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Terrorism in the Modern World
A study published at fas.org essentially, among a wealth of other interesting data, shows that the far majority of all terrorist acts tracked in the world (in 2011) come specifically from Sunni Muslim extremists.
http://fas.org/irp/threat/nctc2011.pdf
Muslims are also the far majority of victims of the same terror attacks.
2011, interestingly, saw the lowest number of terror attacks in the five year span ending in 2011.
Outside of the countries where these attacks are commonplace, there is been just in 2014 a rise in "activated" attacks by motivated but unconnected individuals, usually with a history or recent display of mental illness. The immediate response to this has been rhetorical at best (and indeed it may not warrant a response at all, considering the tiny probability of these attacks compared to the probabilities of dying in car accidents or other mundane circumstances).
So, terrorism is real and deeply destabilizing, but at the same time primarily affects a very small number of countries. Meanwhile, people in, say, the United States seem increasingly terrified despite the clear lack of any statistically significant danger to them specifically.
What do?
http://fas.org/irp/threat/nctc2011.pdf
Muslims are also the far majority of victims of the same terror attacks.
2011, interestingly, saw the lowest number of terror attacks in the five year span ending in 2011.
Outside of the countries where these attacks are commonplace, there is been just in 2014 a rise in "activated" attacks by motivated but unconnected individuals, usually with a history or recent display of mental illness. The immediate response to this has been rhetorical at best (and indeed it may not warrant a response at all, considering the tiny probability of these attacks compared to the probabilities of dying in car accidents or other mundane circumstances).
So, terrorism is real and deeply destabilizing, but at the same time primarily affects a very small number of countries. Meanwhile, people in, say, the United States seem increasingly terrified despite the clear lack of any statistically significant danger to them specifically.
What do?
Post edited by Rym on
Comments
How can you control the media/ news when there's free speech?
With the internet at least you have memes/ forums/ youtubes at your disposal, to voice against that sort of speech.
How do you attack the news where that kind of audience is more susceptible to misinformation.
There seems to be alot of ad hominems for Russell, but he still makes a point.
You can personally stop watching the news and broadcast TV but this doesn't stop uneducated people from being exposed and moulded by hysterical propaganda.
The same thing happens in Australia but you tend to not see morons throwing around opinions as facts due to other media outlets waiting to eviscerate them for doing something silly. This method does not always work. Poor journalism may end up on a small show called Media Watch which fact checks inaccurate news. However Media Watch is limited by the limited audience.
I guess self regulation is required, this can only happen on a medium where everyone has the same power such as the Internet. Once again this is obviously not the right answer as seen with the stupidity that ensued from the GamerGators, in truth it can be worse.
The ideal solution would be education. However Governments are against improving the average education level of the public because it assists control.
What do indeed.
I'm just disheartened with the current Australian PM (and party in power) cutting funding for tertiary education, privatising student loans and removing funding for Student guilds. There is also talk of deregulating the pricing structure, hiring only heterosexual teachers and removing "left wing" topics such as Indigenous studies.
Basically looked at American politics and said I'm going to copy that, mix it with a bit of British right wing and be the biggest asshole this country has ever seen.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30710883
During the last one, triggered by an IT worker having the audacity to use his keycard access to a rear entrance of the elementary school, my 5 year old was "misplaced" by her kindergarten teacher and left to wander the halls while everyone else was locked in their classrooms. She was twice refused entry at the doors she came to in tears.
More topical for the recent event in France, is this video:
(the takeaway being don't mill about in a lobby)
What are your chances of actually being in an active shooter event? As Muppet said, probably a little over the chance of being struck by lightning, but better to know what you're going to do ahead of time rather than try and Google what to do in the heat of the moment. That's probably the best advice I can give as a security professional; think up scenarios, no matter how far out or statistically improbable, and make a personal plan for what you'd do. Believe me, the civilian security personnel wherever you may work will probably be just as scared and unprepared as you are.