Lets look at "terrorism" and "rights denying" from a math perspective

[Rabrrrrrr]

On average, US air carriers (I tried to find worldwide statistics, but couldn't) fly about 30,000 domestic and international flights every day. EVERY DAY. According to http://www.bts.gov/press_releases/2006/bts038_06/html/bts038_06.html that was 875,500 flights in May of 2006 (see Table 7) and 4,266,500 flights total from January 1 to end of May of this year.

Just from a statistical standpoint, there is no way that terrorists could ever hit enough planes to make it worth, in my opinion, all this ridiculous security bullshit. No water bottles, no toothpaste, no books, no electronics... fuck that. We're talking millions and millions of flights every year. Even if the terrorists could somehow manage to find enough suicide assholes to take out ten planes a day, that's an irrelevant statistical anomaly. Bad for the people on those planes, yes. But even then, not enough to make us get all bent out of shape with security.

And we have newly heightened bogus security just because of one failed attempt, nipped in the bud (assuming it was even a credible or real threat, anyway) in the last four years.

I wish people were smarter. I wish we would teach everyone a serious class on statistics in schools; and teach it a couple times. We need more math literacy in this country - and worldwide - so people can differentiate a true threat from an emotional one.

If we looked at things logically and truthfully, from a real mathematical standpoint, we'd spend the billions we're spending on bogus security (in the hopes of preserving a few thousand lives at most), and spend it on providing anti-malaria medication and malaria eradication to save the 10,000+ people who die EVERY DAY from Malaria.

People will gladly accept body searches and no carry-on luggage and other invasive measures in order to "be safe" on a plane, which is already insanely safe, but they happily will go without seat belts in cars, drive while eating or talking on cell phones or both, drive with pets on their laps, drive drunk... all of these things in a form of transportation is far, far, far more deadly than flying. Or happily fire up that cigarette while fearing a death on an airplane, even though smoking reduces one's life by years, while the statistical average of flying reduces one's life by one day.

Personally speaking, I say let's stick with the metal detectors and x-rays at the airports, but let's otherwise not live in contant fear and let the terrorists win: let's live normally, freely taking our laptops and books and bottles of water and even our lighters on airplanes, and live a more relaxed, sensible, fear-free life.

But, owing to our ignorance, this won't happen, and the terrorists truly have won.

[NC_Nurse]

1. Magnifying minute threats

is our 24 hour media channel's favorite thing to do! They'd be out of business without sharks, lightening, terrorists, bears, whatever....

Please don't try to introduce LOGIC into it! People will accuse you of being cold, cruel and evil - or whatever. Stupidity rules the day, ya know. :party:

Oh, I suppose I need the :sarcasm: deally...

[kiahzero]

2. The terrorists won on September 12

Everyone went nuts.

[Boojatta]

3. What's the role of lighters in a sensible life?

People will gladly accept body searches and no carry-on luggage and other invasive measures in order to "be safe" on a plane, which is already insanely safe, but they

(...)

happily fire up that cigarette while fearing a death on an airplane, even though smoking reduces one's life by years, while the statistical average of flying reduces one's life by one day.

(...)

let's live normally, freely taking our laptops and books and bottles of water and even our lighters on airplanes, and live a more relaxed, sensible, fear-free life.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Uh... geez. Let's think about that for a moment...

do people use lighters? let me think...

















let me think...


















let me think...












Yes. Yes, they do. By golly. They do.

[SutaUvaca]

4. Thanks for the dose of common sense.

Dontcha just love math! Cuts right to heart of what is a big deal and what is minutiae.

[Union Thug]

5. "I wish people were smarter...statistics, etc..." Well, this...

math challenged moron doesn't need a class to come to the same conclusion. This is elementary reasoning.

People need a common threat/fear/enemy to define themselves. There's a reason that after 9/11 Bush and his cronies started articulating ideas in comic book parlance. This is the same reason the christians have a devil. Without the unifying power of an arch-enemy, it is very difficult keep people focused, organized, and in line.

[seabeyond]

6. it scares me more the scores of people that embrace this

they are the ones that scare me and convince me we have just lost it as a nation.

[leftofthedial]

7. The terrorists won

on December 12, 2000

[AX10]

9. Exactly.

[treestar]

10. Right on!

The statistics for being killed in a terrorist attack have not justified one iota of the crap undertaken in the name of it. Not a single inroad on the bill of rights (not that it could really do any good anyway - giving the government more power lets it terrorize much easier and does zip to prevent a single terrorist attack), not even worry about planes was worth it.

911 worked on the surprise factor alone! Not a single thing was necessary to do, the mere awareness of 911 by passengers would have been enough to get them to storm the cabin as soon as any passenger approached it.

911 cannot happen again because it can't be a surprise again. If it could have been prevented, it would have been because of the CIA's information on two of the hijackers - if they had worked harder on that than on revamping the bureaucracy (creating the department of HS and all that other crap) they could have done a lot to undermine Al Qaeda.

Instead they just undermine the Constitution and increase the tension in the middle east with the ridiculous attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan on the ground collective punishment in the countries the terrorists came from was going to weed out terrorists. Which is bringing playground politics to the international level.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Yes, I failed to include the truth that hijackings will never happen again

After 9-11, there is no way in hell that any group of passengers are going to allow a hijacking. As soon as the asshole announces "We're taking this plane!" every passenger will just assume that they're gonna be flown into a building and die, so they'll take the head off any would-be hijacker.

And the terrorists know this - they blew their load on 9-11. I'm kind of surprised that other terrorist groups haven't gone after Osama just for fucking up for everyone what had been an otherwise viable and time-honored terrorist ploy.

[treestar]

12. Another weird bit about the whole thing

Al Qaeda would have, I would have thought, as terrorists do, come out with a specific demand. Let x hostages go, or we hit you another way. Get your troops out of the middle east. As terrorists go, they are really the damn stupidest. And so why do we turn everything upside down to "protect ourselves" from these idiots?

I can only wonder how crazy and ignorant they have to be if they thought 911 was a cut-off the head sort of approach. Ruin the economy by knocking down the two skyscrapers (possible they thought that, maybe you could bring Saudi Arabia or the UAE down by knocking down their biggest skyscraper?) and wrecking the Pentagon was maybe supposed to undo the military? Maybe the fourth plane was to hit the WH and they thought that if the President is dead we can't function (though of course the Pretzeldent was not actually IN the WH on 911, but these jokers might have been too dumb to know that.)

[hfojvt]

13. it is not about math

it almost never is.

It is about control. I feel safe driving with my dog on my lap because I am in control. I seem to be able to avoid accidents, injury and death with defensive driving. On the other hand, how can I avoid a sniper attack? The only way is by curtailing activity.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. But what is the chance of you getting hit by a sniper versus you

having an accident with the dog on your lap?

It's infitessimal in comparison. No matter how careful you are, there's always a definite chance that something will happen with the dog on your lap, and many accidents are caused each year because of it. The dog gets spooked, you spill coffee on the dog, the dog sees another dog and decides to get hyper, or any other host of things.

The number of people taken out by snipers is insignificant in comparison.

And hence, one's attention and energy is far better spent on trying to avoid the accident from the dog on laptop then to spend the energy on worrying about a sniper attack.