Depends; you'll probably not want to share this point with strangers. Since we've been repeatedly traumatized as a nation over the fears of 'terrorism' by war-hawks and sensationalist media outlets, many Americans expect a similar level of emotional reactionism from their compatriots. And when they don't get it from you, they turn on you quickly. I don't think it's healthy, but I guess it's understandable from all the mental abuse we've received as a nation since 9/11.
RMS is out there on a lot of things, and he's very blunt with his opinions, but his emotional detachment does serve him well sometimes. The first step of healing from that mental disease we have now is step back a bit and realize the problem. We are addicted to fear.
Ha, thanks for the advice! (Maybe that's why Facebook friend count is plummeting...) In retrospect, the worry stemmed from the possibility of contracting RMS's personality traits. Irrational, indeed.
No, look at the logic from the other angle, by RMSs idiotic logic, because the flu kills more people, the correct response to the attack should have been Bostonians gone about their merry business, but in Hazmat suits to avoid infection.
I honestly don't think any sane person could, in good faith, come to that conclusion after reading this. His point is that we don't do things like walk around in Hazmat suits to avoid diseases because that would be completely absurd, so why isn't it more absurd to shut down an entire major city for hours over a threat that is orders of magnitude less dangerous?
No, walking around in Hazmat suits would be completely rational. Logic dictates you need to start with the higher probability safety issues and start working down so long as a mitigation strategy exists for each type of event. Flu is the 9th leading cause of death in the U.S. A Hazmat suit is a perfect and completely rational barrier that completely eliminates that issue from your life - it's better and more full proof than a flu shot.
4 - Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): Similar to 1
5 - Accidents (unintentional injuries): Don't participate in risky movements or behaviors, wear a helmet at all times, keep a comprehensive first aid kit on your person with all modern emergency responder equipment. Follow the buddy rule, but don't stay too close, stay away from high probability of injury transport methods.
6 - Alzheimer's disease: no known mitigation strategy
7 - Diabetes: mostly diet, see #1 and 4
8 - Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: no known strategy, but don't eat foods that might challenge your kidneys
9 - Influenza and Pneumonia: Hazmat suit, solved
10 - Intentional self-harm (suicide): don't do this, solved
and then way down the list...
NNN - Death by terrorism with a probability so low that even during an active terrorist attack RMSs conjecture is to just keep on keeping on with your normal day-to-day routine.
> Logic dictates you need to start with the higher probability safety issues and start working down so long as a mitigation strategy exists for each type of event.
This seems to hinge on the assumption that we should value our lives infinitely. This isn't particularly logical, however, given the fact that most people do dangerous things. If you are like most people, you probably want to maximize your total happiness over the course of your life, regardless of how long it is. Would you rather be miserable and live to be 80, or live happily until 50?
So if the cost of mitigating such an event happening results in a lower expected net happiness than the cost of of the event happening (including all future happiness) multiplied by the probability of it happening, it would make logical sense to not attempt to mitigate it.
You're taking RMS's statement out of context. His point was that we not allow fear to overwhelm our senses so that we trade individual rights for security in police states, saying:
"Every death or injury is a sad thing, but the fact is that many happen every day, and we should not let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others. Let's make an effort not to get bent out of shape about them, so that we can resist when people try to cite them as an excuse for tyranny."
You're picking out his statement of proportionality as some sort of logical flaw in his argument, but you're completely missing the main point.
This main point is ridiculous. Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionately to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionately more than the death of a stranger?
A reasonable statement would have been, "Let's not let these deaths be cited as an excuse for tyranny." But what he said was more along the lines of, "Let's not be very upset about these deaths, because then they will be used as an excuse for tyranny." Why should we let the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny influence our emotional reactions to the deaths of friends and colleagues? Instead, let's react however is natural to these deaths, and at the same time ensure that we don't stand for fear-mongering and security theater.
Well, that's a different issue than what Bain was attempting to argue, but I'll indulge. You said,
"Our response to deaths should scale exactly proportionally to the number? I shouldn't let the death of a friend upset me disproportionally more than the death of a stranger?"
