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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?

#811

Post by godshatter »

mLuby wrote: post #325
bserge wrote: 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…

To quibble: terrorism is using dramatic violence to achieve political ends. It just so happens that the victimized society often wants to increase security. The US had at least 3 major responses to 9/11: 1) seek revenge (invade Afghanistan, kill Bin Laden), 2) armor up (Dept. of Homeland Security), and 3) unify under nationalism (flags everywhere). It's pretty easy to imagine a timeline where some or none of those ha…

The part of our response that disappointed me the most was the way people ostracized any other way of thinking during that time period.

Suggestions that we shouldn't overreact because it plays right into their hands and that we shouldn't give up rights to the government out of simple fear that we'd just regret later didn't just go unheeded, they were vehemently attacked. It was worse polarization by far then we're seeing now, and it wasn't a more-or-less 50/50 split and didn't follow party lines.

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

#812

Post by adolph »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #759
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…

> So you have all this talk of "bump stocks" and "ghost guns" and "assault weapons" and whatnot, but it's all just smoke and mirrors to assuage fears. The goal isn't to save lives. The goal is to assuage fears. I don't take any gun policy seriously that purports to save lives if it isn't focused on handguns and suicides. It's also politics. If you actually wanted to solve the problem, well, like two thirds of US fire…

> It's also politics. If you actually wanted to solve the problem

The pairing of politics to problem is a challenge in that solving a problem means shifting focus to a different problem set. A different problem set will likely emerge a different politics which is effectively a threat to the people engaged in the current politics.

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

#813

Post by mbesto »

abstractbarista wrote: post #630
newswasboring wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The target is to save lives. If the threat is still there, we need to keep the safety measures. And covid measures have always been dynamic. Safety measures have been removed or reintroduced based up on very hard statistics man. I don't know how you don't see that. edit: My first sentence was a bit garbage. The target is to save lives from covid and avoid its spread. Hospital utilization and mortality rate from the d…

That may be the target, but the real outcome is simply delaying those deaths, spreading them out more over time.

> That may be the target, but the real outcome is simply delaying those deaths, spreading them out more over time. reply

Don't we all die eventually? What's your point then?

Are you saying that if people get COVID they'll all die of COVID related complications *eventually•? Because that's not necessarily true. If someone is the 101st person who needs a ventilator and all 100 ventilators are being used by COVID patients, then that person likely dies and they could have been recovered.

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

#814

Post by ctrlp »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #589
ctrlp wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to be subject to Twitter's or Facebook's interpretation of extremist?

why would the government care if i’m banned from twitter?

Why would the government care to have you banned from Twitter?

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

#815

Post by adolph »

jedberg wrote: post #646
carabiner wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA Pre requires fingerprinting and a background check. You definitely give up some privacy in signing up for it. I mean you can unlock some computer devices with fingerprints.

The government already has my fingerprints, because I had to give them to get a passport (edit: I've been informed this was only because I also did Global Entry) and also when I was in elementary school they fingerprinted everyone and also when I got my driver's license. Pretty much if you're a US citizen they already have your fingerprints.

> when I was in elementary school they fingerprinted everyone

Yes, they put it on your permanent record which any govt official can access using a simple zoom and enhance.

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

#816

Post by shoulderfake »

GhostVII wrote: post #537

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. We are just so terrible at evaluating risk, for some reason it is OK to waste everyone's time with over the top security to stop a tiny portion of terrorism deaths, while still being OK with high speed limits that kill thousand…

High speed limits are killing people? Are you ok man? Look at germany and their death tolls on highways compared to america.

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

#817

Post by TaylorAlexander »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #807
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you have all this talk of "bump stocks" and "ghost guns" and "assault weapons" and whatnot, but it's all just smoke and mirrors to assuage fears. The goal isn't to save lives. The goal is to assuage fears. I don't take any gun policy seriously that purports to save lives if it isn't focused on handguns and suicides. It's also politics. If you actually wanted to solve the problem, well, like two thirds of US fire…

> improve mental health I think that this is a poor target. How do you set out directly targeting mental health? What are the biggest causes of mental health issues? https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm CDC lists causes such as childhood trauma, trauma from medical issues, biological factors, alcohol or drugs, and loneliness or isolation. How do you set out to tackle loneliness or isolation? How do you he…

It seems like free therapy would help with all of this? Therapy is part of free health care in other countries if I recall. Also free health care would help prevent people from ending up in dire straits.

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

#818

Post by jdavis703 »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #472
platz wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the definition of terrorism I use is one of the 11 definitions that preclude that possibility.

Yes, some definitions are crappy. Do we have a word for "imperialist government uses violence against people to achieve political goals"? Because "it's not terrorism because it's a state" is always gonna stink of trying to dodge the topic on a technicality.

This is either war or war crimes depending on what exactly happened.

There seems to be a trend of calling every terrifying event “terrorism.” People sometimes colloquially refer to even non-political mass shootings as terrorism.

I believe it’s important to separate different types of mass violence. For example a gang-related mass shooting might be de-escalated by a mediator engaging the belligerents, whereas a war crime should be sent to international criminal court and a terrorist should be dealt with in a manner to minimize the earned media attention.

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

#819

Post by BoxOfRain »

dragonwriter wrote: post #764
BoxOfRain wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd be bringing it into the public sphere where it can be regulated better at least, that's already an enormous improvement. I just think it's insanity to let essentially private and unaccountable organisations have this much power over ordinary people's lives. Laws should be made as part of an authentically democratic process that at least tries to involve the whole socio-economic makeup of the country, not as a re…

> We'd be bringing it into the public sphere where it can be regulated better at least, that's already an enormous improvement In the US, political parties are in the public sphere and extensively regulated, unlike private entities that are not political parties but engage in political campaigning independent of formal parties and individual candidates. Abolishing formal parties in the US would increase, not limit, t…

I'm not American, but wasn't the US government itself a non-partisan entity prior to and in the period immediately after independence? Either way, I get that they're regulated in theory as part of the public sphere but that's not the point I'm getting at, the point I'm getting at that in practice these parties often behave as vehicles for private (and often fairly elitist) interests and as a result I think their useful functions should be carried out more directly by democratic parliaments where they can be scrutinised more transparently.

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

#820

Post by adolph »

titzer wrote: post #157
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.

> The parallels between COVID and our post-9/11 reaction are eerie. I don't see the same parallels. After 9/11 the US was extraordinarily united and committed to vengeance. Thousands joined the military. After COVID we're more divided than ever and people are not even willing put a piece of cloth on their faces. Widespread denial and resistance to anything inconveniencing them. Whereas after 9/11 people were willing…

> After 9/11 the US was extraordinarily united and committed to vengeance. Thousands joined the military. After COVID we're more divided than ever and people are not even willing put a piece of cloth on their faces.

The govt reaction is similar. The populace has learned new lessons since 9/11.

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