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?

#911

Post by angelzen » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #909

angelzen wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA doesn't go around saying 'we are here to waste your time and humiliate you'. They are also saving lives. In perpetuity.

A negligible number of lives. All terrorist attacks in US history combined resulted in less than three days worth of COVID-19 deaths.

All the more reason to keep draconian covid measures in place in perpetuity. Covid passports, lockdowns, masks, forced vax.

Sometimes I picture our anti-covid measures as piling sandbags in front of a tsunami. Might hold back the water for a little while, but won't do much in the long term.

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

#912

Post by woofie11 » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #488

woofie11 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asthma attacks are not uncommon in response to dog dander. Those can be life-threatening, but can be managed with albuterol. 30 seconds with Google will turn up countless documented instances. Anaphylaxis is a very rare response to animal dander, but there have been a few documented instances: https://www.petful.com/misc/can-pet-allergies-kill-me/ What's amazing is the number of dog owners who don't believe in dog al…

> dogs are hypoallergenic due to fur/hair (dander is in the saliva) I’ve read the same explanation for cats. But, I find it hard to believe. Pets are constantly licking their fur, and shedding said fur all over the place. It’s very clear to me that more fur = higher chances of allergic reactions. What am I missing?

1) That a lot of allergic reactions come from actually touching a dog or having the dog touch something; they don't need to leave fur behind for that to happen.

2) That licking hair/fur releases the same amount of dander, whether your shedding fur, hair, or neither. Matter is conserved.

3) That clumps of fur are easy to avoid.

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

#913

Post by js2 » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #889

js2 wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, never. I’ve had licenses in FL, GA, NC and CA.

They for sure took your fingerprints in California. It's required to get a license. Search this for fingerprint: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/california-driver-handboo... You may just not remember because it's electronic.

And it was 20 years ago...

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

#914

Post by ridethebike » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

edgriebel wrote: post #519

ridethebike wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes are not that expensive

Last time I checked even a relatively small 737 is ca. $100 million. You must be related to Bezos if you don't consider that expensive.

Compared to lives lost $100 is not expensive at all.

But sure, let's forget about morals for a second (lives lost and all that) and be very cold and cynical about the pricing. Still - reputational damage, political outcry, people suing the company/government for "failing to do even basic security checks like belts and shoes" - $100 million is nothing.

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

#915

Post by yunohn » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #912

yunohn wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dogs are hypoallergenic due to fur/hair (dander is in the saliva) I’ve read the same explanation for cats. But, I find it hard to believe. Pets are constantly licking their fur, and shedding said fur all over the place. It’s very clear to me that more fur = higher chances of allergic reactions. What am I missing?

1) That a lot of allergic reactions come from actually touching a dog or having the dog touch something; they don't need to leave fur behind for that to happen. 2) That licking hair/fur releases the same amount of dander, whether your shedding fur, hair, or neither. Matter is conserved. 3) That clumps of fur are easy to avoid.

Those are fair points, but I’m not convinced that fur doesn’t have an impact.

Anecdotally, I have a mild cat allergy and own a cat. Vacuuming our sofa regularly makes a huge difference, as it gets rid of the fur stuck to it. It goes from feeling scratchy to totally fine.

Maybe clumps of fur are common with super fluffy pets? Ours is a shorthair and shedding leaves single hairs lying around.

Matter is conserved, sure, but fur with dander stuck to it from saliva versus skin with saliva on it, surely makes a difference?

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

#916

Post by NikolaNovak » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

fouc wrote: post #233

NikolaNovak wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My biggest challenge over the years was remembering what to do in each place as the security people at the airports had a tendency to get upset if you didn't do it their preferred way." It can differ from airport to airport. I traveled from Ottawa to Toronto often enough for it to be mindless but differences between two national airports in same province of same country on same airline still caught me if I went too…

I'd stick with the more conservative measure, taking the tablet out all the time, even if it might not have been required. Also I wouldn't bother verbally responding if they ask me to do something, I'd just do it and keep my lips sealed.

Oh I would agree; if being conservative always worked - but my point is I've frequently been berated for taking a tablet out as well as for keeping it on at the same airport.

I kind of understand overall - At a busy airport, being overly conservative (taking out tablets, shoes, belts, coins etc when not needed) can be seen as "wasting people's time". It's the inconsistency of rules and their application that sometimes bugs me - There's no 100% winning strategy.

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

#917

Post by nullc » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

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…

While I agree with your conclusion, the metric you suggest isn't a good one.

As a silly hypothetical: Imagine that terrorism was really popular but completely thwarted by taking your shoes off at airports. Because its well known that the shoes always come off, the terrorists don't even try. And as a result your dashboard would show lots of money being spent removing shoes but no terrorism. Yet (in this silly example) if the shoe removal spending stopped people would be blowing up left in right, so it's actually a good investment.

Successful measures tend to erase their own effect, especially when applied to intelligent systems.

If you allow observations vs cost to be your guide you risk cutting spending on highly effective measures and preserving spending on measures that do not work (which leave lots of observations around)!

This is one of the reasons that randomized controlled trials are so much better than basic observational science.

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

#918

Post by landemva » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #865

pacman2 wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years after 9/11, BinLaden still takes money out of your pocket (Airport security, air marshals etc.).

20 years later, the commodity that both financed and motivated 9/11 style terrorism and religious radicalization in the middle east and beyond - petroleum - still does that. It's also the same industry that provides a lot of revenue for the international arms industry. But we didn't really want to stomach the lifestyle changes that shifting off of petroleum as a fuel would require, so instead we went decided to bomb…

USA had become net energy exporter, until January 2021 administration change. We didn't need OPEC. This year we choose to need OPEC.

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

#919

Post by nullc » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:57 AM UTC

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…

> or else you're only going to be diverting people to other methods of suicide

It's important to point out that you can do comparisons between the US and other countries where guns are far more restricted and a lot of the US gun mortality shows up as other forms of suicide.

> because even if they're completely ineffective at their stated purpose

Ineffective measures are actually politically superior: They don't cure their ill, so you can keep using them again and again.

If $random_gun_restriction actually worked passing it would diminish your ability to campaign on gun issues in the future. This bad incentive applies on all sides too, not just pro-gun control. The gun control lobby is one of the single most effective promotional tools of anti-gun-control politicians.

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

#920

Post by landemva » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 4:01 AM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #608

lonelyPM wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said... I feel like someone out there has developed a dashboard like this.

We are pretty good at death counts, it's easy. All the data is there. Tied to anonymised health condition as aggregates. The problem is how do we even start to evaluate the cost of prevention. Measures? We have equipment and labour costs, that's easy to measure but the data is not made available. But then what is the opportunity cost on those who are inflicted the measures. A person goes on holiday and can perhaps br…

Strong door to flight deck, and policy change to keep door closed and locked, eliminated hijacking risk. Everything else is an expensive show which air travellers apparently enjoy. They keep paying for it.