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You're More Likely to Die from Brain-Eating Parasites, Alcoholism, Obesity, Medical Errors, Risky Sexual Behavior or ...
We noted in 2011:
– You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack
– You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack
— You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane
— You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack
–You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack
— You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack
– You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack
–You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack
–You are 9 times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack
–You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist
–You are 8 times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack
– You are 6 times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack
Let’s look at some details from the most recent official statistics.
The U.S. Department of State reports that only 17 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide as a result of terrorism in 2011. That figure includes deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and all other theaters of war.
In contrast, the American agency which tracks health-related issues – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control – rounds up the most prevalent causes of death in the United States:
Comparing the CDC numbers to terrorism deaths means:
– You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack
– You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack
(Keep in mind when reading this entire piece that we are consistently and substantially understating the risk of other causes of death as compared to terrorism, because we are comparing deaths from various causes within the United States against deaths from terrorism worldwide.)
Wikipedia notes that obesity is a a contributing factor in 100,000–400,000 deaths in the United States per year. That makes obesity 5,882 to times 23,528 more likely to kill you than a terrorist.
The annual number of deaths in the U.S. due to avoidable medical errors is as high as 100,000. Indeed, one of the world’s leading medical journals – Lancet – reported in 2011:
A November, 2010, document from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that, when in hospital, one in seven beneficiaries of Medicare (the government-sponsored health-care programme for those aged 65 years and older) have complications from medical errors, which contribute to about 180 000 deaths of patients per year.
That’s just Medicare beneficiaries, not the entire American public. Scientific American noted in 2009:
Preventable medical mistakes and infections are responsible for about 200,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to an investigation by the Hearst media corporation.
But let’s use the lower – 100,000 – figure. That still means that you are 5,882 times more likely to die from medical error than terrorism.
The CDC says that some 80,000 deaths each year are attributable to excessive alcohol use. So you’re 4,706 times more likely to drink yourself to death than die from terrorism.
Wikipedia notes that there were 32,367 automobile accidents in 2011, which means that you are 1,904 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack. As CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria writes this week:
“Since 9/11, foreign-inspired terrorism has claimed about two dozen lives in the United States. (Meanwhile, more than 100,000 have been killed in gun homicides and more than 400,000 in motor-vehicle accidents.) “
According to a 2011 CDC report, poisoning from prescription drugs is even more likely to kill you than a car crash. Indeed, the CDC stated in 2011 that – in the majority of states – your prescription meds are more likely to kill you than any other source of injury. So your meds are thousands of times more likely to kill you than Al Qaeda.
The number of deaths by suicide has also surpassed car crashes, and many connect the increase in suicides to the downturn in the economy. Around 35,000 Americans kill themselves each year (and more American soldiers die by suicide than combat; the number of veterans committing suicide is astronomical and under-reported). So you’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist.
The CDC notes that there were 7,638 deaths from HIV and 45 from syphilis, so you’re 452 times more likely to die from risky sexual behavior than terrorism.
The National Safety Council reports that more than 6,000 Americans die a year from falls … most of them involve people falling off their roof or ladder trying to clean their gutters, put up Christmas lights and the like. That means that you’re 353 times more likely to fall to your death doing something idiotic than die in a terrorist attack.
The agency in charge of workplace safety – the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration – reports that 4,609 workers were killed on the job in 2011 within the U.S. homeland. In other words, you are 271 times more likely to die from a workplace accident than terrorism.
The CDC notes that 3,177 people died of “nutritional deficiencies” in 2011, which means you are 187 times more likely to starve to death in American than be killed by terrorism.
Scientific American notes:
You might have toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by the microscopic parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which the CDC estimates has infected about 22.5 percent of Americans older than 12 years old
Toxoplasmosis is a brain-parasite. The CDC reports that more than 375 Americans die annually due to toxoplasmosis. In addition, 3 Americans died in 2011 after being exposed to a brain-eating amoeba. So you’re about 22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist.
There were at least 155 Americans killed by police officers in the United States in 2011. That means that you were more than 9 times more likely to be killed by a law enforcement officer than by a terrorist.
And the 2011 Report on Terrorism from the National Counter Terrorism Center notes that Americans are just as likely to be “crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year” as they are to be killed by terrorists.
Let’s switch to 2008, to take advantage of another treasure trove of data.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, 33 U.S. citizens were killed worldwide in 2008 from terrorism. There were 301,579,895 Americans living on U.S. soil in 2008, so the risk of dying from terrorist attacks in 2008 was 1 in 9,138,785.
