IT Conversations: Bruce Schneier - Beyond Fear

http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail119.html

It strikes me how Bruce Schneier applies the exact same logic to security – am I getting my money’s worth – as Bjørn Lomborg does to the environment.

He’s pointing out that more people died from malnutrition in 2001 than died in the terrorist attacks. Yet, the US has spent truckloads securing airlines, and none helping malnutrition. Basically, both Bruce and Bjørn are asking for how cost-effective the various measures of saving human lives against the varios threats surrounding us are, and then picking the ones with the most bang for the buck first. It would seem logical, yet what we’re doing is quite something else.

As an aside, to illustrate how bad we are at evaluating risk, he points out that more people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks. I’d like to see just how those pigs kill those people. Anyone got any pictures?