Number of Americans killed by certain causes

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It shows how insignificant terrorism is yet the entire population is scared to death of it. Why is that? Simple: the US government's interest is to make people scared of terrorism because it yields a justification for the increase in the US's government budget in a way to employ more people and pay more people to fight in a war against terrorism. It is an imaginary enemy more than a real one: they just a bunch of criminals who killed some people, in a way, less dangerous than the mafia which is a much more organized and organic organization.

The roots of the West's present obsession terrorism are with the end of the Cold War: after the USSR fell NATO and it's massive industrial military complex ceased to be useful. There was no rational reason for the US and it's allies to keep such massive military power anymore. However, the millions of people directly and indirectly employed by these complex of organizations didn't want to get unemployed. The solution? Just manufacture new enemies to justify the jobs in the military industrial complex and hence the reason why the US has invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, invasions that increased terrorist activity by destabilizing the Middle East and allowing ISIS to form. Of course, the more terrorist activity, the better for the military industrial complex as it is a tool to justify an increase of their resources.



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The government, people, and media care about that 11,000 number greatly. You can hear about it every single day on the news. That's why there is a huge emphasis in this country on gun control, drug control, and domestic violence. Mass casualties are aimed at random people always gives you mored of a sense of dread than violence that is aimed at a specific target.

How about some specific numbers on the amount of people the government employs to fight terrorism compared to the amount of social workers, police, and DEA agents. I will go out on a limb and say your argument falls apart there.
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The government, people, and media care about that 11,000 number greatly. You can hear about it every single day on the news. That's why there is a huge emphasis in this country on gun control, drug control, and domestic violence. Mass casualties are aimed at random people always gives you mored of a sense of dread than violence that is aimed at a specific target.

How about some specific numbers on the amount of people the government employs to fight terrorism compared to the amount of social workers, police, and DEA agents. I will go out on a limb and say your argument falls apart there.
Are you saying that government funding for the American military is less than government funding for social workers, police and DEA gents?


Also, I see talk about gun control, but never any action. It's the thought that counts, right?
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That chart starts after 9/11. That's absurd.

It shows how insignificant terrorism is yet the entire population is scared to death of it. Why is that? Simple: the US government's interest is to make people scared of terrorism because it yields a justification for the increase in the US's government budget in a way to employ more people and pay more people to fight in a war against terrorism.
People are scared of terrorism because it's largely untethered to their own individual actions.

People don't freak out over deaths by heart disease or drug violence or other things like that because they can simply choose to eat better, choose not to get involved with drugs, etc. They understand that certain things are risky or dangerous and it doesn't upend their view of causality when it happens. When a couple of planes crash into a place they had no reason to think was at all dangerous (like that little event conveniently omitted from the data), they react differently.

This is the same reason people react differently to kidnaps or murders in the suburbs than they do to the same crimes in the middle of a large city: we've all internalized that bad stuff happens, but we've also all noticed patterns about how and where it usually does. And having that pattern suddenly seem unreliable is disturbing and scary in a way aggregate statistics still logically connected to deaths are not.

It is, in fact, perfectly logical in that sense. 2 + 2 = 5 is more disturbing than "hey this guy base jumped off a mountain and died."



Are you saying that government funding for the American military is less than government funding for social workers, police and DEA gents?


Also, I see talk about gun control, but never any action. It's the thought that counts, right?
The assertion is that we only concentrate on jihad terrorism as a threat and that is because the government wants to create more jobs related to jihad terrorism. I wouldn't think this assertion has anything to do with number of soldiers but maybe that is exactly what Guap means.

As for never any action in gun control, I agree. Again, the assertion is that there is no focus on it. There is plenty and hopefully someday we get it right and then people will stop being violent. Fingers crossed.



That chart starts after 9/11. That's absurd.


People are scared of terrorism because it's largely untethered to their own individual actions.

People don't freak out over deaths by heart disease or drug violence or other things like that because they can simply choose to eat better, choose not to get involved with drugs, etc. They understand that certain things are risky or dangerous and it doesn't upend their view of causality when it happens. When a couple of planes crash into a place they had no reason to think was at all dangerous (like that little event conveniently omitted from the data), they react differently.

This is the same reason people react differently to kidnaps or murders in the suburbs than they do to the same crimes in the middle of a large city: we've all internalized that bad stuff happens, but we've also all noticed patterns about how and where it usually does. And having that pattern suddenly seem unreliable is disturbing and scary in a way aggregate statistics still logically connected to deaths are not.

It is, in fact, perfectly logical in that sense. 2 + 2 = 5 is more disturbing than "hey this guy base jumped off a mountain and died."
Why don't people freak out about the dozens of people stuck by lightning every year? It is a way bigger cause of death than terrorism. Or the fact that the same number of people are killed by vending machines on average as terrorism?

https://www.thoughtco.com/are-vendin...sharks-3970604

Vending machine deaths are also completely unexpected yet people haven't developed an irrational fear of vending machines.

I think that there is more to it than just the fact terrorism is in general unexpected (actually, it is not: it's a natural reaction of middle eastern people to get back at the west and it is the only way in which they can react). The media is utterly obsessed with terrorism but they never report the deaths caused by vending machines.



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Why don't people freak out about the dozens of people stuck by lightning every year? It is a way bigger cause of death than terrorism.
Eh?