This graphic from the National Safety Council – based upon 2008 data – shows the relative risks of dying from various causes:
If the risk of being killed by a terrorist were added to the list, the dot would be so small that it would be hard to see. Specifically, the risk of being killed by terrorism in 2008 was 14 times smaller than being killed by fireworks.
Reason provides some more examples:
[The risk of being killed by terrorism] compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has just published, Background Report: 9/11, Ten Years Later [PDF]. The report notes, excluding the 9/11 atrocities, that fewer than 500 people died in the U.S. from terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2010.
Terrorism pushes our emotional buttons. And politicians and the media tend to blow the risk of terrorism out of proportion. But as the figures above show, terrorism is a very unlikely cause of death.
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I think you greatly underestimate what the marketplace demands as far as competent actors. I never said there is any utopian solution. Capitalism is moral because transactions are done voluntarily. ANYTHING involving .gov explicitly means taking money at gunpoint from someone. Personal responsibility needs to come back. People have gotten lazy and expect .gov to take care of them from cradle to grave. That risk exists is the main theme I'm emphasizing.
Implicit in this last post you made is again your viewing the high price status quo for health care as being perpetual. It wouldn't be as it is now where it would be either pony up for a super expensive procedure or be subject to some lunatic on the cheap; it would be a real market with alternatives, and the high end cost wouldn't be so ridiculously high, because supply/demand would be the impetus for pricing instead of perverse incentives as occur in the status quo.
I fully expect more 'black markets' to show up for procedures that go beyond cosmetics like LASIK, and people will pay off the grid in bitcoin or PMs.
Broadening the subject given your unwavering belief that free markets are the answer to all, answer me this. In your desired system, wouldn't there need to be courts to settle private disputes? And wouldn't said courts need to have the power of coercion to collect judgments? And what about criminals who steal money and do other things like kill people. Wouldn't we need force to deal with them? Assuming your police and courts are private because all .gov is bad, what prevents those private entities from being corrupted by the big money in town, and what check and balance do you have to throw the bums out if they become corrupted?
Nobody is advocating for NO laws, rand. It is the mindless beaurocracy that makes the system inefficient and expensive. Laws are necessary, but they need to be enforced.
Free Market dude. You're about the smartest feller I've read around here in a while. Stick around and post more.
"Laws are necessary, but they need to be enforced."
Well, it sounds good, but you have to really put some thought into looking at how it would go down in practice. Keep in mind that there will NOT be excesses in which to siphon off of in order to maintain common enforcement. Also keep in mind that once you give someone the authority to kill then that means that they can kill YOU. We got to where we are because of where we started from, and That start contained the same logic/reasoning that you're presenting. I wish it weren't so, but I have to side with reality and not emotions...
Most posters here think I'm a big government socialist (or a Marxist according to some), but in reality I lean far more towards the free market than I do government anything. But it drives me crazy that most outspoken people who are against the status quo believe the answer is something that any intelligent high school student knows would never work in practice. The pure free market system pushed by guys like von Mises is a fairy tail told by a guy who simply doesn't want to contribute to anyone or anything but himself. The same is true of Rand followers. Literally every single one I've ever met believes that he/she would run the world but for taxes and government. Some are wealthy and don't seem to notice that they thrived in the environment they loathe. Most are not wealthy and simply need a boogey man on which to blame their own lack of success.
Not sure why you had to respond under my posting, but...
I don't care what anyone here "believes." Belief is a "wishing." I deal with/in reality. BIG (other than nature itself) = FAIL. I don't care it that's BIG govt or if it's BIG capitalism. The underlying premise in all is perpetual growth on a finite planet. Anyone whose ideology cannot address this flawed premise has NO leg to stand on- it's a FUNDAMENTAL. I will always point out the flawed logic. And, I'll acknowledge things that align with reality (which must be predicated on sustainability).
Be what you promote and set the example. If it's meaningful it'll be seen as such and others will voluntarily find a way to practice the same way.
Anarchism is what entropy demands. It brings diversity, which is how nature works best. All sorts of distasteful things can be rightly or wrongly attributed to anarchism, but it's the path of least resistance, with the natural forces being the only true judge.
I GET what you're trying to say. Not to be flip, but I've already been at that point in the path- I've graduated. I only now find a need to inform people of how simple math works and, to beat up on the xenophobes (who fail to understand that nature promotes diversity; they also can't comprehend that they shouldn't be worried that BAD SYSTEMS can take over [it really then boils down to their insecurities with what Their system is]).
I didn't down arrow you, but what do you think you graduated from exactly? Everything is finite. The earth itself is finite. Yet we are here, now. And humans will still be here most likely for many thousands of years despite themselves. Surely we can do better than cavemen fighting it out or sheep being led around by a dear Leader, yet the framed debate here and elsewhere seems to be a battle of those two options.
