To me the most surprising thing: do people really not know the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim?
They are the 2nd and 3rd largest religious groups in the world.
Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
101–110 of 120 posts
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts; we ban those. HN is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be an entirely different forum.
I think you're the only consistent identity that I recognize, because you post this a lot :) I always have some concerns when I see it: - Obviously controversial (but not clearly trolling) posts like thr3290's can't be made without potentially endangering the poster (we've seen people fired for public or semi-public remarks e.g. "donglegate"). I feel that this would have a chilling effect on voices that go against th…
Oh of course, throwaways are legit when the topic is personally sensitive. Some of the best HN discussions happen that way; for example there was one the other day where a couple of throwaway accounts discussed what it's like to be non-criminal psychopaths. Obviously we'd never get that without throwaways. But that is easily distinguished from the users who routinely create throwaways in order to completely depersonalize their comments. The latter is actually an attack on the foundation of HN. Legit throwaways are actually highly personal—often more personal than the main account.
On HN, commenters have a personal identity (which of course can be a pseudonym if you want). If some users want a site where there are no such identities, only free-floating comments with comment IDs, they should find or create such a site and participate there instead. There's room for lots of different kinds of internet forums. HN is just one kind, but it is that kind, and the reason we have moderation, including account bannage, is to preserve it as the kind of site it's meant to be.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Still, refusing to give him a glass of water was not necessary, OK. Sure. I suppose if you're held for 3 hours, you should have a right to water. Is the big problem here? If you're detained for more than 1 hour you should get a bottle of water?
I think that water isn't such a rare commodity in New York that they couldn't just put a jug of water and a glass in the holding room and keep it topped up. It seems obvious to me that refusing to give water is a calculated act designed to cause discomfort - not unlike unnecessarily giving multiple "obscene" pat downs [their words] - the closest TSA thugs can get to using the "enhanced interrogation" techniques that…
>TSA thugs
Seriously?
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's sad how much flying has changed since 9/11. Sad but predictable in a world with a global movement of suicidal religious fanatics willing to murder thousands of people and cause billions in property damage. It is what is. I miss the old days too, but I wouldn't vote to water-down airport security. >I'm sad at how he was treated and it's something that needs to be changed. Does it? He refused the millimeter wave…
Lightning strikes have killed 1300 people in the US since September 11. September 11 was a freak event. Terrorism is objectively not an existential threat, and guarding planes does not make us safer. If we were in danger of another 9/11 magnitude attack, it would have happened. Planes are not a magical key to terror plots. Terrorists can easily bomb targets in other ways and be incredibly successful, like Timothy McV…
I think the experience you have in a US security queue (admittedly limited experience here, and I'm including the special US border agency bit in Toronto) is that the bigger and busier the airport, the more stressed everyone is. The security people are understaffed, everyone else is crammed together and worrying about missing their flights.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that water isn't such a rare commodity in New York that they couldn't just put a jug of water and a glass in the holding room and keep it topped up. It seems obvious to me that refusing to give water is a calculated act designed to cause discomfort - not unlike unnecessarily giving multiple "obscene" pat downs [their words] - the closest TSA thugs can get to using the "enhanced interrogation" techniques that…
>TSA thugs Seriously?
If it helps, you could read it as "thugs that work for the TSA".
No doubt there are many fine upstanding people working for the TSA, who don't abuse their power and are angry at co-workers that do. Those people aren't what's wrong with the TSA.
The people who are a problem within the TSA are those who deny repeated requests for water or refuse to allow a person who is not under any kind of lawful detention to use their mobile phone, for, I claim, no purpose other than to assert their dominance.
The mobile phone is potentially defensible, but I challenge you to present a reasonable national security justification for denying the not-technically-a-detainee water. Until you do, I'm going to call those people thugs.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
>TSA thugs Seriously?
If it helps, you could read it as "thugs that work for the TSA". No doubt there are many fine upstanding people working for the TSA, who don't abuse their power and are angry at co-workers that do. Those people aren't what's wrong with the TSA. The people who are a problem within the TSA are those who deny repeated requests for water or refuse to allow a person who is not under any kind of lawful detention to use the…
there is no reason at all to deny a detainee-in-fact water, either.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're the only consistent identity that I recognize, because you post this a lot :) I always have some concerns when I see it: - Obviously controversial (but not clearly trolling) posts like thr3290's can't be made without potentially endangering the poster (we've seen people fired for public or semi-public remarks e.g. "donglegate"). I feel that this would have a chilling effect on voices that go against th…
Oh of course, throwaways are legit when the topic is personally sensitive. Some of the best HN discussions happen that way; for example there was one the other day where a couple of throwaway accounts discussed what it's like to be non-criminal psychopaths. Obviously we'd never get that without throwaways. But that is easily distinguished from the users who routinely create throwaways in order to completely depersona…
> On HN, commenters have a personal identity (which of course can be a pseudonym if you want). If some users want a site where there are no such identities, only free-floating comments with comment IDs, they should find or create such a site and participate there instead. There's room for lots of different kinds of internet forums. HN is just one kind, but it is that kind, and the reason we have moderation, including account bannage, is to preserve it as the kind of site it's meant to be.
