
Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Furniture as by Terrorism (2012) - thex86
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans-are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/
======
akshayub
I would like to present a very good counter argument put forth by Taleb on his
Facebook page:

""" (Heuristic: go to Pinker). He promotes there a WSJ article to the effect
that "Terrorism kills far fewer people than falls from ladders"; the article
was written by a war correspondant, Ted Koppel and is very similar to his
Angels thesis.

Now let's try a bullshit-detecting probabilistic reasoning.

A- Falls from ladder are thin-tailed, and the estimate based on past
observations should hold for the next year with an astonishing accuracy. They
are subjected to strong bounds, etc. It is "impossible" to have, say, >1% of a
country's population dying from falls from ladders the same year. The chances
are less than 1 in several trillion trillion trillion years. Hence a
journalistic statement about risk converges to the scientific statement.

B- Terrorism is fat tailed. Your estimation from past data has monstrous
errors. A record of the people who died last few years has very very little
predictive powers of how many will die the next year, and is biased downward.
One biological event can decimate the population.

May be "reasonable" to claim that terrorism is overhyped, that our liberty is
more valuable, etc. I believe so. But the comparison here is a fallacy and
sloppy thinking is dangerous. (Worse, Koppel compares terrorism today to
terrorism 100 years ago when a terrorist could inflict very limited harm.)

"""

Another such case is Nuclear Weapons, Millions of dollars are spent on
controlling proliferation of nuclear weapons, even when no one died last year
because of them. However this does not implies that we should abandon strict
controls, since the risk characteristics are completely different.

~~~
mikeash
Unlike nuclear weapons, I see no reason to think terrorism can ever kill any
significant portion of the country's population. Ideas of terror attacks
involving nuclear weapons or pandemics seem to be complete fantasy as best I
can tell.

~~~
akshayub
Well 9/11 would have seemed a perfect fantasy on 9/10/2001.

But within matter of few hours the rate of american killed by terrorists went
from same as those killed by furniture to few thousand times. The central
argument is that a comparison with death by furniture is irrelevant, since the
risk profiles are significantly different. Finally one cannot minimize risk of
proliferation of nuclear weapons in isolation from agents such as rogue states
and terrorists.

~~~
mikeash
9/11 only seemed like a perfect fantasy to people who weren't paying
attention. There was plenty of precedent, for the general idea of crashing
airplanes into things on purpose to destroy them (kamikazes), the specific
idea of hijacking a commercial airliner to crash it into a national landmark
(Air France 8969, and in fiction, Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor among others),
and the specific idea of killing thousands of people by destroying the World
Trade Center (1993 bombing).

We can come up with ways for terrorists to kill thousands of people, and
people _did_ come up with such ways before 9/11\. I see no way, short of first
taking over an entire country, that terrorists can kill millions.

If you think otherwise, then describe it, don't just appeal to ignorance. The
"we don't know, so we should assume the worst" argument can be used to support
literally anything.

~~~
jlgreco
_" The two students who killed 13 people at Columbine High School wanted to
kill at least 500 others, attack nearby homes and then hijack a plane and
crash it into New York City, investigators said."_

Volume 119 >> Issue 22 : Tuesday, April 27, 1999

[http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N22/littleton.22w.html](http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N22/littleton.22w.html)

------
auctiontheory
Don't underestimate the threat from furniture.

It happened to me: one moment I was sitting at the table in my IKEA chair,
perhaps leaning forward to browse HN, and the next I was on the floor with
(the mirror revealed) a deep 20-inch gash across my upper back, and a lighter
slash behind my knees/legs.

Obviously the chair broke, but I still haven't figured out how it cut me so
severely. A few inches higher and it would have been my neck.

~~~
Natsu
Sadly, the result of this news is likely to be a new multi-billion dollar War
on Furniture.

~~~
wozniacki
_Sadly, the result of this news is likely to be a new multi-billion dollar War
on Furniture._

Natsu probably meant that the litigious implications of this finding will be
adverse and widespread, but largely monetary, none of which will really
address the real problem.

