Doonsbury 2, Bush 0

The comic strip Doonsbury point out today that while 3000 people were killed by terrorists on 9/11, 200,000 have died in highway accidents in the United States since then. Yet the Bush administration has done little on highway safety, and spent a trillion dollars in the name of antiterrorism.

The comic strip Doonsbury point out today that while 3000 people were killed by terrorists on 9/11, 150,000 have by guns in the United States since then. Yet the Bush administration has done little preventing gun violence, and spent a trillion dollars in the name of antiterrorism.

Comment: Garry Trudeau often communicates better than I can.

We know people worry about things that actually present little risk, and ignore risks that kill them by the hundreds of thousands, millions globally. The false perceptions of risk underlie public acceptance of lots of bad government policies.

We also know that the false perceptions of risk are affected by what we see, what we hear, what we read and what comes most easily to memory.

Unfortunately, the media in the United States (and I suppose everywhere) operate not to leave the most accurate perceptions of relative risks in the minds of their public, but to achieve other objectives -- audience share, profits, support of their clients, etc.

Relatively few people can reach large numbers of people through the media, so their influence on the public perceptions of relative risk are disproportionately large, and thus important.

Some use their "star power" to deliberately affect our understanding of relative risks. Often their intentions are the best, as when actors, comedians or musicians participate in fund raising or act as "good will ambassadors" for causes in which they believe. Of course, actors, comedians and musicians seldom make a serious study of public policy issues and seldom have the education or professional background to make good judgments on evidence of relative risks. Still, I think they perform a useful function of bringing public attention to underestimated risks.

Unfortunately, politicians who should make a serious study of public policy issues and who have access to advisors who do have the professional backgrounds to make good judgments on such issues, sometimes utilize the public's faulty risk perceptions to advance interests that the public would not or should not tolerate. Worse still, sometimes they deliberately create misperceptions of relative risks in the minds of the public in order to gain the political support they need to advance private interests.

This blog is about knowledge for development. As I posted previously, some things are wronger than wrong. Often our risk perceptions are wrong. But deliberately creating false risk perceptions to build the political support for policies supporting special interests -- policies that would otherwise fail in the marketplace of ideas -- is wronger than wrong!