I graduated from the notion that one can change the world.
"And humans will still be here most likely for many thousands of years despite themselves."
No, this is not a certainty given that the planet is toward the high end of its nominal inter-glacial duration. It happened slowly and then all of a sudden...
"Surely we can do better than cavemen fighting it out or sheep being led around by a dear Leader, yet the framed debate here and elsewhere seems to be a battle of those two options."
When you couch things in (seemingly intended) derogatory language ("cavemen") you prove that you're closed to discussion.
POWER CORRUPTS. ANY concentrated power (what else could enforce laws?) will become corrupted. It happens because most people don't have the excess energy to combat it: instead they use what they have to just stay alive; sounds like what nature does...
My argument is that it's a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later thing, that in essence all we have done is to push off the "frequent" such that it is piling up to backwash in one big flush.
We hold off frequent wars only to end up in big ones.
We push big food systems in an attempt to fight off the ravages of nature, only to get hit with famines.
We come up with antibiotics, only to create super-bugs that then wipe us out in plagues.
We undertake revolutions, only to then fall back into the hands of tyrants.
Don't pretend that anything goes away or that it can be eradicated. We cannot escape history; and, sadly, we're very poor at understanding its lessons.
Unlike others, I don't proclaim to have any "solutions" or to promote something as being "superior." It's all subjective. What I DO argue is that anything that exhibits unsustainable characteristics cannot last (by definition- it goes without saying, yet many will still try to argue it).
No, the "debate" (is there really one going on?) is about all that we see with either "small govt" or some "better govt." MY position is that there will be NO govt such as we know of it, and I base it on sustainable metrics. If some one finds this sort of thing problematic then they are most certainly free to go about creating the world as they see it should be (which is what I am doing); but, know this, if you PUSH things on other people then you are, by default, a "central planner." Energy is precious and nature doesn't fuck around with it- paths of least resistance must be traveled with the least amount of baggage. I gave up baggage handling a long time ago...
I understand your point, but what if you're off by 100 years or 250 years or more? Human beings have been here more or less in our current version for 100's of thousands of years. It is easy to assume that "now" is where it all ends, but stastically speaking it is more likely that now is not the end and that it's worth trying to make things better. Now whether that's possible at this point is another issue, but one worth discussing.
Actually, free market guy is advocating for no laws except one -- contract. He doesn't even want to have the collective power to enforce a contract, because apparently a thief can't just move to the next town and he'll be shamed into not thieving any more. Simplistic and sophomoric are good words, not "smartest feller."
I'm not surprised it's gone into some pretty lofty hypotheticals here. Yes, though, as I posted on another thread, it should be about private contracts between a patient and doctor, and both mutually agree to be subject to in malpractice an arbitrator who himself would be 'down the middle'/impartial and specialized for such cases, as opposed to judges who arbitrarily award huge sums and are not experts.
The von Mises website has some great articles on how an anarcho-capitalist system would work and gets into the nitty gritty hypotheticals like you are asking. There would be things like private militias and private guards and again, contracts would be so important. Reneging on a contract would mean that person loses his reputation/trustworthiness and will have a harder time if at all able to transact anymore.
The fundamental thing you are ignoring is:
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? 'who shall watch the watchmen? You seem to think things would be more expedient, but they wouldn't, and any perceived 'expedience' comes at a great cost: giving a 'legitimate' monopoly on force.
Again, man, I never said there was a utopia, because there isn't. The market is the most 'fair' thing there is because it gives equality of opportunity and people do things of their own accord.
If everything is privatized such as private guards and private judges or arbitrators or whatever to call them (all of whom can be bribed), then the people with the most money will have the biggest militias and the ill meaning criminal ones will become the de facto Kings. There is simply no way around it and you can look at all of history for my proof. Never has your society existed because a bad guy or bad guys ALWAYS arise when the people don't have collective power. But I know from your language and your "go read Mises" answer to my specific questions that you are a true believer who does not care that he cannot personally articulate answers to those questions, so I won't bang my head further.
http://archive.mises.org/6356/hoppean-anarcho-capitalism-in-slate/
I linked this because there is some good discussion on this with the comments, too. Just doing a quick search of 'private army mises' provided a lot of good links. By the way, private voluntary militias managed to overcome the bureaucratic 'impressive' British army to win independence, just as one example of how there would be checks and balances. Things like insurance against warfare would manifest themselves in a free market, as described in such articles as the one I linked.
