<story><title>A Sensible Fix For TSA Security Lines</title><url>http://www.askthepilot.com/tsa-summer-meltdown/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dionidium</author><text>So, I was definitely once one of those people arguing for lax airline security on the basis that fear of terrorism is irrational and resources would be better spent on &lt;i&gt;actual&lt;/i&gt;, mundane, every-day threats (like automobile safety).&lt;p&gt;But I think you&amp;#x27;re actually right about this; my original argument ignored human psychology to an extent that makes it nonsensical. &lt;i&gt;Actual&lt;/i&gt; threats are important, but so are &lt;i&gt;perceived&lt;/i&gt; threats. It&amp;#x27;s not entirely irrational to protect against the things we fear the most, even if those aren&amp;#x27;t actually the most likely things to kill us.&lt;p&gt;This also comes up a lot in arguments about city living. I know a lot of people for whom urban living is frightening to an extent that is not supportable by crime statistics. But so what? If they were to move to the city, they&amp;#x27;d be constantly afraid. &lt;i&gt;That matters.&lt;/i&gt; Rational or not, their perception greatly impacts their quality of life. And if you want those people to move back from the suburbs, then you need to address their concerns.&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;i&gt;reason&lt;/i&gt;, after all, that airplanes are such an attractive target for those who&amp;#x27;d like to cause &lt;i&gt;terror&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>rhino369</author><text>&amp;gt;so the worst thing someone could do is blow up a plane, and if all you want to do is blow up a hundred people or so, you don&amp;#x27;t need to be on a plane to do it.&lt;p&gt;There is a reason we had security on airplanes before 9&amp;#x2F;11. We aren&amp;#x27;t willing to accept this risk.&lt;p&gt;Plus airplanes are a carnage and terror multiplier. A bomb that could take down a plane would do less damage on the ground. And people are irrationally fearful of flying. One 737 blown up every 3 months would still make flying less risky than driving, but it would send the airline industry into a tailspin and TSA would come back stronger than ever.</text></item><item><author>darawk</author><text>The sensible fix for long TSA lines is to eliminate the TSA and stop engaging in this silly security theater. It is demonstrably the case that the TSA security procedures are so porous that they can&amp;#x27;t stop regular people from &lt;i&gt;accidentally&lt;/i&gt; bringing weapons on board that they forgot about. The idea that they have prevented any terrorist attacks is ludicrous, yet they have imposed an enormous cost on air travel.&lt;p&gt;Eliminate the TSA and replace them with nothing. Cockpit doors are now reinforced, so the worst thing someone could do is blow up a plane, and if all you want to do is blow up a hundred people or so, you don&amp;#x27;t need to be on a plane to do it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>darawk</author><text>This represents a pretty fundamental reasoning error, I think that a lot of people make - and your argument about city living is the perfect manifestation of it.&lt;p&gt;While some people do stop living in cities out of fear, obviously most people do not, because otherwise they would not be cities. You could argue that the government needs to come in in a very heavy-handed way and say in order to assuage the fear of the minority, we must pat down everyone that lives in the city hourly and check for weapons. But we don&amp;#x27;t do that, because it is irrational and unnecessary, and people will take the amount of risk that they feel is comfortable. We trust people to figure that out for themselves.&lt;p&gt;With airplanes, before the doors were reinforced, the planes could be used as a weapon against people who weren&amp;#x27;t even flying. That represents an externality. That is a place for the government to come in and say &amp;quot;this is too dangerous to &lt;i&gt;others&lt;/i&gt; who cannot protect themselves against this weapon by voting with their wallet&amp;quot;. The people who are on the plane, however, can choose to pay a premium to fly on an airline with more stringent security procedures. If people care enough, they will do that. If they don&amp;#x27;t, they won&amp;#x27;t, and they should be allowed to make that determination for themselves.&lt;p&gt;If I don&amp;#x27;t see terrorism on my flights as a risk, I shouldn&amp;#x27;t have to socialize those who do. And alternatively, if I &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; see terrorism as a risk, I damn sure want better security procedures than what the TSA has on offer, and if there were a private market for better secured planes, I don&amp;#x27;t doubt for a second that it would be substantially safer than what the TSA is able to provide.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Sensible Fix For TSA Security Lines</title><url>http://www.askthepilot.com/tsa-summer-meltdown/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dionidium</author><text>So, I was definitely once one of those people arguing for lax airline security on the basis that fear of terrorism is irrational and resources would be better spent on &lt;i&gt;actual&lt;/i&gt;, mundane, every-day threats (like automobile safety).&lt;p&gt;But I think you&amp;#x27;re actually right about this; my original argument ignored human psychology to an extent that makes it nonsensical. &lt;i&gt;Actual&lt;/i&gt; threats are important, but so are &lt;i&gt;perceived&lt;/i&gt; threats. It&amp;#x27;s not entirely irrational to protect against the things we fear the most, even if those aren&amp;#x27;t actually the most likely things to kill us.&lt;p&gt;This also comes up a lot in arguments about city living. I know a lot of people for whom urban living is frightening to an extent that is not supportable by crime statistics. But so what? If they were to move to the city, they&amp;#x27;d be constantly afraid. &lt;i&gt;That matters.&lt;/i&gt; Rational or not, their perception greatly impacts their quality of life. And if you want those people to move back from the suburbs, then you need to address their concerns.&lt;p&gt;There is a &lt;i&gt;reason&lt;/i&gt;, after all, that airplanes are such an attractive target for those who&amp;#x27;d like to cause &lt;i&gt;terror&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item><item><author>rhino369</author><text>&amp;gt;so the worst thing someone could do is blow up a plane, and if all you want to do is blow up a hundred people or so, you don&amp;#x27;t need to be on a plane to do it.&lt;p&gt;There is a reason we had security on airplanes before 9&amp;#x2F;11. We aren&amp;#x27;t willing to accept this risk.&lt;p&gt;Plus airplanes are a carnage and terror multiplier. A bomb that could take down a plane would do less damage on the ground. And people are irrationally fearful of flying. One 737 blown up every 3 months would still make flying less risky than driving, but it would send the airline industry into a tailspin and TSA would come back stronger than ever.</text></item><item><author>darawk</author><text>The sensible fix for long TSA lines is to eliminate the TSA and stop engaging in this silly security theater. It is demonstrably the case that the TSA security procedures are so porous that they can&amp;#x27;t stop regular people from &lt;i&gt;accidentally&lt;/i&gt; bringing weapons on board that they forgot about. The idea that they have prevented any terrorist attacks is ludicrous, yet they have imposed an enormous cost on air travel.&lt;p&gt;Eliminate the TSA and replace them with nothing. Cockpit doors are now reinforced, so the worst thing someone could do is blow up a plane, and if all you want to do is blow up a hundred people or so, you don&amp;#x27;t need to be on a plane to do it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smokeyj</author><text>&amp;gt; Actual threats are important, but so are perceived threats&lt;p&gt;Like the airplane that was downed because a passenger felt threatened by a math professor solving equations? I&amp;#x27;m sorry but catering to ignorance is not the way forward. We have real problems as a society, let&amp;#x27;s not solve imaginary ones.</text></comment>