is to not get terrified.
Data really hurts the scare mongers.
E.g., every day 4 packed in the aisles jumbo jets crash and burn in the US killing everyone aboard. The government and the makers know this and let it continue. The companies make a profit on this.
Of course it’s not literally jumbo jets but …
tobacco products.
If you keep things in perspective, you are less fearful.