Gideon Polya, “MWC News, Truth & Rational Risk Management”, MWC News, 15 May 2006, not cached by Google.
MWC News, Truth & Rational Risk Management
MWC News has been telling truths that Mainstream Media steadfastly refuse to report – and in doing so it has significantly contributed to attempts to improve the lot of suffering humanity around the world. Allow me to give my personal perspective on a wonderful year of humanitarian MWC News reporting – an Annus Mirabilis, a Year of Wonders.
Some 6 weeks after the inauguration of MWC News, I received an invitation from Shahram Vahdany to contribute articles. I accepted with alacrity because I was having great difficulty as a humanist scientist trying to tell an unresponsive world about the horrendous enormity of global avoidable mortality that is utterly IGNORED by Mainstream Media (see: here and here ).
Avoidable mortality is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. Using UN data I had spent several years researching the post-1950 avoidable mortality that now totals 1.3 billion for the world, 1.2 billion for the non-European world and 0.6 billion for the Muslim World – a Muslim Holocaust one hundred (100) times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million Jewish victims) or the “forgotten”, man-made Bengal Famine in WW2 British India (4 million Hindu and Muslim victims) and, of course, utterly IGNORED by lying, racist, holocaust-denying, Islamophobic Mainstream Media (see: here ).
My first article for MWC News was entitled “Huge Human Cost of Israel but Interim Peace is Possible” and was published on 4 July 2005. This article provided a carefully-researched and highly referenced account of the human cost of Israel and the economic cost of Israel to the US. The article concluded positively with a carefully argued proposal for immediate interim peace with justice in the Holy Land (see MWC News ). This article and the other 40 or so articles I have published on MWC News illustrate a general principle of how we can sensibly improve the lot of humanity and especially the bottom line, primary concern of avoidable mortality i.e. how to prevent untimely death (especially of infants in the non-European World whose avoidable deaths constitute about 60% of global avoidable mortality).
RISK is the potential for harm and the most serious harm is death. Mainstream Media informs us endlessly that Western civilians are at risk from Muslim-origin non-state terrorism. This risk can be quantitatively assessed by considering that some 5,000 Western civilians have been killed out of a total Western population of about 760 million over the last 20 years – the “annual death rate of Western civilians from Muslim-origin non-state terrorists” expressed as a percentage is 0.00003% (1 in 3 million, similar to the risk of an American being killed by a shark or by lightning). If we calculate this “risk” for the period since 9/11 (and assume no passive or active US complicity in that atrocity) (however, see MWC News ), then the “annual risk of a Westerner being killed by a Muslim-origin terrorist” is about 0.0001% (1 in 1,000,000) as compared to about 0.001% (1 in 100,000, by a relative or acquaintance), 0.01% (1 in 10,000, from car accident), 0.1% (1 in 1,000, from smoking) – and as compared to the “annual death rate” i.e. “annual risk of death” of 2.7% (1 in 37, for under-5 year old infants in Coalition-occupied Iraq), 5.7% (1 in 18, for under-5 year old infants in Coalition-occupied Afghanistan), 2.2% (1 in 45, for Australian aborigines) and 2.5 % (1 in 40, for SHEEP on Australian sheep farms) (see MWC News and here ).
While Mainstream Media contribute DAILY to “terror hysteria” and attendant Islamophobia, they will simply NOT REPORT the basic mortality and mortality risk statistics reported over the last year by MWC News. Reporting the truth is VITAL for Rational Risk Management (RRM), whether global, workplace or individual. MWC News has clearly greatly assisted global RRM – whereas the remorseless lying by Mainstream Media represents an acute threat to humanity.
Rational Risk Management (RRM) is best practised in areas such as aviation, defence and the nuclear industry – and indeed accounts for the very low mortality associated with these areas that nevertheless have the potential for high casualties associated with human error. RRM successively involves (a) untrammelled flow of information, (b) scientific analysis involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, and (c) rational systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately this process is typically PERVERTED in most areas of human activity by (a) censorship, self-censorship, intimidation, lying by omission and commission, (b) anti-scientific “spin” involving selective use of asserted “facts” to support partisan positions, and (c) “blaming and shaming” of suitable victims (especially whistle-blowers) and no change to a consequently higher risk system.
The lying by omission and commission of Islamophobic Mainstream Media has foisted the Goebellsian LIE of the “War on Terror” on the World. This Mainstream Media lying has led to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that have so far caused post-invasion avoidable deaths now totalling 2.7 million, comprising 0.5 million (Occupied Iraq), 1.8 million (Occupied Afghanistan) and 0.4 million (post-2001 opioid drug-related deaths due to Coalition restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry) and a cost to the US estimated at US$1-2 TRILLION (see MWC News ).
The lying by Mainstream Media simply blocks Rational Risk Management (RRM). History ignored yields history repeated – and, uninformed of the huge human cost of the Bush Wars, the World is now being prepared for a threatened catastrophic assault on remote, impoverished and non-expansionist Iran that might even involve nuclear weapons. For the sake of humanity, for Mothers and Children, we must continue to INFORM the World of the horrendous human cost of US state terrorism, democratic imperialism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism).
I am deeply conscious of having FAILED to EFFECTIVELY inform the World of the horrendous consequences of First World global policies (16 million avoidable deaths and 11 million under-5 year old deaths globally EACH YEAR) and of the Bush wars (0.6 million avoidable deaths and 0.5 million under-5 year old deaths EACH YEAR in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories). However I recently published on MWC News an attempt to make rough assessment of “avoidable mortality” very easy and accessible for laypersons. Entitled “Layperson’s Guide to Counting Iraq Deaths” this article showed that for “bad outcome” Third World countries the “under-5 infant mortality” - that is readily accessed from UNCEF reports - is about 0.7 of the “total avoidable mortality” (see MWC News ). Thus, for the decent layperson, rapid assessment of “avoidable mortality” is only a click away. This MWC News article has already had a significant effect on the reporting around the World of the ACTUAL human cost of the Bush War on Terror that in effect constitutes a catastrophic War on Women and Children.
Peace is the only way – but silence kills and silence is complicity. We must all emulate the wonderful, humanitarian example of MWC News over this Annus Mirabilis, this Year of Wonders, and INFORM EVERYONE of the continuing horrendous risk to humanity.