Well, being as a) today is my bday and b) this is the 200th post on the blog, it had to be about something I care about…and, of course, Bruce Schneier decided to find an article about the press and how it influences our Perceptions of Risk, making us believe that the really risky stuff isn’t and that the small stuff actually matters.
The press and the governments tend to push into the news the stuff that is scary as hell, like terrorism and shark attacks, but that actually aren’t all that likely to happen to us.
Plane crashes…there’s few plane crashes every year…in 2006, there were 10, with a total body count of 788 dead. And the newsrooms of the world made a hell of a racket about airplanes and airports, telling us that they are the most insecure thing in the planet.
I found the stats for death due to a whole manner of things during the year 2003, which should put things in perspective.
In 2003, there were 742 deaths in “air and space transport accidents”, according to the National Safety Council.
In the same year, 5,991 people died in accidents while walking on the street, 15,797 while in a car, 4,163 while in a pickup…hell, there were more people dead by raiding a bicycle (762) than on a plane! But no, it’s airplanes and airports that are the bane of the world, the unsafest of transports and so on and so forth. Even more fun…838 people died from falling off the bed, chair or other furniture. Yup, more people die from falling off their bed than from flying. Oh, btw…730 people died due to “firearms discharge” (remember these are all accidental deaths, no murders count), so….it’s riskier to have a bed at home than to have a firearm!
So, anyway, the NSC site has great stats and even gives you the odds of dieing in a certain kind of accident…which should put things in perspective.
Fearmongering sells newspapers, but it’s nothing but statistical nonsense…have fun trying to understand the difference between reality and perception, specially the twisted perception the media has managed to create in our minds.
UPDATE: And just to make sure that Bruce’s original finding makes sense, WoldNetDaily comes out with this report that makes me want to inject some shit into these people’s head so it won’t be empty anymore.
Tags: bruce schneier, national safety council, perception v. reality, press reality distortion, safety, Security
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Mines are recently in the news and you will hear (or I have heard) people say things like “Mining people have bought the gubment so that safety inspections don’t happen” and “mining used to be safe but not any more” and other mining is horrible stories. Those around listening just nod.
Then I will do something annoying… “Really? Why do you say that? How many accidents do you know about that aren’t talked about?” Not to take away from the mining accident in the news now, but the fact that it IS news speaks to the rarity doesn’t it? Car accidents almost never make the news except for traffic reports and you don’t see people trying to recall all cars. (Insert Bridges and other infrastructure here as well).
Flavor of the month fear-mongering is bad journalism but here to stay I’m sure.