Without some notion of absolute numbers, the comparison is pointless.
Last I heard, both of those causes of death are almost negligible compared to things like heart disease, cancer, and car accidents. So I have some doubt about this statement by the author
> The point of the quote is to focus people on sources of mortality society-wide, because this focus can guide public policy efforts at reducing death.
With that said, yes, people are irrationally afraid of death by terrorism. But comparing that to their chance of death by cop is not illustrative. Comparing to their chance of death by traffic accident would be more relevant.
Comparing to their chance of death by traffic accident would be more relevant.
Not really. The increases in LEA capabilities and militarized tactics took a massive leap post 9/11 largely based on the idea of preventing terrorism. If those impacts are now causing more harm than the thing they are intended to prevent, then there is a clear problem and highlighting it shows that such a response is wrongheaded.
The other causes of death in this case are not relevant at all to the point, however the broader approach would advocate that the more frequent causes of death should be addressed before other less probable causes of death.
It's relevant because a vastly expanded police presence has been erected in response to terrorism, but police are statistically more dangerous to the population than terrorists.
If we want to stop terrorism without trading it for something worse, we need to deal with the root of the problem: an aggressive, imperialistic foreign policy that costs more that we can afford, makes us insecure, and benefits only a tiny elite.
> If we want to stop terrorism without trading it for something worse
Terrorism is a political tool. There is no willingness for it to stop. On the contrary. Both the aggressor and the victim will politically benefit from it. The "victim" will push for more State Power and more population control, and the aggressor will use any act of retaliation to recruit more people on their side.
I think using the example of police officers is apt, because police officers can be thought of as a countermeasure to terrorists (and other lawbreakers). I don't think this article really lets the argument take form, but I think it's important to note that the actions which are supposedly intended to combat terrorism are themselves more harmful than terrorism itself.
Since police are also there to combat murderers, gang members, drunk drivers, etc, your statement does not even begin to become valid unless police numbers are put against terrorists plus all those other groups. It's total nonsense.
No one is arguing that this is the only or the most important comparison that can be made. It's just one of many comparisons. That doesn't make it useless. I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that cops are a much larger threat than terrorists, and I think the comparison can be used to make a much larger point about the utility of counterterrorism measures.
It's not just that. What's the probability that 100K people are killed by terrorists vs. police next year? With fat tails, the number of people killed in the recent past isn't an accurate summary of the true statistics.
Here is PDF original source for Author's statistics is referencing [ http://www.start.umd.edu/start/announcements/BackgroundRepor... ]. Of a particular interest is bar graph on the bottom of the second page. Ironically it comes out to about: US citizens are
eight and a half times
less likely to die due to terrorism on US soil (Before and after war on terror). That is just what statistics can do if you take any two numbers and start doing "science" with them. As far as I can tell the statistics author quotes actually compiled from different sources, which makes it even more questionable. I do not doubt the number provided by author is correct, however I just demonstrated that correctness is not enough, you need to treat your data and questions you ask of that data carefully in order to come up with something useful.
Original post below:
_________________________
There is a lie, there is a bold lie, and there is statistics.
These are only a few variables that might contribute to that number:
1. There are actually vastly more cops compared to terrorists.
2. Terrorists do not discriminate targets. Cops usually have a very specific set of people they are targeting (I.E. carrying guns and shooting at other people/gangs).
3. How many of those people killed by cops, were trying to shoot back? Terrorists usually kill people who do not fight back.
I am all up for this kind of statistics, however this one seems a bit sensationalist.
* - a robbery suspect lied about a gun.
- mistook cell phone for a gun.
- pulled out toy submachinegun
a. This adds up to 20, so I missed one. I got no idea which one.
b. Allegedly every mistake killing had at least one mitigating circumstance (And only case of a guy just fleeing and being shot got cop charged with manslaughter).
I did a quick perusal of other months in 2012, and they look similar. According to wikipedia cops killed 587 people in 2012 [1], at the same time 120-127 cops were killed [2]. If pattern established in my quick count holds, then a U.S. cop is more likely to be killed than kill somebody who: does not flee from or point things at cops (especially things that might look like guns).