You're misrepresenting what he said. He never compared the death of a stranger to the death of a loved one. What he said is that it's silly to raise the tragedy the those who lost their lives in Boston to those who lost their lives in Texas this week. All premature death is a tragedy, but I didn't know anyone personally in Boston or Texas. So why should the deaths of those in Boston be more prolific to me than those that died in Texas?
You said,
"But what he said was more along the lines of, 'Let's not be very upset about these deaths, because then they will be used as an excuse for tyranny.'"
What he actually said was,
"Every death or injury is a sad thing, but the fact is that many happen every day, and we should not let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others. Let's make an effort not to get bent out of shape about them, so that we can resist when people try to cite them as an excuse for tyranny."
You can't change the words he used to misrepresent his argument because you didn't appreciate his bluntness. I'll admit, RMS is a very emotionally detached person, but that doesn't allow the opportunity to bend his words so that it makes it easier for you to shame him.
Every death or injury is a sad thing, but the fact is that many happen every day, and we should not let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others.
I disagree with you, but I think you're being thoughtful about it.
This is the problem I have with RMS.
Some deaths are more meaningful. Some events are more important.
If a man has a gun pointed at your face, do you ignore it because your singular death won't reach the number of yearly deaths for cancer or car accidents? By RMSs absurdly detached logic, you ignore the gun in your face.
Intention is everything in this issue. A pair of men running around blowing up people and emptying entire magazines in busy neighborhoods trying to murder their pursuers is so qualitatively different from any other quantitatively comparable event where people are killed and hurt without similar intention as to be virtually incomparable. RMS is admonishing us for not comparing the raw body counts.
He would have us walk ignore the gunman with the gun to our head while wearing a hazmat suit and SPF90 sunblock because quantitatively the flu and cancer result in a higher body count than just little old me and I shouldn't be so selfish and not walk around with those protections or I might add to the tally for those kinds of deaths.
Once you start just adding up bodies and comparing the tallies, you've lost the narrative.
So why should the deaths of those in Boston be more prolific to me than those that died in Texas?
I don't think prolific is the word you mean, but I'll assume you meant "meaningful" or "emotional." No one is telling you how much you should care about Boston versus Texas. The point is that for those of us who are personally affected by the Boston incident, we resent being told that we should care more about the Texas incident, because it is natural that we would be more upset about the incident that personally affected us.
You can't change the words he used to misrepresent his argument because you didn't appreciate his bluntness.
The change of wording wasn't relevant to my point, I was simply trying to summarize his view. Insert "let's make an effort not to get... as an excuse for tyranny" (his actual quote) for the paraphrased quote that I used, and the point still stands: the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny should cause us to resist tyranny, not to temper our emotional reactions to the deaths of community members.
The point is that for those of us who are personally affected by the Boston incident, we resent being told that we should care more about the Texas incident, because it is natural that we would be more upset about the incident that personally affected us.
Look, if you know someone that was killed or injured, then it obviously affects you more personally than it would other people, and there's nothing in RMS's statement that says otherwise. And if you were effected, you obviously weren't the intended audience (he was replying to a message to stay inside during Boston's pseudo-curfew). However, if your only connection to the event is your geographical proximity, then that does not grant you some sort of higher-level of emotional standing that the rest of us could not make. Every death of an innocent person is a sad, tragic thing; we don't need to be in Boston to understand that.
"The change of wording wasn't relevant to my point, I was simply trying to summarize his view. Insert "let's make an effort not to get... as an excuse for tyranny" (his actual quote) for the paraphrased quote that I used, and the point still stands: the government's supposed tendency towards tyranny should cause us to resist tyranny, not to temper our emotional reactions to the deaths of community members."
No, you're still taking what he said out of context. And your summarization of this comments is not correct. He did not say "temper", that's your word. He said "[...]let these few upset us disproportionally more than the others." Keyword is 'disproportionally'.
I'm, statistically speaking, more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack. I could die in a car accident tomorrow. My family would be very sad and traumatized. However, I doubt they would stop using cars to get around. In fact, I'd bet they would take a car to the hospital to come get my body. With the Boston attack though, the authorities said everyone should stay inside in the entire city, because of the violence that happened in a few public places. That's the disproportionality that RMS was trying to point out in his statement.
In that you took that he was said you should 'temper' your emotions is no fault of Stallman. You're attempting to parse out an argument that just isn't there.