Unless, of course, this sort of thing could bring about the equivalent of
"1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act" which was largely due to
the activism and efforts of Ralph Nader.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Automobile_safety_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Automobile_safety_activism)

(Don't be so quick to downvote.)

------
anologwintermut
But terrorism induces terror and people don't want to live in terror. So
either 1) we need to make a serious attempt to cause people not to care about
it and acknowledge its a tiny risk 2) we need to stop terrorists or 3) we need
to make people feel like we achieved 2.

None of those options are easy and I've never seen a real proposal to
seriously attempt 1. Other than statistics, how would you go about it?

~~~
acqq
Refuse to be Terrorized (Bruce Schneier, 2006)

[http://www.schneier.com/essay-124.html](http://www.schneier.com/essay-124.html)

 _The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political
goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the
targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or
buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism
are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized
because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but
our reaction to the act. And we 're doing exactly what the terrorists want.
(...)

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign
tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and
the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of
these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the
effects of their terror._

And giving up your freedoms "because of the terrorism" is the worst thing
imaginable.

~~~
anologwintermut
Although some politicians generate terrorism fears for political advantages,
the media report it for ratings. Think about all the "innocent white girl
kidnapped" headlines. The media reports what people will tune in to and people
will definitely tune in for that.

So what, do we place limits on reporting?

~~~
acqq
From your 1, 2 and 3 "options" in your parent question, 1 is the only doable
and worth doing. It's not a multiple choice. That's a first thing to
understand.

And controlling the press by "placing limits" is the opposite of democratic.
If anything, most of the press is even now too limited in their approach,
effectively supporting the interest groups who benefit from having "terror
threat."

~~~
anologwintermut
I agree 1 is the ideal option, but it's really difficult.

The effect of the press is best measured not by what reporters are allowed to
do, but by what people actually end up watching. More freedom of the press is
not going to eliminate the if it bleeds it leads philosophy. In fact, if we
assume that cable news and newspapers have gotten shriller to deal with
competition from the internet, it might do the opposite.

There is a reason this comic exists[0] [0][http://www.smbc-
comics.com/?id=3081#comic](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3081#comic)

------
nsns
The threat from terror has no relation whatsoever to the amount dead, rather,
it is a traumatic enemy invasion of the supposedly protected national space ,
it instills a feeling of terror, which might even topple the government should
it be deemed too weak to respond adequately (which is the real incentive for
it to overreact). Even if the towers had fallen 12 years ago without anyone
getting hurt, we'd still require a Snowden today.

------
northwest
Always keep in mind that the government's cheapest manipulation strategy is
fear (it always works):

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/07/constitutional-
expert...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/07/constitutional-expert-
government-was-trying-to-create-an-atmosphere-of-fear-in-which-the-american-
people-would-give-them-more-power%E2%80%9D.html)

And for some more numbers that we should talk to our family and friends about:

> You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a
> terrorist attack

taken from: [http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-
makes-...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/fear-of-terror-makes-people-
stupid.html)

Conclusion: Terrorism is actually not a problem, but they want us to believe
that.

~~~
ferdo
By your link, we're also 8 times more likely to get killed by a government
employee than by a terrorist.

~~~
northwest
So, by government logic, we'd have to start a _War on Government Employee-
ism_...

EDIT: Seriously, just this 1 thought would warrant HUGE articles in papers
like the New York Times. Obviously, this will never happen.

------
bcx
It is interesting to consider the media bias towards 'bad' news. For some
reason breaking stories always seem to be something negative. Whether it's
terrorism, kidnapping, ponzi schemes, car crashes, you name it, but why do
some negative stories run more than others?

At some point media organizations found that people would rather watch a train
wreck than the launch of a new high speed rail.

[http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/epop/papers/panel7/p7_soro...](http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/epop/papers/panel7/p7_soroka_epop2010.pdf)
\- Concludes there is a psychophysiological evidence that negative news is
more arousing.

