Use micromorts to fight terrorism

Use micromorts to fight terrorism(blog.arty.name)

31 points by urish 10 years ago | 12 comments

slxh 10 years ago |

How many terrorism micromorts did the government help prevent? is it worth giving up your privacy for that?

It is not "worth" the loss of privacy for the sake of preventing the small number of deaths.

Perhaps it has been a worthwhile endeavor from the perspective of the people whose jobs depend on the security apparatus.

barbs 10 years ago |

This is a good step, but like most statistical data I think it's best presented in a graphical form.

Xkcd's graph comparing sources of radiation is a great example. https://xkcd.com/radiation/

thawkins 10 years ago |

I cant understand this obsession with terrorist death risk, the over reaction to what is actualy a relativly low risk, according to recent stats, over that last 10 years you have been 8 times more likely to have been shot and killed by a cop than killed by a terrorist, and i dont see the resulting "War on Cops". If you look at almost every other major risk factor they all by far outweigh being killed by terrorism. Driving a car, crossing a road, heart desease, obesity, travel of any kind.

Society has apparently lost its ability to weigh up risk in tne face of shock terror acts. If we want to save lives there are far cheaper, less invasive areas we can focus our attention on.

wpietri 10 years ago | |

I sometimes wonder about this too. But then I'll turn on the radio or get trapped in an airport with a TV set to the news. I feel my anxiety level creep up and up. Not from the factual content, which is familiar to me from print news. But from the emotional tone.

In some ways this is unsurprising. The business model of most broadcast media is to sell viewers to advertisers. The people running them are steeped in modern managerial thinking, where most individuals are yoked to a system of gaming specific metrics (e.g., viewers, pageviews, revenues, share price). We're (correctly) hardwired to treat danger as a priority. The obvious outcome is a sophisticated machine that can produce fear on demand.

For me, the winning move is not to play. I don't watch broadcast media. I don't listen to the radio. I use an ad blocker. I consider carefully what I click on. My anxiety level stays comfortably low. But I'd love to find a way to help more people.

freshhawk 10 years ago | |

I think you've basically explained the political effectiveness of terrorism. It perfectly taps into a particular human bias, if society had any ability to weigh risks (has it ever?) then political terrorism wouldn't exist. But since society is made up of humans, who are irrational, it does exist and it works extremely well.

xacaxulu 10 years ago |

Logic rules. I like this. Horseback riding is more dangerous than taking ecstasy.

goblin89 10 years ago |

> While riding a motorcycle for 100 kilometers is 10 micromorts, and is slightly more dangerous.

Which country? Time of day? How are the roads, traffic? Did you consume any alcohol recently? In what condition is your motorcycle? Are you wide awake? Are you wearing the proper gear?

I may be picking nits but interpreting stats the way OP does does not seem to align well with the micromort minimization goal.

the8472 10 years ago | |

I'm pretty sure that the point here is order of magnitude, not differences after the comma.

jacquesm 10 years ago |

This was here already recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10571077

urish 10 years ago | |

Weird that the filter didn't catch it - it seems to be exactly the same URL in both cases.

dang 10 years ago | | |

The URLs were encoded differently.