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Paris Shootings and Explosions Kill Over 100, Police Say

(www.nytimes.com)
623 points franzb | 3 comments | 14 Nov 15 00:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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leothekim ◴[14 Nov 15 00:44 UTC] No.10563638[source]▶
Facebook has enabled their safety check feature:

https://www.facebook.com/safetycheck/paris_terror_attacks/

replies(1): >>10564010 #
eveningcoffee ◴[14 Nov 15 01:59 UTC] No.10564010[source]▶
What is this?
replies(1): >>10564020 #
jacquesm ◴[14 Nov 15 02:02 UTC] No.10564020[source]▶
A way to let others know you're safe even if you can't get through to them personally.
replies(1): >>10564095 #
Asbostos ◴[14 Nov 15 02:20 UTC] No.10564095[source]▶
Does that have any value beyond reinforcing people's irrational fear of mass deaths? What if you let your family know you're not one of the 100 killed in this attack then die as one of the 600 murdered in France each year by common crime?

I saw this happen with the London bombings. A colleague was almost in tears because her son lived in London and she couldn't contact him on the phone. It turned out he was fine, as approximately everybody else in the city was too.

replies(3): >>10564148 #>>10564202 #>>10564315 #
jtblin ◴[14 Nov 15 02:54 UTC] No.10564202[source]▶
I found it valuable to know that my friends and family in Paris are safe, so I'm grateful to FB for doing that. OTH It saddens me and make me wonder what kind of world we live in for FB to release such a feature.
replies(1): >>10564257 #
Asbostos ◴[14 Nov 15 03:14 UTC] No.10564257[source]▶
You didn't need Facebook to tell you that. You could have just assumed it was true based on the enormous population of Paris (2 million) and the small number of deaths in this incident (100-200).
replies(3): >>10564295 #>>10564340 #>>10566458 #
peferron ◴[14 Nov 15 03:43 UTC] No.10564340[source]▶
You would have 0.01% chance of being wrong. How high would it need to be to warrant, in your eyes, checking if your family members are alive, instead of assuming they are? 0.1%? 1%? 10%? And why?
replies(1): >>10564697 #
1. ehnto ◴[14 Nov 15 06:09 UTC] No.10564697[source]▶
The world is full of a mean average of people who, believe it or not, do not run statistical analysis before deciding if they should care for their loved ones.

The world is full of real people, with real understandable concerns for their families and friends.

Not only that, but it isn't about the number who were killed anyway. It is about the probability of your friend being in that location at the time of the disaster which is much, much higher.

No one thinks 'I wonder if Jack was killed, he was at that park today'. They think 'I wonder if Jack was in the CBD, he works nearby!'

Statistically validated concerns or not, the very real effect of this part of human nature is that the phone infrastructure goes down and that sucks for everyone.

replies(1): >>10566519 #
2. peferron ◴[14 Nov 15 17:51 UTC] No.10566519[source]▶
Did you read the post to which my reply was directed? I'm not addressing these questions to you or to one of the "people who do not run statistical analysis before deciding if they should care for their loved ones". I'm addressing these questions to someone who apparently does run statistical analysis.
replies(1): >>10568205 #
3. ehnto ◴[15 Nov 15 02:13 UTC] No.10568205[source]▶
Yes my apologies, I didn't realise I was commenting on the child comment. I was intending to reply to the comment you had replied to.