If they’re arguing for (alleged) anti-terrorist measures like the TSA
I think this is the main context in which the question of whether you should or should not be afraid of terrorists arises. Relatively few people (in the West) are personally afraid of terrorists to the extent of significantly changing their behaviour—with the likely exception of the situations when terrorism becomes widespread, see e.g. The Troubles. But a lot of people do make the argument that one should present one’s underwear for examination on demand because otherwise the terrorists win/kill us all/conquer the world/think of the children/etc. As a timely example, didn’t the UK just pass the Snoopers’ Chapter?
So the right point of comparison
It’s a different question. We started with asking, basically, to what degree should you be afraid of terrorism, but here you are asking how much resources should society allocate to fighting/preventing terrorism.
I’m not sure it is. I think there’s always a how-much-resources subtext. People stressing how scary and dangerous terrorism is are (I think) usually doing so to justify expending resources, or trampling on civil liberties, or something of the kind. People stressing how little harm it actually does are (I think) usually doing so in opposition to that, implicitly or explicitly saying “this is not the sort of threat that justifies the huge expense and inconvenience and indignity of airport security theatre”.
In which case, the relevant question is not “how much harm does terrorism do?” but something more like “what would the tradeoffs be if we did more or less of this allegedly-anti-terrorist stuff?”.
I think this is the main context in which the question of whether you should or should not be afraid of terrorists arises. Relatively few people (in the West) are personally afraid of terrorists to the extent of significantly changing their behaviour—with the likely exception of the situations when terrorism becomes widespread, see e.g. The Troubles. But a lot of people do make the argument that one should present one’s underwear for examination on demand because otherwise the terrorists win/kill us all/conquer the world/think of the children/etc. As a timely example, didn’t the UK just pass the Snoopers’ Chapter?
It’s a different question. We started with asking, basically, to what degree should you be afraid of terrorism, but here you are asking how much resources should society allocate to fighting/preventing terrorism.
I’m not sure it is. I think there’s always a how-much-resources subtext. People stressing how scary and dangerous terrorism is are (I think) usually doing so to justify expending resources, or trampling on civil liberties, or something of the kind. People stressing how little harm it actually does are (I think) usually doing so in opposition to that, implicitly or explicitly saying “this is not the sort of threat that justifies the huge expense and inconvenience and indignity of airport security theatre”.
In which case, the relevant question is not “how much harm does terrorism do?” but something more like “what would the tradeoffs be if we did more or less of this allegedly-anti-terrorist stuff?”.