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/fatalities.shtml



Why don't people freak out about the dozens of people stuck by lightning every year?
Because it's rare to the point of meaninglessness, for one. And the lightning doesn't choose to kill them, for another (see below for more on that).

Fear isn't always going to be rational, for sure, but it's usually not entirely irrational, either. It's a mix of a) frequency and b) predictability. So very few random deaths are not scary, and fairly many predictable deaths are also not scary. But a moderate number of unpredictable deaths? That can be pretty scary.

It is a way bigger cause of death than terrorism.
...if you conveniently exclude the biggest act of terrorism of the last 20 years. But there's no reason to do that other than sheer polemicism.

Or the fact that the same number of people are killed by vending machines on average as terrorism?
"On average" being the key phrase. If something doesn't happen for a long time, then starts happening more, the "average" of that time period does not necessarily tell you very much about how likely it is to happen in the future.

That's another component (probably the most important one) of this that the statistics fail to account for: extrapolation. Terrorism is a cultural thing that can wax and wane. People are afraid that events like 9/11 signal a possible shift in the frequency of these events going forward, long-term. They may be right or wrong, but that's part of the fear. On the other hand, there's really no logical argument whatsoever to believe we're headed for a massive uptick in vending machine deaths. If there were, say, five vending machine deaths a year, and then thousands in one day, you don't think people would suddenly be scared of them? Of course they would.

And this ties into the choice element I mentioned above: dying and being killed are not the same thing. The result is the same to the deceased, but we're talking about the reaction, and the reaction comes exclusively from those still living. You wouldn't expect the family of a murder victim to feel the same as the family of someone who fell off their roof, would you? Yet that's the implication when you try to compare different causes of death based on nothing more than statistical averages.

Vending machine deaths are also completely unexpected yet people haven't developed an irrational fear of vending machines.
Unexpected is your word. My word was unpredictable. And I can pretty safely predict that, if I don't rock vending machines back and forth to try to free my wrongfully imprisoned Snickers, I won't die at the metaphorical hands of one.

That's another thing these stats always miss. They're often phrased as "you're more likely to die from X than Y," but that, of course, is false. You are not more likely to die from X than Y, a randomly selected person with no tendencies or individual agency is.



Why don't people freak out about the dozens of people stuck by lightning every year? It is a way bigger cause of death than terrorism. Or the fact that the same number of people are killed by vending machines on average as terrorism?

https://www.thoughtco.com/are-vendin...sharks-3970604

Vending machine deaths are also completely unexpected yet people haven't developed an irrational fear of vending machines.

I think that there is more to it than just the fact terrorism is in general unexpected (actually, it is not: it's a natural reaction of middle eastern people to get back at the west and it is the only way in which they can react). The media is utterly obsessed with terrorism but they never report the deaths caused by vending machines.
Almost certain that if a vending machine falls out of the 32nd floor of Mandalay Bay and crushes 60 people and injures 500 more it will be on CNN.



You can't win an argument just by being right!
I had to look the vending machine thing up because I had never heard of it. Hilarious way to make an argument.

Now all I can think about is Breaking Bad.



The whole argument here boils down to:

1) Let's pretend 9/11 didn't happen.
2) Let's pretend there's zero possibility terrorism will increase in the future.
3) Let's pretend it feels the same to have a loved one murdered as it does to have them die by accident.
4) Given 1-3, terrorism shouldn't be any scarier than these other things.

Well, sure. If you pretend all the things that make terrorism scary magically don't exist, then it shouldn't be scary any more. In related news, crazy people swinging axes near you aren't scary if you imagine all axes are made of rubber and there's a force field around you.



The whole argument here boils down to:

1) Let's pretend 9/11 didn't happen.
2) Let's pretend there's zero possibility terrorism will increase in the future.
3) Let's pretend it feels the same to have a loved one murdered as it does to have them die by accident.
4) Given 1-3, terrorism shouldn't be any scarier than these other things.

Well, sure. If you pretend all the things that make terrorism scary magically don't exist, then it shouldn't be scary any more. In related news, crazy people swinging axes near you aren't scary if you imagine all axes are made of rubber and there's a force field around you.
9/11 was also the first thing that came to mind when I read this chart. I get that this chart's data is suppose to be after 9/11 but that is an event that should never, ever be ignored when talking about this stuff.

Also, what about the San Bernardino attack in 2015? Didn't they kill like 15 people? That alone exceeds the "9" the chart is trying to claim. I'm guessing they're trying to say that it wasn't "Islamic Terrorism" since that was during Obama's presidency where they were frightened to death to consider anything Islamic terrorism.



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People's bedroom's must have floor made of lava or something.



Also, what about the San Bernardino attack in 2015? Didn't they kill like 15 people? That alone exceeds the "9" the chart is trying to claim. I'm guessing they're trying to say that it wasn't "Islamic Terrorism" since that was during Obama's presidency where they were frightened to death to consider anything Islamic terrorism.
Yeah, I didn't want to arbitrate the underlying data too much, because I'm pretty sure that even if that first number is increased several times over, the underlying point about frequency would still apply, so I might as well skip past that and get right to the broader philosophical issues.

But, all that said, yes, I'm pretty certain the chart is using a ridiculously narrow definition that exaggerates the differences in scale.



The chart is claiming 9 have been killed per year on average since 2002. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but it's not saying 9 have been killed since then it's saying when you add them all up it comes out to an average of 9 a year. The 15 San Bernadino ones will be included in that.