People can only attain money in a private system through voluntary means. Sure some will seem to 'earn it' less than others, but to keep the income stream coming, they have to be providing something legitimate and proven, and arbitrages get exposed meaning more capital, land, labor goes towards productive activity. The status quo has a lot of wealthy people who have rent-sought and built impenetrable moats against competitors such as all the paper work needed that only the big firms can manage to handle with economies of scale. In a true free market the only monopolies would be those that can continue to provide goods/services at the best price and quality, obviously utilizing economies of scale.
I tend to side with you, though not because I have any illusions about "capitalism" being the saving force, but because entropy dictates that BIG will not hold up, that any sizable central authority is going to vanish eventually. The balance is what we find in much of the back parts of the world where they operated more sustainably- tribes. Will "trade" be called "capitalism" when we reach this point? I think people will probably laugh; but, they'll probably be practicing "free trade" in so far as one can in the face of roaming groups of thieves.
We pay for it all one way or another. We either pay BIG in larger, more infrequent doses, or we pay SMALL, in smaller day-to-day doses. The later is how nature works: nature will push us back in line.
I'll agree with LTER in that much of the "free trade" utopia that many "capitalists" promote won't exist because there won't be the ability to maintain "free trade" AND apply legal force*. This has always been my stumbling block for signing on to the notion that "capitalism" can exist w/o a sizable govt: keep in mind that we're going to be experiencing contraction for as long as one can see in the future and that pressures to reduce the size of govts will also result in the loss of protection for "capitalism."
* Imagine trying to link up "contract law" with thousands upon thousands of groups of people that might trade with many other groups.
As I see it we ARE going to be practicing what more closely amounts to true "free trade," though it'll take a while for the big controlling entities to lose their grip on power. And eventually we'll slip past this thin veneer of "free trade" and will be trading through small groups, "tribes" for a lack of something better to call them; and at this point trade will become far less complicated (so stuff like "contract law" is going to be a bit moot).
Doesn't it bother you that you can't answer my questions and that you have to point me to a discussion board involving someone else's answers to someone else's questions?
nope. I've watched some good videos on Austrian scholars describing how exactly anarcho-capitalism would work out, and how they pick apart the notions that 'some things surely can't be provided by the private sector.' Of course, free markets mean people need to respect inalienable rights of liberty, life, and property, and so whether I am optimistic that people are waking up and moving towards the libertarian side of the spectrum, or pathetically moving towards more nanny state freebies is a whole other question.
To answer your question, people would band together and defend themselves against some emerging 'king' and his army. Remember that such an entire free market system would only exist if the people actually valued liberty and defended it. This would mean that rather than use force (only to be used in defense) they would organize boycotts against businesses and make such 'kings' irrelevant.
And there is some great discussion on those discussion boards and which is infinitely better than other statist sites. Trolls get taken to the cleaners with logic on sites like Mises.
And again, I'll reiterate that I'm not trying to 'construct' some 'system'. I'm just for free markets, and people still have to negotiate risks, etc, and weigh risk/reward, consequences and other things. The market conveys the most efficient and reliable information about things from prices to quality, and things are done voluntarily.
Don't tell me what's for my own good is the bottom line. You can try to persuade, but the non-aggression principle must stand.
I think you are ensconced in normalcy bias. There would be outlawry and bounty hunting for crimes, and basically total ostracision for criminals.
Again, my arguments have never been contingent on whatever has or hasn't happened in the past. I'm not trying to construct anything. That's actually the beauty of laissez faire. Advocates of laissez faire acknowledge the individuality of each person and subjective valuations, instead of saying 'I know better than you do'. This does not mean I do not have strong morals and convictions, because I do. I am a Christian, and of my own accord strive to avoid certain behaviors, not because the State tells me things are wrong.
One more point then I'm out. You can't band against someone with a column of tanks and F-22s etc. Those weapons would be purchased on the private market and it would be game over for the "little people" who can only afford firearms. The Revolutionary war was fought with muskets and swords against an army that had to travel weeks by small boats. Oh, and then there are all of those countries all over the world who would literally invade us if we had no centralized defense system. We have some resources that some bad guys who don't read Mises may think are swell. But carry on. It is MUCH easier to imagine fictional societies and simple answers to complex problems as opposed to trying to really fix real world problems.
I know where I stand, and recognize what liberty has done for people, and that .gov is nothing but force. And for the last time, I'm not constructing anything. Bad things would still happen indeed, but markets would figure to help put out the sparks before they accumulate into some big fireball that would do huge damage (like wars). Analogous to the current situation, where .govt is only prolonging the pain by intervening instead of letting the markets work which would force people to face the reality that many of them have lived beyond their means and need to balance their books by exporting things and being more productive.
