Darwin, Bonaparte & the Samaritan (starting the year on a good note!)
I particularly like the graph showing the breakdown of what actually killed people from 2008 to 2012. When you see truly horrific figures like those, it really does put the bogeyman of terrorism in perspective. It also makes me wonder what motivates those who want to blame all Muslims for the acts of a very, very, vanishingly small few.
Are they truly that scared of Islam? Or is the terror card simply a convenient peg on which to hang their fear of the Other? Cory Bernardi, I’m looking at you.
That’s the title of Michel Serre’snew book. Unfortunately I think it’s not yet available in English (but it is in French & Spanish.)
He’s one of the great minds of our times. In this book he explores, focusing on three different periods, where we’ve come from, who we are and where we’re going. He also takes the opportunity to discuss perception using some interesting numbers. Despite what politicians say (and 24 hour news), we’re living in a time of unprecedented peace and safety.
Deaths in war by 100,000 people
And even more interesting is his view on terrorism. Here’s the global death toll of different causes of death (Richard King via Oxfam)
So if we take France as an example, which has been Europe’s number one target for terrorism in the past two years- and take the number of dead (247), and consider the population (66 million), that…
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