The 6 Most Over-Hyped Threats to America (And What Should Scare You Instead)

[manasecret]

Responding to the argument about bird flu:

The one major outbreak of SARS resulted in 774 deaths, while the Bird Flu has killed only 191 people worldwide since
2003. The point is, every few years, a new pandemic du jour comes along to scare the ass off of the American public, and
turns out to be a flop.

Yeah, try using that inductive reasoning with the people in New Orleans. Just because a huge outbreak doesn't occur for a few years, doesn't mean it will never happen. Inductivism is not sound reasoning. I don't know for sure if bird flu is a real threat, from the sounds of articles I've read it could be very dangerous (oh noes but that's the media trying to scare meeee!), but you can't disprove the danger by saying "oh, well, for four years they said it could happen and then it didn't, therefore it will never happen!"

The point that it's over-hyped, okay, maybe, but I know for a fact that tons of people disregarded the hype about the threat of New Orleans being a fish-bowl in the face of a Cat4 or higher hurricane. No one would regard those threats as over-hyped now. They will if after thirty years nothing happens, and then they'll let their guard down again and say, "Oh please! It's all a bunch of over-hyped media trying to scare us!"