> Similarly, I'd like to ask how you would explain the statistical ridiculousness of terrorism to the families of the thousands of people that died in the twin towers. I'm sure they'd be fascinated to hear it.
Seriously?
There ought to be something analogously to Godwin’s law to declare discussions lost after this class of arguments.
To answer in kind: "I'd like to ask how you would explain the proportionality of the respond to the families of the tens to hundreds of thousand civilian casualties[1] in the Irak war." OR "[…] explain the justice and civility of the 'war against terror' to the hundreds (?) of innocent prisoners in Guantanamo bay." OR even "[…] explain the trillion dollar [2] that were spent on the military instead on fighting aids, cancer, malaria, diabetes,… to those suffering or those who have lost friends or family."
Emotional arguments quickly become ridiculous if you leave out the greater effects to society and the relative danger of the threat.
> Emotional arguments quickly become ridiculous if you leave out the greater effects to society and the relative danger of the threat.
No, but numerical arguments quickly become ridiculous when you ignore the fact that the emotional reaction of the nation to 3,000 Americans killed in a terrorist act is itself a physically cognizable phenomenon that must be given due weight in the analysis.
OK, but making irrational policy based on how people feel leads to bad policy. Let people feel what they feel. But don't make long-term policy based on peoples' emotional reactions to events.
I actually disagree, perhaps subtly. Emotional reactions are still reactions, are still a thing that exists in reality, and should be appropriately weighted. But emotional reaction should be weighted in terms of considering it as a consequence, and emotions should be consulted in determining which consequences we (collectively) care about. This is distinct from responding in the short term to a demand for vengeance simply because that's how people feel now (but not distinct from reacting with vengeance if the population will long-term approve of having done so, balancing emotional consequences with others).
People feel radically different things depending on framing and perspective. I agree that there is limited benefit to yelling "you should feel X," but I also think that everyone yelling "you should feel scared" has contributed to the problem.
True. But how you deal with it makes quite a difference. Imagine a greater president than Bush spinning it like this (I'm not good enough with rhetoric to make it a compelling speech though):
"Today America mourns. Today we were attacked. Today terrorists tried to destroy our way of life. They tried to rob us of our sense of security, our liberty, our democracy. And yet today we stand united! We will not let them take away our values our freedom! We will find and persecute those that are responsible. But we will not fall for the cycle of hate and violence the terrorists have laid in front of us."
This path would have been harder to defend against those crying for revenge. But it could have used the same patriotism and stubbornness that was used for war mongering in the alternative world we live in. And in hindsight we see how bad the results of that fear and violence politics were for America and for the world.
Seriously?
There ought to be something analogously to Godwin’s law to declare discussions lost after this class of arguments.
To answer in kind: "I'd like to ask how you would explain the proportionality of the respond to the families of the tens to hundreds of thousand civilian casualties[1] in the Irak war." OR "[…] explain the justice and civility of the 'war against terror' to the hundreds (?) of innocent prisoners in Guantanamo bay." OR even "[…] explain the trillion dollar [2] that were spent on the military instead on fighting aids, cancer, malaria, diabetes,… to those suffering or those who have lost friends or family."
Emotional arguments quickly become ridiculous if you leave out the greater effects to society and the relative danger of the threat.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror#Costs