I wholeheartedly agree with the thesis here, and have been saying as much since 2001. An event on the scale of 9/11 happening every other day would still kill fewer Americans than heart disease.
In any case, looking at just the death toll misses the point. The attack on the World Trade Center was the largest attack on continental U.S. soil since the British sacked the White House. The reaction it engendered was very understandably out of proportion with the number of lives lost in the attack. It was deeply disturbing to a nation that has for nearly its whole history felt secure, being isolated from anyone who would harm it by the world's largest oceans.
As someone from a country with questionable security, let me tell you that you cannot measure the value of safety merely in lives lost. I bet in Bangladesh the violence of hartals (labor strikes) probably doesn't add up to very many lives at all, but the disruptive force of that violence is much stronger. A major terrorist attack just every year would make the U.S. a very different place (see, e.g., Israel).
Also, if you want to be hyper-rational about this: the NSA program probably has incredible bang-for-buck. If it costs $500 million a year, it only has to prevent a 9/11-scale event once or twice a century to justify itself.
Also, if we're "keeping things in perspective" why do you compare lives as if each one has equal value? One WTC worker was probably worth several times as much, in terms of GDP, as the average person who dies of heart disease. 3,000 people dying in Manhattan's financial district == 15,000 people dying in a Kansas City tornado... Obviously I'm being glib with this line of argument. You can't callously compare the two situations in the interest of "keeping things in perspective." So to can you not compare people dying in a terrorist attack to people dying of heart disease.
My argument was very much not "there are more deaths by X than terrorism, ergo we need to deal more with X". However, I think most people are not at all aware of the staggering difference in the levels of risk they bear from various sources, and pointing out the radical differences helps to keep things in perspective. A narrow counting of the dead is absolutely not the only correct perspective. At the same time, telling people they need to worry more because other people will be worried is only making matters worse. Better that they refuse to be terrorized (http://www.schneier.com/essay-124.html); that they recognize that by bearing in mind the actual relative threats they can legitimately feel safer.
"Also, if you want to be hyper-rational about this: the NSA program probably has incredible bang-for-buck. If it costs $500 million a year, it only has to prevent a 9/11-scale event once or twice a century to justify itself."
That is not what rational means.
"Also, if we're "keeping things in perspective" why do you compare lives as if each one has equal value? One WTC worker was probably worth several times as much, in terms of GDP, as the average person who dies of heart disease. 3,000 people dying in Manhattan's financial district == 15,000 people dying in a Kansas City tornado... Obviously I'm being glib with this line of argument. You can't callously compare the two situations in the interest of "keeping things in perspective." So to can you not compare people dying in a terrorist attack to people dying of heart disease."
There are so many things wrong with this.
First, you pick a metric that is most emphatically not just counting lives, find it ick, and conclude that you can't just count lives. Which isn't really here nor there - my intent with number of lives was never to be precise but to give a sense of scale; adjust according to whatever perceived value you place on the respective lives.
More importantly, you're making an emotional appeal that is frankly absurd: yes, comparing certain things can seem crass, but resources we're spending on "fighting terrorism" aren't being put to other use and liberties we're giving up for "fighting terrorism" are enabling abuses (now or down the line), and we need to make comparisons if we're going to make any decisions. Making decisions anyway is implicitly making those same comparisons, just with less care, and people's lives are at stake!
Did you really just blame the Internet bubble bursting on 9/11 ?
And the 1100 points gain from Sept 21 to Oct 12?
Even if America went to great lengths to offend nobody and make everyone happy, they'd always be the one with the target painted on their back.
Worth a try, anyway?
But I would like to stress that it's actually possible that America might make different choices about e.g. foreign policy issues than other nations and it still be a reasoned, deliberate policy choice and not 'tyranny and oppression'.
The easy example is how freedom of the press in the U.S. naturally conflicts with the Islamic prohibition against depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. I can only imagine how well freedom of expression would have went over during the ancient battles between iconoclasts and iconoblasts.
So many people are preconditioned now into opposing what America does for no other reason than that America did it. China or Iran spies on their citizens and filters what they can see? Who cares, they're China and Iran, we expect them to be totalitarian; but because they do what we expect we give them a free pass! Why? Instead we buy stuff from China and Iran even while we're busy boycotting the USA? Uh huh, OK.
The U.K. and Sweden manage to out-do even the USA in public and net surveillance? Whatever, they're European, they're the "good guys". Nary a whimper anywhere in the world.
So if people want to hate America than whatever, but at least stop acting like they're applying the same standards to the USA that they do to the rest of the world.
On the other hand, if there was a magical place where all diseases would be cured, I imagine there would be a mad scramble to get in.
I also made a crude estimate for economic impact of disease in another comment of ~$250 trillion per year.
Look at e.g. Chicago. 500 or so murders a year, dwarfed by the number of deaths from heart disease, etc, and people freak out. But that reaction has an economic cost--it's harder to get middle class people to move into and stay in the city when they fear crime.
Maybe people shouldn't be so unnerved by crime and terrorism, but they are. 1,000 traffic deaths a year in Illinois does absolutely nothing to curb car culture. 1,000 terrorism deaths a year in Illinois would gut the economy of the state as people fled to saver environs.
B. I don't undestand the following types of argument:
1. people are ignorant of something and have irrational fears about it.
2. Lets spend a bunch of money so they feel better.
What ever happened to education?
I'm also not saying its as easy as the numbers I threw together. Its just a ballpark estimate, until someone comes along and gives a better estimate.