How are you enjoying DConf? And where to go next?

[Chris via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 10 May 2016 at 10:58:01 UTC, Ethan Watson wrote:
>
> I went to Tel Aviv in late 2012, around the time Hamas were 
> trading missiles with the Israelis. There was a suicide bomb on 
> a bus a few days before I arrived.
>
> Yet I still had a much lower chance of being caught in such a 
> blast than I do crossing the street and being hit by a truck. 
> Actually being caught in a terrorist attack is a really low 
> probability. Naively comparing the population of Istanbul to 
> people killed or injured in the March 2016 attacks puts the 
> probability of being in that blast somewhere around the same 
> chances of choking on your food and dying.
>
> Chalk me up as not seeing the point of terrorism hysteria.

It's not hysteria. Recently 10 tourists were killed while they 
were doing sight seeing. Given that as a foreigner you probably 
visit places of interest and are easily discernible the chances 
of becoming the target of an attack is much higher than for a 
local who commutes to work in an area of little touristic 
interest. You have to take the proximity to war zones into 
account too.

You cannot compare overall random risks (like being hit by a bus) 
with very specific risks. Tourists and foreigners are risk groups 
in certain parts of the world. I just don't see the point in 
chancing it only to prove that I'm cool. Also, in general you 
have better control over trucks, buses and your own food than 
over cowards who are trying to kill you unbeknownst to yourself. 
Traffic is organized and accidents _can_ happen, if things go 
wrong. Attacks are intentional and not ruled by chance (unlike a 
bus driver not being able to put in the brakes).

Numbers in statistics don't mean much without context.

As for the human rights issues, we really shouldn't go into this 
now, because we would only be opening a can of worms. And this is 
certainly not the purpose of this thread.