This chart of how terrorism in Europe is generally declining is floating around my stream. While the decline is important, I think it's also important to realise just how incredibly rare terrorism is anyway. I don't want to make any comment on the importance of counter-terrorism activities in keeping this number low, only to point how that from an individual sense, fearing death by terrorism makes no sense whatsoever.
The graph of terrorist killings below comes from http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rise-of-religiously-inspired-terrorism-in-france/
I did not re-extract the original data, I simply used the graph provided.
The data for drowning comes from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/
Only data for 2011-2012 is available; the EU does not, so far as I know, have a longer-established central statistics database. As far as I am aware this data is only for European residents, not for those who die while trying to reach Europe. In the UK at least, the number of drownings per year has remained pretty constant, so although there will be some variation, the numbers probably won't be dramatically different in 1970.
Other causes of death from Eurostat :
Transport - 35,000
Falls - 45,000
Unknown - 79,000. Yes, apparently there are 79,000 annual deaths in the EU that simply go unexplained or have "ill-defined" causes.
Pregnancy : 200-300.
So statistically, terrorism is only slightly more dangerous than getting pregnant. It's not even remotely as threatening as a trip to the seaside (though eurostat doesn't give details on how many drownings occur in lakes, rivers, swimming pools etc.), is completely and utterly negligible threat compared with getting in a car or being near a road, or falling over, or even compared with dying from unidentified causes.
The problem with these charts are they don't compare like-with-like.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine what the plots of deaths from all diseases and cancers looks like vs ... and we try to eradicate the former at all costs.
Oliver Hamilton In what way is comparing deaths by different causes not comparing like with like ?
ReplyDeleteThe comparison with drowning is perhaps less apt, as it is relatively easy to avoid being drowned, without too much inconvenience, or loss of quality of life. Avoiding terrorism attacks seems to mean avoiding airflights, cafes, bars, music venues, and all crowded spaces. Thats much more difficult, and inconvenient.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor You'd need to split the drowning category into more descriptive ones.
ReplyDeleteOne often chooses to go swimming. A death in that case is accidental, through a variety of factors such as being over confident or undercurrents etc.
There are cases where people are forced to swim when they are swept off a sea wall for example during a storm. This is more comparable with terror attacks. Wrong place & wrong time.
Rhys Taylor, this is a false comparison because the deaths from terrorism often have repercussions which reach far beyond themselves. Those deaths are more significant because they carry more weight. International policy can be affected by them or they can be used to rationalize things like America's post-9/11 tightened security. One death is not always exactly the same value as another.
ReplyDeleteWhile it may be statistically unlikely for anyone to die in a terrorist attack, the deaths that result from it still have the potential to affect millions. These deaths will ultimately have an affect on you and I, depending on what policy results in response to them.
Overreacting to terrorism is what sets them apart. Quantitatively, the comparison is correct. Deaths versus deaths. .
ReplyDeleteSimon Barton, exactly. That's what I'm afraid of. That's what I worry about, that this is the perfect excuse for beating the drums of war. It only took one death for WWI to start. A lot about the importance of an individual death depends on the circumstances surrounding the actual cause of death. And yes, emotions come into it and mess things up. Unfortunately they have to be factored into the analysis in this case.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts, but I still think a comparison between drownings and terrorism is basically fair. The data for drownings is explicitly labelled as being accidental. Although there are situations where you may be forced to swim, they all boil down to being unlucky enough to be in or near the water. Victims of terrorist attacks are unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the same time.
ReplyDeleteTrue, you can choose never to immerse yourself in water at all. But few people avoid swimming entirely out of a fear of drowning. Anyone who chooses to swim at some point (which is the majority of people) is at risk of drowning. I do not think a more detailed breakdown of the causes of drowning would add very much here. Of course, I am not trying to suggest that drownings have the same international repercussions as terrorist attacks. My point is, if you choose to swim (or even go near water) and don't worry about drowning, then you shouldn't be scared of being killed by terrorists either. Or if you ever go near a road but don't worry about being run over, etc.
Of course you most definitely should be worried about the effects terrorism has on society, but that's another matter entirely.
Agreed, Rhys Taylor, on all points. I just felt that it needed pointing out lest it get lost in statistics.
ReplyDeleteThere's a fairly scary venn diagram in there from the Tunisia attacks.
ReplyDeleteOliver Hamilton: Disease eradication programmes — which are far less common than people sometimes think — always deal with infectious diseases, and are built on the widespread benefit gained from eliminating a reservoir for the disease. This is not viable for all disorders; for example, polio and dracunculiasis be eradicated because both absolutely need human for their life cycle to continue, and humans can be made immune by vaccination or by water straws; but tetanus or botulism, for example, can not be eradicated using currently available techniques because the bacteria causing these disorders can live fairly freely in the wild.
ReplyDeleteTerrorism, viewed epidemiologically, falls into the latter category. Sure, there's a certain infectious aspect to it, but history demonstrates that terrorism gets reinvented time and again even when previously infected terrorists are not nearby.
So, disease eradication programmes are a poor model for planning counterterrorism activities.
However, terrorism has another strange property: it derives its force from people who weren't its victims actively fearing, and thus amplifying the terrorists' message. If the public at large would understand the terrorism statistics better and realise that the danger posed by terrorists to any one person is insignificantly small, terrorism, like Tinker Bell, would lose its magic, and therefore, most backers would stop funding it, reducing the risk even further. The crazed UNABOMBER-like madmen will probably always be with us, so the expecte minimal terror risk can't go to exactly zero, but with the major terror organisations such as IRA and Al Quaeda being forced to change tactics and troll people in other ways instead of blowing stuff up, the expected risk of death from terrorism will be very, very close to zero.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't many problems that go away when you ignore them. Terrorism is one of these.
The graph is wrong. About 3000 people died on 9/11. Thus, I don't trust this data.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lazarus: Perhaps regrettably, the US is also still outside the EU.
ReplyDeleteAndres Soolo - I'm not sure what you mean.
ReplyDeleteDavid Lazarus
ReplyDelete"This chart of how terrorism in Europe..."
Oh, I guess I should have read it more carefully.
ReplyDelete