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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?

#341
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually isn’t the goal of terrorism. I’ve studied terrorism and the definition is essentially non-state actors using violence for political means. Now we can go in to various conspiracies from “Bush planned 9.11 as a false flag” to “Bush ignored intelligence reports so he could launch the war on terror,” but those are mostly just unproven conspiracies unrelated to what al-Qaeda wanted.

One of those is a conspiracy theory. The other isn't. WMD?

I was talking in the context of 9/11, not all the yellowcake stuff. IIRC the 9/11 commission report shows some evidence that intelligence was aware of a possible attack, but the administration didn’t act. Some people took this to mean the intel was deliberately ignored, which is the part that seems conspiratorial.

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

#343
post #248
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…

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

I don't think that makes sense.

If say terrorist actions resulted in the opposite, say a nation providing less security / fewer restrictions:

We would then logic it out and say the goal of terrorism is to restrict fewer freedoms and thus allow the terrorists more freedom to do whatever it is they wanted.... including more terrorism.

But that's obviously also not the point of terrorism.

Terrorists are pushing their own political agenda via violence, that's it, the result isn't necessarily some intent / scheme. If they don't get what they ultimately want, I don't think they give a damn about security or etc.

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

#344
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This actually isn’t the goal of terrorism. I’ve studied terrorism and the definition is essentially non-state actors using violence for political means. Now we can go in to various conspiracies from “Bush planned 9.11 as a false flag” to “Bush ignored intelligence reports so he could launch the war on terror,” but those are mostly just unproven conspiracies unrelated to what al-Qaeda wanted.

Rather than convenient conspiracy strawmen, how about "The military industrial surveillance complex was a main beneficiary of 9.11, and is symbiotic with the groups it purports to defend us against."

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

#345

I'll take it a step further. We need a total paradigm redesign of airports. Imagine and airport designed to the point where you can literally drive up (or be dropped by an autonomous vehicle) 10 minutes before your flight, Throw your luggage onto a belt where a robot auto tags it based on your a facial recognition algorithm, and walk through an unobtrusive security point that's totally AI driven, and walk direct to y…

I mean you pretty much can do this depending on the airport. I generally show up half an hour before boarding. If it's a weird time or an airport that never has a security line it'll be 10. I don't check bags and use my phone ticket so other than an abnormally long security line there's no reason to show up more than half an hour early.

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

#346
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…

Is the primary goal of security at a college football game to stop a suicide bomber? I strongly doubt that's how they see it.

Yeah, isn't it to prevent hooligans from bringing weapons into the stadium?

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

#347
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass loss of life. Novel way in which people died. People dying randomly (hard to avoid). General hysteria. Paranoia over a minority group. Moral outrage against anyone not falling inline politically. Overreaching government plans to keep people safe. Petty symbolism (freedom fries/masks) to sort the moral from the immoral. Should I go on?

You think masks are petty symbolism? I think that kind of trolling just raises the temperature here, which I'd like to avoid, so no, please, do not go on.

Endless studies and real-world data showing no efficacy and half the world doesn't care. A new one every week, nobody cares, they're stuck in their religion.

Last week: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8395971/

Conclusions: There was no reduction in per-population daily mortality, hospital bed, ICU bed, or ventilator occupancy of COVID-19-positive patients attributable to the implementation of a mask-wearing mandate.

Also last week: large Bangladesh study showing cloth does nothing, surgical 11% reduction but only among people over 50 and it still was neither statistically significant nor could be attributable to masks vs other factors.

Half the country doesn't care, they're forever stuck in their COVID jingoism, proud to tell people how righteous they are. So, enjoy those Freedom Fries, I mean masks!! I mean look at your response, like, "Oh no don't you dare say that 'there is no god' around here!!" It's just a faith-based issue at this point.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if he knew they were checking shoes at airport security, then he probably would have put it somewhere else.

Let's all be grateful this dude didn't try to pull his underwear bomb stunt on an airplane. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/30/saudi.arabia.a...

Do you mean like this other guy did? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab

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

#349
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This actually isn’t the goal of terrorism. I’ve studied terrorism and the definition is essentially non-state actors using violence for political means. Now we can go in to various conspiracies from “Bush planned 9.11 as a false flag” to “Bush ignored intelligence reports so he could launch the war on terror,” but those are mostly just unproven conspiracies unrelated to what al-Qaeda wanted.

“Conspiracy theory” has such intense negative connotation that “conspiracy” alone is corrupted
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