The Nuisance of Terrorism and a Life Worth Living

Via Will Wilkinson, John C. Mueller's "A False Sense of Insecurity" (pdf):

Until 2001, far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts.

He calls for

an effort by politicians, officials, and the media to inform the public reasonably and realistically about the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of terrorists by frightening the public...

Accordingly, it would seem to be reasonable for those in charge of our safety to inform the public about how many airliners would have to crash before flying becomes as dangerous as driving the same distance in an automobile. It turns out that someone has made that calculation: University of Michigan transportation researchers Michael Sivak and Michael Flannagan, in an article last year in American Scientist, wrote that they determined there would have to be one set of September 11 crashes a month for the risks to balance out. More generally, they calculate that an American’s chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the September 11 crashes into account). To reach that same level of risk when driving on America’s safest roads — rural interstate highways — one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles...

Moreover, any problems caused by radiological, chemical, or perhaps biological weapons are likely to stem far more from the fear and panic they may cause than from the weapons themselves. While a "dirty bomb" might raise radiation 25 percent over background levels in an area and therefore into a range the Environmental Protection Agency considers undesirable, there ought to be some discussion about whether that really constitutes "contamination" or much of a danger at all, given the somewhat arbitrary and exceedingly cautious levels declared to be acceptable by the epa. The potential use of such bombs apparently formed the main concern during the Orange Alert at the end of 2003. Because the bombs simply raise radiation levels somewhat above normal background levels in a small area, a common recommendation from nuclear scientists and engineers is that those exposed should calmly walk away...

...biological and chemical weapons…are notoriously difficult to create, control, and focus (and even more so for nuclear weapons)...

...three key issues, set out by risk analyst Howard Kunreuther, require careful discussion but do not seem ever to get it:

• How much should we be willing to pay for a small reduction in probabilities that are already extremely low?
  
• How much should we be willing to pay for actions that are primarily reassuring but do little to change the actual risk?
  
• How can measures such as strengthening the public health system, which provide much broader benefits than those against terrorism, get the attention they deserve?

...What we need is more pronouncements like the one in a recent book by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be okay. And in the unlikely event you’re not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind plastic sheets and duct tape? That’s not a life worth living, is it?"

So Kerry was right, for all the good it did him. Suck it up, people!