I am not saying anything. What I did is try to get some numbers together and was astounded by a result. I am not sure how I am making a point that cops are bad.
I think you and I are operating with different definitions of word bad. I took your comment to mean, that the fact that cops are about* as likely to die as to kill someone by mistake, means we got badly trained cops. Now I see there is more than way to read that comment.
* I made up number that was used for that based on a very small sample. Please let me know if I messed up somewhere, I am quite curious about it.
I like this breakdown as it shows the problem with the title of the article "You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist".
For me at least I'm very unlikely to be attacking cops any time soon...
Was going through the summaries too. Problem is the mitigating circumstances stats are useless. An officer literally has their life on the line when writing their report. They'd have to be just about insane to not say they thought the person had a gun, moved their hands towards their waistbands, made a furtive movement, etc. Maybe the data is good for historical trends but that's it.
True, but the whole point is that the cops are a bigger danger to life and limb (and perhaps liberty) than terrorists. But ask 100 people on the street which is a bigger danger and you'd probably conclude (at least from their answers) terrorism.
That means that society is improperly calibrated to actually reducing mortality and there's no better way to recalibrate than some kind of sensationalist headline that really makes the point.
Two things that people are horrible at reasoning about, probably for biological reasons: Really massive numbers. Really really small numbers.
It only gets worse when you throw in something emotionally charged, like risk. Humans are absolutely awful at evaluating risk rationally.
Consider the standard HN example of robotic cars that are safer by an order or magnitude or two than human-piloted cars. The first time somebody will be killed by a robotic car (and it will happen eventually) the public will be calling for heads on a platter, even though the robotic cars are safer than human-piloted cars that kill hundreds every day.
Personally I cannot wait for my own robot car, so much free time will be given back to me.
However the irrationality that comes into play with a robot car killing a human means that the creators of such cars are going to go above and beyond to do what they can to prevent it. By virtue of human irrationality we get safer robot cars.
And the counterpoint is that they may not actually be the bigger danger, unless you are involved in the commission of a crime. Well. It depends on what you mean by "danger to life and limb". Do you mean, "For the average person?" Or do you mean, "For a particular person?"
The problem with "the average person" is that such a thing does not really exist. So the answer to the question may not be informative. I think most people, when reading this headline, probably think that it is claiming they are more likely to die from the police than terrorism. Unless you are a criminal, that may not be true (depending on P(criminal|killed by cop)), and it's not possible to estimate that based on data in the article, if it's the same article I've seen before.
True, but the whole point is that the cops are a bigger danger to life and limb (and perhaps liberty) than terrorists.
Only if you look at it simplistically. Terrorists on the streets don't really stop other crime, whereas cops do. Some drunks having a fight outside a bar at closing time? Having terrorists around won't help.
Also note that the cops are in much more danger of life and limb than the rest of us. That is, the cops get to confront the creeps so that most of us don't have to most of the time. Some of those creeps are armed, violent, and not inclined to cooperate with the cops. This leads to cops often being in situations where, if they're a half-second late in shooting, they're dead. If they're a half-second early, they're villified, suspended and charged with manslaughter.
We're asking them to do the impossible, and they're coming close to doing it. I get the bit about trying to recalibrate the public's perception of risk, but don't make them freak out about the cops to make your point.
If you go by deaths (admittedly, a terrible metric since cops wear body armor and typically can get on the radio for an ambulance pretty quickly), then cops are not in more danger of life and limb than the rest of us. There are plenty of jobs that you are more likely to be killed, even murdered, in.
Regardless, you are missing the point of the comparison. The comparison should not be taken to imply "You should fear the police". That would be an irrational takeaway from a comparison between police and terrorists. What you are suppose to take away from the comparison is "Gee, my fear of terrorists is pretty damn irrational, since plenty of other things are more likely to kill me, but I don't particularly fear any of them."
The fact that so many people get hung up on this comparison demonstrates the comparison's relative uselessness in practice. The comparison has too much emotional baggage to be properly digested without careful spoon-feeding.
The fact that I'm personally extremely unlikely to be killed by either terrorists or cops isn't the reason the statistic is important.
The statistic is important for public policy debate because there is 8 times more progress to be made in terms of saving lives by dealing with the problem of police killings.
