> If you think about it, don't you think it is a somewhat unnatural reaction to being under attack, to always end up fearing those who didn't initiate the attack?
It is, but natural reaction is wrong. I still have much bigger chance of dying in a car accident than a terrorist attack. In general, the natural reaction to such events was fine 6000 years ago, but in today's hyperconnected, media-driven society, awareness of a danger is usually inversely proportional to the chance of it happening to you.
But I also know that general population has this natural reaction, and - as politicians follow the voice of people, instead of the voice of reason - it leads to very bad outcomes. I am afraid of those bad outcomes.
> So everyone smart says that we worry about terrorism way too much, and so far, they’ve been right.
And the people who are even smarter realize that people will worry about what they will worry about, and respond to threats proportionally to how much people worry about them rather than chiding them about how much they should worry about things.
Human beings aren't rational when it comes to fear, but the products of that fear are very real. We live in a world where people freak out if an adult talks to a child, but happily drive their kids around in the death traps that are motor vehicles. Not only that, but we've gone to great lengths to structure our society to treat the former as abnormal and the latter as totaly normal. Telling people to be rational isn't going to make them that way.
> Actual threats are important, but so are perceived threats
Like the airplane that was downed because a passenger felt threatened by a math professor solving equations? I'm sorry but catering to ignorance is not the way forward. We have real problems as a society, let's not solve imaginary ones.
> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough.
It's not like the media is not trying to scare everyone though... But as they keep crying wolf for every random issue like every week, it does not work as well once there's a real issue at hand. How surprising.
> "we taught people to fear risk X, the way to alleviate the fear is to reduce the likelihood of X" is the most asinine bullshit in the world.
The US was a scary place after 9/11. I'm sure a lot of money was wasted in domestic security that didn't do anything, but I'm glad we made an effort to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist attacks rather than just reinforcing how incredibly rare they are.
We can't stop terrorism or mass shootings but we should try to make it as difficult as possible even if they are rare events.
I can’t agree with this. Life is hard but isn’t scary. I’m far more concerned about losing my home to a natural disaster than terrorism. Fear is the media’s new currency.
There’s nothing to be scared of, except maybe a dystopian future where you can be jailed or killed for your beliefs.
> The reason most people aren't constantly worried about being murdered isn't because we have super advanced defense systems but because the fear of punishment keeps people from doing it.
No, the real reason most people aren't constantly worried about being murdered is that most of the people we encounter aren't murderers.
> The real thing to fear here is the normalization of violence.
Then there's not much to fear, because I don't see anyone at all finding this normal. It's on every news site and social network, everyone is deeply disturbed about these events.
If anything this clearly shows that violence is FAR from normal in peoples' mind.
You're framing this the wrong way. It's not about being scared, its about being careful.
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