I don't digest HN this way, at least - I prefer to separate the message from the person writing it. I'm also pleased to note that there are far fewer comment-reviewing/ad-hominem rebuttals on HN than on Reddit, and far fewer 'celebrities'.
On the flip side, I'm aware of some of the downsides of anonymous posting, so I can't disagree with you there.
I'm just afraid that a lot of times that you warn against throwaways, it's towards a controversial post (that's usually downvoted for being unpopular, but not otherwise against the rules of the site). I believe those posts have a lot of value, at least in reminding people that there are other perspectives and that nothing is 'obvious' (and maybe getting them a bit more passionate :) ). I'm afraid of these disappearing, as I've seen happen on sub-reddits that become debate-free echo-chambers.
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#108Some real "hacker news" here. Jesus the slide of this site...
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sad but predictable in a world with a global movement of suicidal religious fanatics willing to murder thousands of people and cause billions in property damage. It is what is. I miss the old days too, but I wouldn't vote to water-down airport security. Say, are you referring to the Extremist Moslems, or Extremist Christians? Both have their fair share of "incidents". Perhaps you've never heard of the KKK? They're…
>Say, are you referring to the Extremist Moslems, or Extremist Christians? I was referring to 9/11, obviously, because that resulted in our modern security state. >That whole innocent until proven guilty in a court of law... It doesn't count for non-Christians, does it? I'm not sure how 'innocent until proven guilty' applies here. Are you saying we don't need any airport security because that presumes guilt? >Both ha…
> I'm not sure how 'innocent until proven guilty' applies here. Are you saying we don't need any airport security because that presumes guilt?
How about effective airport security, and not the facade of "security" we see. AKA: Oh looks a BROWN PERSON!
And holding for someone for 6 hours without due process is a good thing? Yeah, no. Unless they're not a white christian. And that is the underlying message, going all the way up to the Trump Islam Ban.
> I have to say, I really dislike the bigoteer tone in your response.
OOhhh tone police. It's OK. I really hate bigots. (And having live in Indiana most of my life, am confident when I spot them. Guess what? Spotted one.)
Re: Don't Fly During Ramadan (2013)
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It's sad how much flying has changed since 9/11. Sad but predictable in a world with a global movement of suicidal religious fanatics willing to murder thousands of people and cause billions in property damage. It is what is. I miss the old days too, but I wouldn't vote to water-down airport security. >I'm sad at how he was treated and it's something that needs to be changed. Does it? He refused the millimeter wave…
> I miss the old days too, but I wouldn't vote to water-down airport security Do you mean the "security" theater with a 95% failure rate? http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-find... To which the response is "cavity searches!" which will only continue to fail. http://kxan.com/2017/03/06/tsa-changing-pat-down-policy-afte... The most effective change to security protocols was reinforcing the cockpit…
Plus... the TSA exclusively searches people who are already in America. People support it on the generally prevalent notion that it prevents a flow of terrorists, which is just obviously not true. The TSA does nothing to prevent terrorists from flying planes into America. If anything it would prevent terrorists from hijacking planes to divert to other countries. I genuinely think the only reason people support it is the mental association "of planes bring people here" and "terrorists are other places".
The TSA notionally prevents the use of domestic and outbound international airplanes as weapons. In order to hijack a plane you would need to subdue hundreds of people (because why take over a small plane), find and subdue the air marshall, break into the cockpit, and know how to fly a massive jetliner. It is an insane concept. You could just buy a schoolbus(legal), steal a truck, or even just rent a big uhaul, fill it with explosives(undetectable and not even checked for), and drive it onto a big bridge or next to a stadium(also legal). You wouldn't even have to kill yourself to do it, you could kill many more people, and it would be almost impossible to stop.
If you just wanted to kill people you wouldn't even do that. You'd just set up IEDs like people do in Iraq and Syria. That would be way more terrifying than plane hijacking- the bombs could be everywhere. There would be nearly nothing we could do about it.
The fact that none of that happens says that terrorism is just not a threat in the way we think of it. The TSA is the most useless government organization in the US.