(July 22, 2016 at 12:24 pm)RobertE Wrote:

(July 22, 2016 at 12:16 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: At the risk of sounding arrogant and masturbatory, I would be interested to see the correlation (if any) between those who rank terrorism at the top of their list, and level of education, or level of world travel, or something like that.

But then again, I've never resisted being masturbatory before so..

Don't take this the wrong way when I say that it doesn't matter if you have a PhD, MPhil or DLettres or GCSEs; terrorism is there to strike fear into everyone regardless of their level of education. However, people do become desensitised at the end of the day due to it happening on a regular basis.

...You've completely missed my point.

I am generally concerned about all violence, including Islam inspired terrorism. 9/11 made a very big impact on me. More than 3,000 innocent people died. I'm not saying reducing the threat of terror means should chew up all the resources, just that what starts with Theo Van Gogh and Rushdie moved on to Molly Norris. The effect of terror isn't just a mass murder thing. Stomping down the big terrorist threats discredits the violent ideology that is a widespread personal threat to individual freedoms.

I wouldn't say I'm categorically not worried about terrorism in the age of ISIS, I think that's a bit silly to have absolutely no caution over it. At the same time though, I don't let it dominate my life. I'm not going to let the threat scare me into not doing things I want to do or into not travelling. If they decide today is the day the want to kill me, fuck it, I'd rather that than live a life scared into submission (which is what they want).

I think the OP makes a lot of good points. It's not enough to oppose the terrorist-wing of Islamism, the extreme lack of secularism across "The Muslim world" (I hate calling it that) is relevant and probably part of the reason there's so much Islamic terror in relation to every other religion. Even if countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran claim not to support terror (which I don't fully believe), they still help it, because they legitimize the idea of a religion-led state and the infallibility of religious law systems. Religious terror is not going to disappear while there are still states that have that much religious involvement in their political affairs.

OFC the dread is palpable, the electorate that Trump is speaking directly to fears death in the way that only a person who knows they very shortly will be dead -can- fear death.  They're not just staring down the barrel of their own mortality, they're being forced to witness...in the thirteenth hour, the rapidly escalating destruction of every more, normative, and power structure they spent their entire lives building and maintaining. An abandonment of their very legacy.

As to the OPQ...no. I'm more likely to die from the flu. I kind of try to limit my fears to those things that are at least remotely reasonable to fear. Any other approach seems like a rabbit hole.

Statistics and probability of what might kill you aren't the point. Terrorism is directly caused by human malice. There is a big difference between that car accident or that one hamburger too many that might kill you and a crazy person who blows you up. Pretending to be ignorant of that difference is simply dishonest.

We have a lot of problems, yes, and we should be afraid of all of them. Some more than others. You don't bury your head in the sand and hope it pases and you certainly don't proclaim your fucking heroism when you don't have any close persons who died or were affected themselves by such terrorist attacks. Keyboard Hero Syndrome. I don't care about terrorism. Wooo-hooo.

Meh, not to me its not.  Full disclosure..I'm a junkie for morbidity and mortality weekly.  No one asked whether we -cared- about terrorism, they asked whether or not we feared it.  Well, I've seen it's face...and it's about as frightening as an IT guy named Jamal....and no less random than being hit by a car...so.....

(July 22, 2016 at 12:26 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote:

(July 22, 2016 at 12:24 pm)RobertE Wrote: Don't take this the wrong way when I say that it doesn't matter if you have a PhD, MPhil or DLettres or GCSEs; terrorism is there to strike fear into everyone regardless of their level of education. However, people do become desensitised at the end of the day due to it happening on a regular basis.

...You've completely missed my point.

So, enlighten me...

(July 22, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Meh, not to me its not.  Full disclosure..I'm a junkie for morbidity and mortality weekly.  No one asked whether we -cared- about terrorism, they asked whether or not we feared it.  Well, I've seen it's face...and it's about as frightening as an IT guy named Jamal....so.....

Fucking eh right!!! It happens so often that we just go about our daily business. If it happens, it happens. Life is too short to be looking over your shoulder, or staring at some Judaeo-Christian-Islamic nutjob with a suspicious looking backpack on. Crack a few beers and stick your middle finger up at those who fear it.

Yep..pretty much where I'm at.  The banality of evil is a thing.  These people..these terrorists, they're not frightening...they're frightened. Excuse me for not devolving into one of them voluntarily.

(July 22, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Meh, not to me its not.  Full disclosure..I'm a junkie for morbidity and mortality weekly.  No one asked whether we -cared- about terrorism, they asked whether or not we feared it.  Well, I've seen it's face...and it's about as frightening as an IT guy named Jamal....and no less random than being hit by a car...so.....

Thing about threats is, their underlying causes matter. If these same terrorists that aren't a big threat to you right now might get their hands on a better technology of warfare suddenly you'd have a significantly increased fear of terrorism. Just goes to show you didn't think it through. This is why we're more afraid of terrorists than other societal dangers, apart from the fact that fucking savages shoot masses of people in the civilised world every month or so.

This board man, I've never before seen so many regressives in one place.