ok, here is one way to look at this (from a post of mine a weeks back).
if terrorists completely destroyed a mall each month, the odds of your resulting death is still negligible.
now, we are assuming that one mall WILL be destroyed monthly.
if you agree that the event of a laser interfering with a pilot is less likely (again, we assume 100% chance of a mall destroyed monthly), you can see how important this laser scare actually is.
you die from laser + plane < hypothetical monthly mall destruction kills you
??? < 6 million to 1
http://www.anxietyandstress.com/sys...whataretheodds/
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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