Imagine
that you are a government official charged with procuring the funds to fight
one of two proven killers: terrorist attacks and heart disease. Which cause do you think the members of
Congress will open up the coffers for?
The likelihood of any given person being killed in a terrorist attack is
far smaller than the likelihood that the same person will clog up his arteries
with fatty food and die of heart disease.
But a terrorist attack happens now;
death by heart disease is some distant, quiet catastrophe. Terrorist attacks lie beyond our control;
French fries do not.
(from Freakonomics
by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner)
.
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