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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

fear mongering "government is out to get us" vs fear mongering "the terrorists are out to get us". none are true, but fear sells nonetheless.

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The uk gov now appears to resemble a media organisation whos main purpose is to broadcast the message of fear. The amount of money that passes in and out of the uk gov and to all the industry security contractors that manage that amplified and antagonised anxiety can probably now be directly related to how much fear it can generate amongst its own citizens that they are under immediate danger of being attacked

Really? I don't think that UK media actually scaremongers all that much about the threat of terrorist attacks. London has been the victim of terrorist attacks on and off for at least the past few decades. People in London are in imminent danger of being attacked (although of course the odds of any given person being killed are tiny).

Statistically speaking (tally up the dead for example) the biggest threat people face in their lives is not from any terrorist or criminal, but from their own government.

Kinda terroristic and criminal governments, often enough. And when you consider the lives saved by having hospitals or food safety regulations or whatever, criminals and terrorists are doing nothing positive at all, so these "statistics" seem kinda off.

The threat is in not dealing with politics before it deals with you, and a good way to do that is seeing "the government" of a democratic nation as something totally separate from a citizen in that nation... instead of getting engaged because it's so messed up, to disengage further because it's so messed up.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. That's it. Never stop believing!

Heart disease rang and wants its statistics back

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