Liars and outliers

[Sionyn]

very thought provoking on the issues of security
and mess mankind has made over it, just take a look at airport security, over reaction to bombs, insane law robbing us of liberty.

[PeteInTexas]

As we speak, a "big box" store a stones throw from where I am typing this is being evacuated due to a bomb threat.

Yeah, its all "security theater" until its real. 

[SeanB]

What are you worried about? I lived with real terrorists. The kind who could and did blow up shopping centres, hotels and such.

[bullet308]

What are you worried about? I lived with real terrorists. The kind who could and did blow up shopping centres, hotels and such.

That must have made for some interesting parties...

Human beings are notoriously flawed when it comes to assessing threats. Some kinds they grossly underestimate, others the grossly overestimate.

The threat of a bomb is real. Is that threat proportional to other threats given the trouble and expense we go to trying to counter the threat? Not so much.

[george graves]

What are you worried about? I lived with real terrorists. The kind who could and did blow up shopping centres, hotels and such.

Ya, sure ya do.

[PeteInTexas]

Turned out to be a false alarm.  Well, the police did a "primary and secondary search" and found nothing.  Employees and customers were allowed back in by around noon.  Although all bomb threats are taken seriously of course, there was probably a heightened sense of caution as this "big box" store, at another nearby location, had a shooting incident that killed a police officer about a month or so ago.

Fortunately, this incident has only disrupted which restaurant I was going to take my lunch. 

[AntiProtonBoy]

Although all bomb threats are taken seriously of course, there was probably a heightened sense of caution as this "big box" store, at another nearby location, had a shooting incident that killed a police officer about a month or so ago.

Sounds like a typical end result of the security theatre which you criticised earlier. Essentially we are talking about a social environment that is highly sensitised to the concept of "terrorism" and gets spooked every time a superficial thing that looks "out of place".

To objectively assess the true threat of terrorism, you'll have to look at actual statistics, and see how many people die from terror related incidents per capita. The reality is that getting hit by a car is a significantly greater threat to the average citizen than terrorism could ever aspire to be. The difference here is that the latter is about showmanship and the former isn't.

[MikeK]

Yes, but it's easier to whip the chattle up into a frenzy and demand huge defense budgets over terrorism.