From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Sep 21 2001 - 11:43:54 MDT
Party of Citizens wrote:
>
> How many Americans have been killled by bad technology (techno-terrorism
> if you will) over the past decade compared to those killed by human
> terrorists? By preventable traffic fatalities and preventable pollution,
> etc.
Traffic fatalities are between a half to a third of what they were 10-15
years ago. Pollution is also far less than 20-30 years ago. I'm old
enough to remember rivers flowing with slicks on them, the only fish
living in them were eels, where rusty drinking water was a common
occurence in the public water system, and where the exhaust of every car
could visibly be seen in any weather conditions, among many other signs
of a choking world. That we made the world better was by our own choice,
and any deaths that continue to occur do so because we generally feel
that while conditions may not be as good as they can be, they are good
enough to go about our daily business. Any improvements we make in the
future will also be because we CHOOSE to make it so.
Terrorism and the deaths it causes are not the choice of those it
victimizes, but that is also a matter of how poorly most people consider
and calculate risks in their lives. We can do better, but it is not our
fault that these things occur. We need to do better, and it is evident
that the risks are far higher than most had assumed. Many of us did not
want to recognise the risks, because we like to live in a world that
relies on trusting our fellow humans will always be good. Others trusted
the wrong people far too much. Now we must learn to delineate between
other human beings and other citizens. If the events of the past few
weeks have shown anything, we can still trust our fellow citizens to do
great things and to care about each other. We can also learn that most
people in the world feel the same way, but there is also a sizable
population of people who do not get it, do not want to get it, and will
either kill us or be killed before they get it.
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