ss <[email protected]> writes: > On Thursday 18 Dec 2008 12:46:17 am Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> All that said, people seem to be taking you to task for ignoring the >> fact that terrorism is a very small killer which is very hard to >> address, and much bigger killers which are cheaper and easier to >> address go unanswered. Do you have a good answer for them? > > Well I need to explain what you have yourself done just in case you are doing > this without realizing it > > Let me explain > > You word a question in the following manner: > > 1) "X is bad, but Y is worse" > 2) "Do I have a "good" answer for why anyone should bother about the lesser > problem X" > > This sort of tactic comes naturally to people in political debate and is the > stuff of rhetoric and dialectic.
Actually, it comes naturally to people who think about resource allocation, not to people who think about politics. Politics is all about generating hysteria. Rational thinking is about trying to cut through hysteria. There aren't infinite resources in the world, and devoting a very large fraction of a society's resources in a self destructive potlatch that accomplishes nothing when the same resources could be spent productively is a very natural thing to be concerned about. A politician would love to ignore such things. The rational man cannot. Restructuring one's society to fight terrorism when few people die of it and hundreds of thousands die preventably is much like using nuclear weapons to attack a fly when you won't even get out a cudgel to kill a rabid racoon. It begs for satire because it is bizarre and silly. > The question removes the focus of discussion from terrorism, No. It points out that those that spend much of their time worrying about terrorism have no sense of proportion. Why should you warp a society to attack a problem that has so little real impact? Human beings are notoriously bad at risk assessment. They won't fasten their seatbelts, when the risk of dying in a car crash over a lifetime is quite significant, and then they get phobias about flying when the risk of dying in an airplane crash is nearly nonexistent. It is, however, easy to whip people's fears up. Television stations never break in the middle of programming to announce that the 75,000th person to die in an auto accident this year has just expired. However, if there is a sniper shooting somewhere, it is news. Ordinary risks are rarely paid attention to -- it is trivial to get people to look at the rare. > by saying that something else is worse. It then piles up > conditionality on the answer by saying "Do you have a "good" > answer?" The final judgement of what is a "good" answer and what is > not a good answer is left to the person asking the question. > > In other words the question is worded so at to: > > a) to take the focus away from the point of discussion > b) Leave a door open to declare any answer as "not good" Not quite. I won't deny that I think your position is unreasonable and I am clearly attempting to make others think the same thing. However, I think the means I am using are quite legitimate. You are one of those who claims that terrorism is an existential threat to society that justifies vast commitment of resources and the restructuring of the legal system. However, the evidence is utterly against you, and it seems illogical to ignore real problems while paying attention to such a puny threat. This reminds us of the man who would alter every part of his life in order to avoid the risk of tetanus, while ignoring the fact that he is obese, has type 2 diabetes, and is in the end stages of heart disease. It feels ridiculous because it *is* ridiculous. Yes, I intend to make your position look untenable. That is because I think your position is indeed untenable. This does not make my attempt unreasonable -- it makes your position unreasonable. I am sure it is uncomfortable for you to have others attack your position, but there is nothing wrong with others attacking your position, and provided they aren't engaging in logical fallacies in so doing, I fail to see the problem. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger [email protected]
