One of the points Buzan et al. make when defining security is that threats are not objective, but are socially constructed. Professor Christopher Coker also touched on this idea in when he spoke on risk thresholds, a talk I have covered previously.
The above graph — which comes from an anti-war site — illustrates the difference between the subjective and the objective quite nicely. The lives taken by terrorism are dwarfed by a number of other problems which aren’t necessarily treated with the same level of urgency. But this graph only makes sense if you consider human life as the measure of security. I would like to see a similar graph measuring economic impact, average insurance rates, or even effects on national power.
Buzan et al. point out that decision-makers gauge threats in aggregate across a number of sectors and not in stovepipes. The above graph may reflect reality in respect to human deaths, but not necessarily the political reality of everyday security.
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Adrian added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 1:48 amNobody checks the paper in the morning wondering whether a cheeseburger exploded in Manhattan, killing 1 million (of heart attacks, or perhaps drowning them in grease and mayonnaise). Nobody vows revenge against Lucky Strikes. Terrorism’s threat and effectiveness comes from several things, all of which distinguish it from most of the other causes of death in that picture:
1) from the possible big hit in the future, rather than the rather small number of past fatalities
2) from the fact that its uncontrollable by the average person, as opposed to heart attacks, smoking, diabetes, etc. (unless you move off the grid into the middle of Montana)
3) from the fact that a single incident creates a large number of casualties – if you reorganized that chart according to “deaths per incident”, medical mistakes would drop to .001 and terrorist attacks would stay at 3000. Eating one hamburger doesn’t kill you, but being a victim on one terrorist attack can.
4) from the fact that our society is not designed to handle occasional mass-impact events, thus they create chaos. We have entire systems set up to handle diabetes, car accidents, cancer, etc., but (as we saw) FEMA is currently a joke and FDNY was operating blind (thanks Giuliani!).
Dan tdaxp added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 2:03 amAlso don’t forget that cancer and heart disease are not thinking enemies who can focus their attacks in a way to maximize their benefits and seek rents.
Kurt9 added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 3:48 amFinally you guys have pointed out something that makes abolute sense to me. The day after 9/11 I was ready to fly, if there was opportunity for me (I was unemployed at the time). The number of people who died in 9/11 is comparable to one month’s worth of traffic fatalities. The only terrorism that would be truly substantial is if these people get their hands on a nuke or a genetically engineered designer virus. There are technical reasons why neither of these are likely.
Forget about “dirty” bombs. The effects of these are mainly economic. If a dirty bomb goes off near where you are and you have the sense to walk out of the area within an hour or so, your lifetime chances of cancer will not be much higher than normal. There are also ways to “radiation harden” oneself. Anyone who is on a ‘life extension” regimen (Co-Q10, Vitamins A-C-E, resveratrol, Alpha Lipoic Acid) is already radiation hardened to a certain extent!
The main effect of a dirty bomb (radiological device) is the plumeting real estate values in the area that is hit, which means the main targets will be expensive real estate urban areas, like Manhattan.
Since 9/11, I have travelled extensively by air (domestically and to Asia). I almost never think about terrorism. I think more about the aging process than I do terrorism, which is why I am interested in stuff like SENS (www.sens.org).
sun bin added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 4:15 amlet’s be fair.
1) take into account the economic impact, eg $3-5bn lost in the collapse of the 2 towers.
2) measure the insurance premium, the HSA cost, war against terrorism, etc. over the total numbers in (1), against the similar ratios for those other loss (life and economic, or separately as life is hard to be measured with $ as unit)my hypothesis is that the spending on terrorism is disproportionally high, and that it means the terrorist won. they were able to inflict a cost more than what they really did should generate. mr bush fell into their trap.
sun bin added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 4:17 ambtw, your website sucks (or the web host).
it takes a millenium to load.
Younghusband added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 8:14 am@Adrian: I absolutely agree that “time” is an important variable in the psychological evaluation of threat/risk.
@Dan: As sinister as McDonald’s might seem, Big Macs don’t think.
@Kurt9 who said “Finally you guys have pointed out something that makes abolute [sp.] sense to me. ” “Finally” Kurt?After nearly 2500 posts? ;)
@Sunbin: Yeah we know the site is slow. Actually it isn’t the site but the database, which is on a slow server. Still waiting for a fix on that from our host. Sorry.
feeblemind added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 4:16 pmCouple of feebleminded thoughts. Cancer and heart disease are a natural end to life and often come at an advanced age. Not so from terrorism. The hamburger on the graph gives away the political philospophy of the maker. I have a dial up connection and your site loads at light speed compared to Gates of Vienna.
Adrian added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 10:47 pmGood point feeblemind, I suppose most people don’t fear causes of death that hit you when you’re 75 years old like cancer, etc.
Sonagi added these pithy words on 31 Jul 07 at 11:04 pm@Adrian: thoughtful points
@Dan: Cancer and heart disease aren’t thinking enemies, but big pharma, the meat industry, the dairy industry, and the food and beverage industry are.
@feeblemind: Age-adjusted cancer and heart disease rates vary from country to country. As middle age approaches, a fear of cancer and heart disease do set amongst Americans who start popping statins to lower cholesterol and an assortment of supplements to ward off aging. Even young Americans are starting to catch this fear of aging. I read a couple of health blogs, and there are people in their twenties throwing money away on expensive, unproven supplements to zap those millions of free radicals snatching electrons from our cells every day.
RE: economic comparisons between spending on the war against terrorism and health care expenditures on preventable chronic diseases – my guess is that health spending would win hands-down.
jim added these pithy words on 01 Aug 07 at 7:17 pmGood points in abstract, although that list was kinda silly left-wing on some issues.
1) Medical mistakes. This counts many old and sick people, who would have died soon anyway. They succumb to the mistake because they are old and sick. There are not 1/4 million perfectly healthy people who go in for a checkup and get fatally poisoned by a doc.
2) 2nd hand smoke. Big debates here on causality. That # is bogus.
3) Lack of health care. So vague, what does this mean. Ambulance arrived too late. Untreated diabtes? what.
What it doesn’t factor.
Lives lost due to slower economic growth caused by harmful leftwing policies.
If you can give bogus estimates of 2nd hand smoke than why not make up bogus estimates for drugs not invented due to overly punitive trial lawyers. Or how about # of deaths due to “evil” matriarchy forcing men to take all the dangerous jobs (construction, cops, firemen, soldiers, etc). What else can better explain women living longer than a paranoid conspiracy?
..
General principle of putting risks in perspective is a good idea. Course, a left anti-war site, is gonna put it in some lefty perspective. Surprised they didn’t come up with some # of deaths due to a lack of universal pre-school or a federal “living wage” law.
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