i think his position is realistic, although right now terrorism shouldn't even be a nuisance. it occurs too infrequently to affect the average person. i've received indignant responses for talking about the statistical insignificance of terrorism before, but here are some examples to back up my claim:
http://www.anxietyandstress.com/sys-...hataretheodds/
Quote:
Dealing rationally with the risks of terrorism is hard for several reasons. First, human beings are bad at assessing small risks of large catastrophes.
Second, the actual risk of being a terror victim is not merely small—it is unknown and unknowable.
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What all this adds up to is a strong suspicion that we are not doing too little about terrorism: we are probably doing too much. Our initial instincts are overly risk averse; the danger probably looms larger than it should. A crazed terrorist's next move is going to be a surprise: the burdens we impose on ourselves out of hindsight from the last episode are unlikely to be the ones hindsight will recommend after the next one. We can be skeptical about the warnings of terrorism "experts." They have a psychological or even financial interest in erring on the side of panic.
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What are the odds of dying on our next flight or next trip to a shopping mall? There are more than 40,000 malls in this country, and each is open about 75 hours per week. If a person shopped for two hours each week and terrorists were able to destroy one mall per week, the odds of being at the wrong place at the wrong time would be approximately 1.5 million to 1. If terrorists destroyed one mall each month, the odds would climb to one in 6 million. This assumes the total destruction of the entire mall; if that unlikely event didn't occur, the odds would become even more favorable.
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so even if wily terrorists managed to attack a mall every week, one would still be relatively safe. it is kind of morbid to talk about this, but even if there was a sustained outbreak of terrorism of this nature, one would still be more likely to encounter any of the following situations:
odds of other happenings:
Quote:
Odds of drowning in a bathtub: 685,000 to 1
Odds of being struck by lightning: 576,000 to 1
Odds of being killed by lightning: 2,320,000 to 1
Odds of getting a royal flush in poker on first five cards dealt: 649,740 to 1
Chance of dying from legal execution: 1 in 3,441,325
Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1
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i don't want to be misinterpreted as saying that a terrorist attack is impossible. but according to these numbers, it is unlikely to directly affect the average American.