It's interesting, but it isn't the only needed info. You might have 8 times as much opportunity for progress, but it might be 8 times harder to make progress.
Only 8?! With so many police officers? That's an amazing performance if true. But I suspect that police-caused fatalities are just being underreported here.
Why? It's fairly obvious where their predilection lies. Have they exhibited a track record of less-than-reputable analyses? (Honest question, not trolling)
Why? I mean, on economic issues I can understand the mistrust, but I'm curious to know what kind of Shadowy Business Interest might be behind a post such as this.
Also, BTW, it's not a "study", it's just a blog post.
"The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war."
Since 2011, there's been no major tsunami, nuclear meltdown, or global financial crisis... so the probability of any those things happening must be zero.
The statistical likelihood of something happening isn't super relevant to how we as human beings deal with things. Fear is a huge motivating factor. While we do not live in a perfect world, police, by design, decrease fear while terrorists increase it. That's why we commit money and resources.
A nice analogy is the difference between flying and driving. I know many people that have a fear of flying and refuse to get on a plane, but are perfectly comfortable behind the wheel even though it's statistically much less safe. How people feel about things is important.
If everyone in the world (except say 0.0001% of people) took MMR vaccines, then you would probably be 8 times more likely to die of an MMR vaccine than Measles.
Does that mean everyone should stop taking the vaccine?
What is the old saying... " what is the difference between lies and statistics?" Lies intentionally deceive. I think there is also a statistic I saw that said that the increased hassle caused by the TSA procedures caused more people to drive than fly which ended up killing more people in traffic accidents than were killed on 911. There are a lot of statistics like that. But I think the main point is that the threat of terrorism is vastly over blown, which I think most informed people understand.
How many police officers conduct mass casualty attacks causing maximum loss of life?
How many terrorist atrocities are foiled, preventing statisticians from incorporating them into the sample?
This is the equivalent of saying "You are 8 times more likely to be killed in car crash by debris than going through the windscreen."
Yes. Only because the seatbelt exists.
Similarly, the only reason terrorist deaths are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism.
"Similarly, the only reason terrorist deaths are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism."
You are going to need to offer actual proof of this, because it doesn't at all follow from anything you said.
(and is unrelated to the statistics in the article).
In fact, i'd bet it's just the opposite. You spend a phenomenal amount of resources preventing a very small amount of loss of life.
(and nothing the FBI or other agencies have offered in response to requests for "foiled terrorist plots" seems to dispute this at all)
It follows exactly what I have said. The statistics in the article are not relate to anything either.
Whether the deaths from terrorism are low in comparison to other phenomena is not the issue.
My statement was that "the only reason [edit]deaths from terrorism[/edit] are so low is because of the phenomenal amount of resources we dedicate to the detection and prevention of terrorism."
A truth which is self-evident.
If proof is required we can simply compare and contrast with nation states who do not have technological or economic resources of the US or UK and who are facing a terrorist threat of similar dimensions.
There is nothing more to prove here. The article is nonsense, it is fallacious correlation and simply clickbait.
The studies here have so many statistical problems it's not even worth talking about. It may be true, it may be not true. You can't just take stats from multiple sources and directly compare them without any thought. It doesn't work that way.
This is a real-world problem. Some warrants are absolutely indistinguishable from a home invasion, and mistakes are well documented in the press (but not reported widely enough, IMO). I remember one in Denver around 2003 that particularly horrendous.
Unless you happen to be in the same room with a police officer and terrorist.
Also, Domino's pizza delivery drivers a much more considerable threat to Americans than all the terrorists in Afghanistan. You could go on all day with such comparisons. I'll bet popcorn kills more people than Al Qaeda. And through asphyxiation!
Last I heard, both of those causes of death are almost negligible compared to things like heart disease, cancer, and car accidents. So I have some doubt about this statement by the author
> The point of the quote is to focus people on sources of mortality society-wide, because this focus can guide public policy efforts at reducing death.
With that said, yes, people are irrationally afraid of death by terrorism. But comparing that to their chance of death by cop is not illustrative. Comparing to their chance of death by traffic accident would be more relevant.