Virginia Tech Lesson: Rare Risks Breed Irrational Responses

[Nomad]

The following was an editorial I came across this morning and thought was relevant enough to share. Let me know what you think.

Nomad


Virginia Tech Lesson: Rare Risks Breed Irrational Responses

05.17.07 | 2:00 AM
Everyone had a reaction to the horrific events of the Virginia Tech shootings. Some of those reactions were rational. Others were not.
A high school student was suspended for customizing a first-person shooter game with a map of his school. A contractor was fired from his government job for talking about a gun, and then visited by the FBI when he created a comic about the incident.


Rest of the story can be found here.

 

[morph4me]

I think the author makes a tremendous amount of sense. Most people don't want to accept the fact that safety is an illusion, and that, at any time, we can encounter a situation over which we have no control. We like to believe we have a handle on everything, and anything that disturbs that belief causes an overreaction. The attack at Virginia Tech and the 9/11 attacks were not unforseeable, or even unpredictable, they were unthinkable. There is nothing that anyone can do to keep something like them from happening again, but people need to think that we are back in control of the situation, so we take action, and it doesn't seem to matter that the actions we take are just a dog and pony show and often take on a life of their own, but next time something happens, we have something we can point at and blame. We created no fly zones to prevent aircraft from being used to crash into buildings, but if someone else does try it what are we going to do? Shoot them down over the city we're trying to protect? We tend to take a shotgun approach to situations like this, everyone pays for the actions of a very small minority.

 

[JBrainard]

...There is nothing that anyone can do to keep something like them from happening again, but people need to think that we are back in control of the situation, so we take action, and it doesn't seem to matter that the actions we take are just a dog and pony show and often take on a life of their own, but next time something happens, we have something we can point at and blame.

To echo what morph said, it was a very good article. What is really upsetting to me is that the government capitalizes on these fears and uses them to push their own agendas (the Patriot Act, for example).

 

[Darksoul]

-Having worked as a guard in coporate security for 8 years or so, I can directly attest to the "dog and pony show". People, employees or the public, will react to something, usually over-react, to some situation, and management comes up with some lame new use of our time and job criteria. (Meaning the security officers.) Then management can say they "did something" even though its usually quite ineffective. Most people don't really know what we do; security is there to be a deterrent to anything happening and in case something does happen, take care of it. Its sad because you see the same thing played out in many situations, many homes, companies, governments.

-Good article, not sure if anything I wrote makes sense;-)

A--->

 

[mrhnau]

OK... interesting...

So, if I'm reading this correctly, we should not have gone into WW2 because Pearl Harbor was an isolated incident? Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

[CoryKS]

Schneier wrote a very useful book on cryptography. This piece is just goofy. There were no terrorist attacks in the two years prior to 9/11? Please. And I suppose we should conveniently forget that the WTC attack was a do-over. It seems Schneier has discovered a new level of hack.

 

[Ceicei]

The link to the original article is:

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/05/securitymatters_0517

- Ceicei

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Schneier wrote a very useful book on cryptography. This piece is just goofy. There were no terrorist attacks in the two years prior to 9/11? Please. And I suppose we should conveniently forget that the WTC attack was a do-over. It seems Schneier has discovered a new level of hack.

Yup. Typical isolationist, bury your head in the sand, clap-trap. Wasnt too "rare" for the people killed in those incidents and the long chain of suffering family and friends. Id wager that by the "6 degrees of separation" theory we all know someone directly impacted by 9/11 alone. I do.

 

[CoryKS]

And let's not forget about these. Of course, that didn't happen in the two years prior to 9/11. It happened three years prior. And then there's Khobar in 1996.

But other than those, 9/11 was an isolated incident. Nothing to get all het up about.

 

[mrhnau]

And let's not forget about these. Of course, that didn't happen in the two years prior to 9/11. It happened three years prior. And then there's Khobar in 1996.

But other than those, 9/11 was an isolated incident. Nothing to get all het up about.

How about the Cole?

 

[CoryKS]

How about the Cole?

Yup, the USS Cole was in the 2000 millenium attacks link.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Going back a few years more, lets not forget a certain Somali warlord that was funded and trained by AQ.