Only God knows what happens when this current Keynesian/fiat currency/debt/usury/derivatives backed by taxpayer money paradigm that has permeated the globe blows up. I hope out of the ashes emerges legitimate free market capitalism, while acknowledging that just as well there could be some new NWO system ushered in by the antichrist with the mark of the beast for transactions. All I know is I'm on the side of the life, just like the Lord, and I will not take the hellish mark. With God's provision of a sense of preparedness in me for which I'm thankful, I will do my best to defend my family and friends with weapons and have sound money to transact with off the grid, knowing that victory is God's already, as Satan's time is finite, whereas God is Everlasting. Live free or die.
I know, right
Well, sure: It'all about the math.
As usual, you're fucking genious.
Thanks Georgie, I'll take it from here;
(1) does a "bad trip" where I thought roaches were eating my brains out constitute Brain Eating Parasites, I dunno.
(2) Alcoholism, been one 3 or 4 times in my life, I like to say it's a work in progress.......
(3) Obesity, I don't, and can probably vouch for most ZHer's, that we only do IT, with women. no animals please.
(4) Risky Sexual Behavior, is this a trick question?
www.religionofpeace.com
they be here goge.
My odds are even better of not being killed by terrorism considering where I live.
But I'm not "calming down" which I take to mean ignoring it.
Fuck you and fuck Islam.
Yah, but none of those probabilities are going to be on NATIONAL TV.
Therefore, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
1) How many deaths are intentionally caused by physicians?
2) How many deaths are intentionally caused by criminal gun owners?
3) How many deaths are intentionally caused by criminal Government?
3>>2>>1
How many deaths are intentionally caused by criminal government?
Well, In the 20th century it was something around 260 million. I suggest you look up the term, Democide. It is the illegal murder of civilians by governments. It does not include soldiers in war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
http://www.shtfplan.com/alex-jones/democide-government-killed-over-260-m...
When you thoroughly understand Democide, you will see this differently. Democide is always preceded by the population being disarmed.
the entire planet is being terrorized by a satanic run banker fiat cartel that slowly squeezes wealth and labor out of the masses so that a handful few can control the entire planet.
GW never been on patrol, never faced a buddy who has been blown up, probably never been out of his mom's basement, but there is no evidence to the contrary. It ain't even the first event. But the third or sixth wears on a body.
On the other hand, in Kabul:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/28/17955309-taliban-marks-sta...
I wonder what the citizens in Kabul think about our dear GW's thesis. Sure, "calm down". Hey, GW, do you know how to say "calm down" in Dari or Pashto? Inquiring minds wish to know.
- Ned
WTF are you talking about?
GW is referring to the U.S. (which is why he used US statistics- duh!); and, it clearly was intended to show how fucked up the "fighting terrorism" shit is.
how fucked up the "fighting terrorism" shit is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpu6_kArb9U
Boston Bombing: What You Aren't Being Toldreddie on ya'
Let's see, "terrorism" I'd define it the way that the "International Community" cf. calls it: attacks by non-identified units/individuals against civilians.
Don't fucking matter if it is US (GW being of a particular opinion in that direction) or Somalia.
Really, with your head up your ass so far, your plasectomy is foggy with shit. So you can't see anything, some Seer u b.
Try windex, asshole
- Ned
Risky sexual behavior. Does that include me asking my wife for sex? Disclosure: 19 years in.
Rent, don't buy.
New Meat,
What are you doing here? We generally have people post stuff here who are reasonably intelligent and can follow a few simple statements. I suggest you either wise up, or ask someone with more book learning for help.
The satanic run bankers have assumed the mantle of alpha-male in a social hierarchy that has roots millions of years in the past.
They are the modern 'civilized' heirs of psychopathic savages long past.
Then you have the profiteers join in,
"When your godless Marxist president and his thuggish fascist cabinet officers and his entire godless liberty-hating socialist democrat party and sicko sycophant complicit leftist mainstream media and the god-hating, constitution-twisting black-robed socialist liberal activist judges continue conspiring to promote homosexualism and perversion as not only normal but a healthy, wholesome, desirable activity and way of life and then force it into the curriculum of even our youngest school children, that is tyranny!
When your constitution-loathing, Liberty-hating Marxist president and his constitution-loathing fascist cabinet thugs declare that the president can pick and choose which laws to enforce and which he can ignore, that is tyranny! And we the liberty-loving American citizens, my friends, are armed to the teeth and we will remain armed to the teeth and we will remain vigilant and ready. Coiled like a rattlesnake and ready to strike. DON'T TREAD ON ME!!"
- Free Republic founder Jim Robinson writing from his government-supplied wheelchair.