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Comment by incongruity | Hacker News Reader

Okay, sure, let's toss out the comparison to smoking. How about deaths in motor vehicles on the US highways? Okay, not that either – there's been (arguably) a lot spent on that in the last 15 years. How about choking to death or babies dying from SIDS? A quick google shows that each claims about 2,500 lives a year in the US. So, over the last 15 years, that's approximately 37,500 lives lost to each, or 75,000 total over the last 15 years... I'll leave the terrorism death count to you. And, I guarantee you, the funding isn't anywhere near the anti-terrorism funding.

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Like lupatus mentioned in the other response, there is considerable variability in the risk from terrorism. I would guess - while tragic, and my profound sympathies to anyone reading this who has been touched by either - that SIDS and infant/toddler choking deaths are much more consistent year over year (and there is a lot of educational material out there on preventing SIDS with sleep positions, and huge federal regulation on childrens' toys for, eg BuckyBalls).

I would instead use the analogy of weather in the context of urban planning around floodplains, building standards, etc. These are typically based on 50 or 100 year storm events. If you look at a 15 year average, these standards look like overkill.

EDIT: Lo and behold, another downvote. What in the way I've structured my argument or my logic is flawed? Or is it just more satisfying to downvote those you disagree with? Anyway, downvote away, you're only lowering yourself. I don't care.

The risk from terrorism is, most greatly, the fear of terrorism and the effort a society will expend on trying to stop future terrorism, which in itself generates fear and adds to the likelihood of spending more on preventing terrorism...

In short, it's all too easy to let it become a vicious cycle that simply is not justified based on the actual damage done by terrorism.

To circle back to your analogy to floods – I'm not sure about what you're suggesting. Are you saying we need to look at a larger timeframe? If so, I would point out that I was considering precisely the timeframe you suggested. But, beyond that, looking over the last 100 years, SIDS and choking have certainly killed more... and I would expect they'd continue to do so over the next 100, even if the current anti-terrorism measures were never enacted.

> Like lupatus mentioned in the other response, there is considerable variability in the risk from terrorism.

"Considerable variability" doesn't begin to cut it. Deaths from terror attacks follow a power law. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare them to fundamentally linear phenomena like traffic or smoking deaths. Coincidentally (or not), flood levels also follow a power law.

The thing about a power law phenomenon is that you can use it to justify an arbitrarily high prevention spend, because given the sample you have, you can guarantee an event lying outside it. Repeat ad infinitum.

> Deaths from terror attacks follow a power law. [citation needed]

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_power_law_...

Don't fret too much about the down votes. I once got voted down to something like -182 karma for giving supported arguments that a gay illegal immigrant journalist should be deported.

After that, pg stopped showing karma scores in the comments.

How about lifetimes worth of wasted hours due to security theater? I would bet that those are substantially greater than the number of lifeyears lost to terrorist attacks.

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