When it comes to playing the odds many people wouldn’t even waste their money on a lottery ticket, seeing as their chances of winning are about thirteen million to one. However, when it comes to terrorism, it remains a cause for anxiety for most people despite the odds being in the long shot category at one in twenty two million. The most powerful weapon ISIS has is the ability to spread irrational fear as a means to force conformity of its enemies. A similar tactic used by Jack in Lord of The Flies

Jack used fear to control the boys on The Island, he would offer protection from what the boys were afraid of most, even when he knew it didn’t exist. “I gave you food,” said Jack, “and my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?”. The boys were afraid of the beast, but little did they know, it was already inside all of them. When you see a news story like that of the recent Manchester concert bombing you feel like your country, your home, has been compromised, and there is nowhere left that is safe. However, the truth is you are much more likely to die from things already present in your nation. In the United States more people will starve this year than will die of a terrorist attack, and multiples on multiples more will die of heart or respiratory disease. The difference is what we see in the media.

News by definition is information on events that rarely occur, thus why we don’t see as many sensationalized segments on the consistency of heart disease related deaths. When we see multiple stories of different terror attacks throughout the year we then mistake terror attacks as being common. It is for this same reason that nuclear power gained its negative reputation, if the only stories you’ve heard about nuclear energy are covering accidents in Chernobyl or Three Mile Island you are likely going to view nuclear energy as something negative and to be feared. This is explained in Nuclear Nightmares, the non-fiction film points out that thanks to the media, the main associations to nuclear power are War and violence, when really that is a minute detail in the big picture of nuclear energy.

Even now, when terrorist attacks seem regular the United States is still averaging only seventy five terror related deaths per year. That is equal to one tenth of the Chicago murders in 2016. This is one among many other critical problems in the United States, there is large debate about whether or not to let in refugees based on a fear of more terrorist attacks. If the U.S. were to shut their borders it would leave tens of thousands of Syrian Civilians left without anywhere to go. Not only does ISIS have the U.S. divided and crumbling from the inside they also have them negatively impacting other nations. Since the start of the Syrian civil war the number of American civilian casualties has barely exceeded one hundred. The number of civilian lives taken by the Americans in air strikes however, is over three thousand. The number of civilian casualties in the Middle East a result of terrorism is almost twenty five thousand. It makes you realize that our fear of terrorism is irrational as we are not the real victims.

Below is a graph showing deaths in North America and The Middle East, the gaps are places where the amount of deaths don’t even show up next to those next to them. North America has far more Pollution related deaths, much less terror related deaths, but most shockingly, nearly the same amount of malnutrition related deaths when many countries in the Middle East are starving.

In the famous Shakespeare play, Macbeth lets fear control him, he is obsessive about clearing the evidence of his murder, and it ends up being his downfall. If we let fear, especially if it’s irrational, control our actions and take hold of our daily lives then they win, the widespread panic they cause is distracting from our real problems. The next time there is a news story about how to stay safe from a terrorist attack, remember, the best way to protect yourself is to just buy a lottery ticket.