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20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

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Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#241

Post by macintux »

MrGilbert wrote: post #228

Totally unrelated, but I still remember what I did on 9/11. I was in my teens. I know the date, I know the weekday, I know everything I did in the 24 hours it happened. However, despite being the much "fresher" events, I don't know the weekday my grandparents and parents passed away, let alone what I did back then. My memory is... interesting.

Memory in general is very capricious, but world-changing, emotional events tend to do that. Before 9/11 the most common one I heard people talking about was JFK's assassination.

For me, it's the Challenger disaster, 9/11, Columbia.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#242

Post by sandworm101 »

0xffff2 wrote: post #176
sandworm101 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> military training/civil service mandatory. >> Basic combat training and paramedic abilities Those are very different things. Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat. Not every civil service volunteer is taught to handle a weapon. And basic first aid training is almost universal already. More lives could probably be saves by everyone being trained in basic mental health and de-escalation techniques.

I'm curious where you get the idea that "Not every soldier is taught hand-to-hand combat". It's certainly not true in the US Army.

The US army is only one of the US armed forces. The US is only one of many countries. Many train soldiers very differently than the US does.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#243

Post by odiroot »

GDC7 wrote: post #60

And of course everybody ignores trains, they don't even look at you...like the 300 souls aboard a train don't matter. Also the 10000+ souls at the departing and arrival train station also don't matter. Not to mention the 4000 souls aboard cruise ships. It ain't about safety from ill-intentioned people...it's about protecting the POTUS from having to give the order to open fire on an hijacked civilian plane. That's th…

> And of course everybody ignores trains, they don't even look at you...like the 300 souls aboard a train don't matter.

China takes train security as seriously as the aeroplane security. At least for the high speed trains.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#244

Post by nashalo »

duxup wrote: post #222

So much security that not sense. I attend college football games. Everyone goes through security. Outside security we pack up in masses of humanity outside the gates waiting to get through the inevitably slow security. It would be far more effective to do something at the gates dude to the density of humanity there where there is no security ... than in the stadium where people are actually more spread out. If someon…

> What are we doing this for?

I think we are doing these mostly useless things in order to signal that as a society we're somewhat careful in order to reassure people. I feel our best security defense is that most people are not terrorists?

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#245

Post by ridaj »

switch007 wrote: post #214
JoshTko wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4.5 million deaths from Covid so far.

From Covid or with covid (edit: I’m merely asking which stat you’re citing. Source?)? Ie the disease killed them or they tested positive while dying from something else?

There have been clear excess deaths (mortality rate increases) from all causes combined during waves. Most evaluations of excess deaths that I've seen conclude that Covid deaths are undercounted not over counted.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#246

Post by lotsofpulp »

spoonjim wrote: post #231
duxup wrote: post #222

So much security that not sense. I attend college football games. Everyone goes through security. Outside security we pack up in masses of humanity outside the gates waiting to get through the inevitably slow security. It would be far more effective to do something at the gates dude to the density of humanity there where there is no security ... than in the stadium where people are actually more spread out. If someon…

That security isn’t necessarily to stop terrorism. It’s also to stop people from bringing in weapons and then using them in drunken brawls.

That is amazing reasoning. Assuming drunken brawls were a problem, instead of banning alcohol, the solution was the current TSA protocol.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#247

Post by CountDrewku »

newswasboring wrote: post #204
bedhead wrote: post #40

Things like this are why I'm so cynical about COVID stuff. We have an unconditional commitment to stupid reactive policies that elevate symbolism far above sensibility, and boy does it have a lot of inertia. The parallels between COVID and our post-9/11 reaction are eerie.

There is a mountain worth of difference. The policies enacted for COVID have a very specific target, has been shown to work repeatedly, and deviating from them caused decline in the KPI its trying to maintain. Its nothing like TSA.

Ok then what's the target? Eradication of the virus is not achievable and neither is full vaccination of the entire population. I have yet to hear any hard numbers for removal of "safety" measures from any politician when enacting lockdowns/mandates.

I think you're fooling yourself if you believe there's some hard target.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#248

Post by bserge »

duxup wrote: post #222

So much security that not sense. I attend college football games. Everyone goes through security. Outside security we pack up in masses of humanity outside the gates waiting to get through the inevitably slow security. It would be far more effective to do something at the gates dude to the density of humanity there where there is no security ... than in the stadium where people are actually more spread out. If someon…

The goal of terrorism is to scare people into restricting their own freedoms. It has worked amazingly well so far.

To any motivated anti-society organization or person, this is huge leverage. A few deaths leading to a noticeably more authoritarian state? What's not to love?

It doesn't even matter if the authorities do their job and punish those responsible, the people will still choose to restrict their own freedoms and makes their lives worse for more "security".

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#249

Post by ben_w »

baybal2 wrote: post #26
tyingq wrote: post #8

The interesting part to me is that the mode of attack for 9/11 can't easily be repeated. It depended on passengers assuming the plane was being hijacked, and that they would eventually be released. That stopped working on the 3rd (edit: 4th) plane. I don't see how it would work again. Passengers now default to assuming there's no path to live other than fighting back. Meaning many of the measures we still take aren't…

It makes no sense anyways. If it's alleged el qaeda, and their "billions of dollars in funding" they would've just raised an army, and razed the place. If someone needs on a principle to have the plane shot out of the sky, there are way dumber, and more sure ways to do that than trying to get a bomber on board.

Al Qaeda was in the middle of losing Afghanistan when the shoe thing happened, it’s not entirely implausible they’d tell some random person to try something dumb.

Re: 20 years after 9/11: Will we ever stop taking our shoes off at airports?

#250

Post by Ensorceled »

yalogin wrote: post #30

The TSA is just a huge scam to siphon money and they need to show they are providing value. Taking shoes off is that value, so yeah it’s never going away. We could get out of Afghanistan but will never get rid of the TSA.

I had a friend fly to a his grandfather's funeral a few years ago, threw all of his kit into a travel bag and ran to the airport. The kit his grandfather passed down to him: kilt, jacket, belt and spooran ...

A 18" dirk from the 1800s ...

Made it through security without anyone saying anything and only remembered when it clanked as he put it into the overhead luggage compartment.

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