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

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

#741

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #235

bedhead wrote: post #203

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.

I think I know a ton of Covid-cautious people who "wear a mask" to restaurants by putting one on as they walk through the door and taking it off as they sit at their table. There are a lot of contexts where masks directly affect transmission, but it seems clear that they're also serving a symbolic role beyond their practical utility.

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

#742

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

pope_meat wrote: post #730

mkr-hn wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ongoing and ramped up tyrannies don't affect the people with guns, so it's not doing much good so far. When the oppressed arm themselves, people who claim opposition to gun control suddenly become very pro-gun control.

It was all guns rights until the black panthers started arming up, and all the sudden it was "perhaps some sensible limits might be wise" Pretty hard to miss the intent. Arm the homeless is what I say when I'm feeling spicy.

[deleted]

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

#743

Post by silverscania » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #673

umvi wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths It would be a highly controversial dashboard, I guarantee it, likely unpopular with both political parties. The problem is that assuaging fear is often more important (to irrational people) than saving lives. For example, guns…

What if -- and I know this is a crazy idea -- but what if there was some sort of metric beyond popularity by which things were reported? Maybe even decided? For instance: if there was a free online study (in person test) "critical thinking" series of classes, where you could become accredited as a person who knows at least the basics of how lying works, statistics can be manipulated, science is hard, etc, etc, etc...…

That would be great, but it would be gamed so badly.

Like those lists of "over 500 scientists have signed a document saying 5G is harmful to health so it must be true". When actually half of the people on the list aren't real people and the rest of them are political scientologists, dentists and people who know absolutely nothing about radio waves.

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

#744

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

hunterb123 wrote: post #499

ryguytilidie wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I think I found the most disingenuous person on hacker news.

I speak my mind, unlike the echo chamber here. That's the opposite of disingenuous. Others have agreed with me, they either get greyed out or flagged. Even in this thread, look below. I'm sorry the majority follows blindly and can't see the similarities between the loss of freedom after 9/11 and covid.

You've already posted 22 times in this discussion, including COVID denial and downplaying, hyperbole about "freedom loss", labeling someone a Nazi, sea-lioning for hospital stats, and spreading vaccine FUD. What are you trying to accomplish? Have you ever stepped back from the keyboard for a brief moment, reflected on why everything you post is grayed out, and come to a conclusion that doesn't involve groupthink and a massive conspiratorial campaign against "the truth"?

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

#745

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #712

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100yr ago eugenics proponents were saying the same thing while bemoaning societies unwillingness to fully embrace their solutions. 200yr ago people who wanted to build heavy industry were making the same complaints bemoaning insufficient investment. And so on and so on. ~7 billion people aren't stupid. They just don't share your prioritization of whatever the societal issues you perceive to be most important today ar…

"This minor temporary inconvenience I don't like is as bad as eugenics" is its own trope.

If you can suggest some other ~100yo example of something a lot of people believed would solve a lot of societal problems I'd be happy to edit my comment.

In any case, you're either missing the overarching point (the charitable assumption) or you don't want to fight my point head on so you're nitpicking that my examples aren't good enough (the less charitable assumption).

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

#746

Post by rwmj » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

kureikain wrote: post #514

How do you manage to not losing your laptop, especially when traveling with kids? They lost mine once and I basically have to found it myself. Eventually found someone throw the bag in an corner...

I lost my passport between security and the gate once (the security staff inexplicably moved it into a new tray, so when I picked up my stuff from my two trays I missed the passport in the third tray). Losing your passport at this point turns out to be very complicated, but I was lucky that they held up the whole plane while I ran back to security to fetch it.

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

#747

Post by tastyfreeze » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #612

The way you know it is all security theater is TSA pre. I haven't taken my shoes off, my laptop out, or gone through the hands-on-your-head scanner in years, because the TSA pre-check line doesn't require any of that. Because apparently verifying my ID before arrival at the airport makes me less of a threat. Or maybe it's the $80 they get every few years that makes me less of a threat...

The rollout of TSA Pre confirmed my belief that TSA is a worthless hinderance on travel. But, it is par for the course with anything remotely political. Create a solution to a problem that is outsized for the risk. This solution creates a new problem. Offer a workaround for the newly created problem instead of removing the previous solution.

Most of the political solutions I see tossed around are bandages on wounds inflicted by current policies. Nobody ever suggests removing the policy that is actually causing the problem in the first place.

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

#748

Post by u801e » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

q1w2 wrote: post #636

bradstewart wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reinforced cockpit doors with strict policies in place for when the pilots can open it, which is what we do now (in the U.S. at least) even with all of the TSA stuff.

Those doors don't stop a hijacker from executing stewardesses until the pilot opens the door.

This source[1] claims that the probability of getting hijacked while on a commercial flight is 0.000004%. On the other hand, the case fatality rate of covid-19 is around 2% based on what I'm able to find.

So why are we worried about possible plane hijackings when a lot of people don't seem to be overly worried about something that's many times more risky.

[1] https://findanyanswer.com/what-are-the-chances-of-a-plane-ge...

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

#749

Post by pb7 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

extra88 wrote: post #715

deathanatos wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to give up my fingerprints to maintain a drivers license, but that doesn't get me TSA Pre.

I'm having trouble finding any state where a standard drivers license currently requires being fingerprinted. Texas did it for a little while but stopped in 2015. Some specialty licenses require it, like a commercial license to carry hazardous materials.

"REAL ID" requires fingerprints, which will soon be required to fly.

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

#750

Post by Teknoman117 » Wed, Sep 08, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #720

umvi wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have some kind of dashboard tracking how many people die from terrorism, car crashes, heart disease, COVID, etc., and how much time and money we spend trying to prevent these deaths It would be a highly controversial dashboard, I guarantee it, likely unpopular with both political parties. The problem is that assuaging fear is often more important (to irrational people) than saving lives. For example, guns…

What's interesting is how all these policies focus on banning legal guns. Now, try asking in a debate the proportion of crimes committed with legal weapons vs illegal weapons and watch your opponent start dancing around the question! Good luck getting a straight answer.

Which is probably why the US stopped reporting on the percentage of gun crime committed with legally versus illegally obtained firearms in 2004. I bet the data is available, but you'd have to comb through court records yourself.

Even at that point, "legally obtained" still included borrowing one from a friend or family member.