[lbo-talk] catastrophy

[Somebody Somebody]

Wojtek: Cars are far more dangerous than airplanes, and more people die in car accidents than in plane crashes, but it is the plane crashes that make the news and produce fear. Likewise, more people get sick and prematurely die from constant pollution emitted by coal and gasoline burning than from nuclear pollution (both civilian and military) - but the former is considered "normal" whereas the latter is rare and thus susceptible to fear mongering. 

Somebody: This is really the crucial issue here. I never cease to be appalled by how otherwise sophisticated people fail to be able to weigh relative risks. We have thousands of Japanese dead from a tsunami, but even *that* is considered "normal" compared to the possibility that someone, someday might get cancer from radiation leaks in Fukushima.

One of the crucial tasks for the left, I would argue, is precisely to disrupt this sense of the normalcy of everyday tragedies.