use micromorts to fight terrorism

Since years I do my little contribution to the war on terrorism. I can't really defeat it, but I can prevent it from defeating me. After all the goal of shootings and explosions is not to physically destroy citizens, it is to scare them. So when people are not afraid, terrorists do not reach their goals. And if you succumb to fear, terrorists win.

Recently I've got a new tool to fight terror, and I want to recommend it to you as well. It is called micromort and is used to calculate the probability of unnatural death. One micromort is one chance in a million to die neither from old age nor from disease. Incidentally the normal daily risk to die is around one micromort. We live with that every day and are not particularly concerned about it.

Knowing about micromorts you can convert other, less readable descriptions of risks to micromorts to compare them with normal life. Here's an example: "135 skydives of 15 million resulted in death" becomes 9 micromorts per jump. So a jump is as safe as living 9 days normally. While riding a motorcycle for 100 kilometers is 10 micromorts, and is slightly more dangerous. With micromorts risks become much more obvious and easy to understand and to compare.

So here is how I use micromorts to fight terrorism. 153 people of 67 million French citizens have died in attacks on Friday. This is 2.5 micromorts. This is slightly more dangerous than normal life, but even a short ride on the motorcycle is more risky. Armed with that knowledge I am not afraid of terrorists, and they can't defeat me.

Artemy Tregubenko,
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