Statistical Murder

Posted by tomo at 05:27 AM in .

There is a one in four chance that you will lose a dreadful painful battle with cancer, yet our government wages no War on Cancer, instead seeking to internationally outlaw stem cell research that could one day cure it. More people die each month in car accidents than died on 9/11. Yet we are willing to have our liberties taken away in the name of lessening the already extremely small risk of dying by a terrorist attack. We even kill hundreds of our own citizens (and would-be citizens) to nominally prevent another terror attack that would claim less lives than are lost in the process, although we've now seen that those men and women died completely in vain. (Whoops. And now the government is planning on renewing the military draft next year, conveniently just after the election.)

What causes us to have such irrationally strong fears and comparatively irrationally weak fears? We take so many car trips that have completely successfully (without resulting in death) that we feel the risk is zero. But when boarding a plane to go on that rare trip, despite being statistically much safer, we think of there being a non-zero risk of being turned into a missile. The difference there is familiarity.

The media is also complicit. Compare the news coverage in the U.S. of a single Sars case elsewhere compared to the reporting of a car accident. A cancer victim is lucky to be listed in the obituaries. Likewise, the government in power is complicit with the media in its subtle influencing of the perceived threat of terrorists.

Read more:
From WebMD: Worry vs. Reality: The Real Risks You Face
Bruce Schneier writes for Wired: America's Flimsy Fortress: All the money spent on security since 9/11 has done little to make us safer.
Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research
Harper's Magazine reads from a USDA memo to meat inspectors: "Stopping production for 'possible' cross contamination is unjustifiable unless you can verify that there is direct product contamination."