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Comment by 3825 | Hacker News Reader

This comparison is outrageous. Speaking of things out of context, fewer than three thousand people died in 9/11[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11...

Exactly wrong. The response to the acts of war on 9/11 are disingenuous, and not commensurate with the impact. The costs we as citizens pay for a false sense of security are orders of magnitude more than the risk presented. It is sad these people in the Phillipines died. We should help the survivors and we should help the survivors be able to withstand future problems by building better safer infrastructure and other methods. But, this is a normal event in human culture, the comparison is not outrageous, it is simply scientifically accurate. The author's choice of the word sideshow is callous, but objectively somewhat accurate. To those involved or effected by this - it's anything but a sideshow, which is where relative perspective comes in. We should have sympathy and help - but help in all ways.

Well, that's the whole point - if some USA politician really wanted to protect Americans, then it would be appropriate to direct more effort towards traffic and obesity, and ignore 9/11.

The same is in this situation - while help is needed in restoring the communities and sheltering survivors; in the long run anyway those "common killers" should be a priority for the same Philippines communitities, not overly focusing on typhoon-safety.

And the 10 000 dead isn't the number that should be emphasised above others - the main pain in this disaster is the millions of wounded and displaced; I wouldn't be surprised if the death toll of these displacement consequences (malnutrition, disease, etc) is larger than from the initial impact.

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