“There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.”

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FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Odds of Airborne Terror (via mikehudack)

Once again, Nate Silver is the voice of rationality. Except, of course, that terrorism is an act of man, and lightning an act of God; in theory, we can do something about the former.

(via newsweek)

That’s a good point, Newsweek. Except the “something” you refer to is a set of invasive security measures of dubious efficacy, which are a social ill on their own merit.

Security expert Bruce Schneier has noted, “Only two things have made flying safer since 9/11: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.”


2 years ago  |  mikehudack via newsweek  |  52 notes
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    mikehudack:newsweek)
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  10. katespencer reblogged this from newsweek and added:
    Seriously, everyone chill the fuck out.
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    Hubba-wha, Newsweek? Please do not go all Joan Didion on me; I will leave it to more lyrical minds to define “acts
  13. maxistentialist reblogged this from newsweek and added:
    That’s a good point, Newsweek. Except...“something” you refer to is a set
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