I suppose it follows that media concerning terrorism is probably more arousing
than people being crushed by couches, and makes much better TV. And our
perception of our reality is heavily influenced by what we are exposed to.

A great example of this would be the coverage of the fertilizer plant that
blew up in Texas verses the Boston marathon bombings. These happened within
days of each other. Which one did you hear about more? Which one killed more
people?

~~~
goblin89
> For some reason breaking stories always seem to be something negative …
> people would rather watch a train wreck than the launch of a new high speed
> rail.

In your example, high speed rail launch is hardly breaking news. People are
likely to be receiving updates on that rail through mass media since long
before its construction even started. Train wreck, though, is a very
unexpected event. A black swan.

Media does look for interesting stories (understandably), and it's been
noticed that such stories tend to have certain qualities, like:

    
    
        Freshness
        Significance
        Proximity (geographical or otherwise)
        Famous people involved
        Human interest (appeal to emotion)
    

Train wreck is going to score high by all of these, expect possibly the famous
people one. It may involve people we know, it engages our self-preservation
instinct, it may directly affect our actions (e.g., stop using trains).

High speed rail launch is probably less ‘news’, as already mentioned (people
knew it's being built). Perceived significance is less—long term convenience
is hard to judge, and people have been living without it for ages anyway.

So I personally don't find it very surprising that ‘good’ stories tend to be
less interesting than ‘bad’ ones, and I don't think it's because we, cruel
creatures, love watching blood and suffering so much.

(I'm yet to read the paper you linked to, though.)

Edit: clarity, wording.

------
rob05c
To which the government responds, "See, the War on Terror is working!"

If you likewise point out that psychoactive drug usage has remained flat since
the 50's, they say, "See, no increase! The War on Drugs is working!"

The real problem is that legislators aren't bound by silly things like logic,
or the scientific method, or burden of proof.

------
DanielBMarkham
Terrorism is about terror, not dead bodies. It doesn't matter how many people
are killed by what. Statistics do not matter. All that matters is that small
numbers of people can create terror in large numbers of people and cause them
to act in a certain way politically.

The problem here is that the mainstream media loves terror -- as long as
they're the ones inflicting terror on the rest of us. Each year there's the
predictable stories about killer bees, shark attacks, and all kinds of
statistically unlikely events, all played off as being of dire import to the
average consumer. We love using irrational fear to politically control people.
It's as common as rain in the modern world. It's just when outsiders do it for
their own purposes without regard to life or property that we run into all
kinds of problems.

------
jswift
It's about the upside. Risk of death by terrorism has a much higher chance of
increasing.

------
brymaster
> Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Furniture as by Terrorism

Sadly, still won't stop people from saying you have no right to privacy or due
process or whatever sick agenda they're pushing at the moment.

------
JanezStupar
One could argue that this is due to the effectiveness of surveillance state.

~~~
northwest
But one _should_ not. "Terrorism", for the tiny, tiny little bit that happens
in our country, was not here before.

Let's just switch to a sane foreign policy and be done with "terrorism". At
least mid- and long-term, that's the only thing that will stop the recruiting
of new "terrorists".

~~~
JanezStupar
All I am arguing is that using probablities as counter argument to war on
terrorism is not really smart.

There are far better arguments out there. So lets not use the ones that the
supporters may be able to use against us.

------
The_D
Oh please. Terrorism is a threat to the world. Coptic churches being burned
everyday in egypt:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve_DlPG4YQM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve_DlPG4YQM).
Muslim script kiddies are spamming ycombinator.

~~~
thex86
I am not a Muslim if this is what you were hinting at and I don't see how
being one matters in this case. Also, I don't see how ad hominem attacks are a
good way of carrying out a discussion.

I regularly post articles related to such stuff -- a quick glance at my
history should suffice. "Terrorism is a threat to the world" is what we all
think but this is approaching this from a logical, statistical point of view,
which is how it should be. If you are the kind that subscribes to Fox News and
refuses to open your mind (my ad hominem attack to you), then you can just
ignore this article and we can all happily move on.

