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For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you won't see this photo shown much, here is the homemade clock that Ahmed brought to school. [1] http://ww

• cheald 11y ago
  > if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Or...you know, ask them about it. A bomber wouldn't carry a Hollywood-looking bomb in a Hollywood-looking secret agent suitcase. They'd conceal it in their backpack, which is just like the other thousands of backpacks in the school. Calling the police is not an appropriate first response to this.
• NhanH 11y ago
  For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you might forgot you have seen this photo, this is what happened when the police arrived: https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625/photo/1 https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625... Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if they did not do anything wrong and is 14 years old, I think it's reasonable to expect them not being handcuffed and parade out of school in front of their peers. It's hard to take in good faith that the police have done their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias. Police were called, kid were arrested, detained massively erroneously, interrogated without the present of an attorney [0], and potentially having his life turned upside down, or side way (for better or worse). It's a tragedy that we see people without understanding of Bayesian statistics (or frequentist, for that matter) - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled? Hopefully some will learn that reasonable and probable cause needs to have some basis in certain priori, and that opportunity cost and the boy who cries wolf are really and very harmful issue. I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, and understand that P(massacre | kids = 14 years old in the US) is some number that probably is smaller than IEEE floating point error, then everyone will be better off for that. [0]: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-...
  • beauSD 11y ago
    The police detained him until they could investigate the device and question him about his intentions, then released him. Sounds like a rough afternoon, but hardly a ruined life. He's been released and he's exonerated. > Hopefully some will learn that reasonable and probable cause needs to have some basis in certain priori, and that opportunity cost and the boy who cries wolf are really and very harmful issue. I put the security of a school full of other kids above the 'opportunity cost' of being questioned by police. I'm guessing many other people would as well - especially the parents of the other kids at the school. > understand that P(massacre | kids = 14 years old in the US) is some number that probably is smaller than IEEE floating point error, then everyone will be better off for that. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because it doesn't happen in the US often, doesn't mean it won't. 14 years old are involved in violence all over the world, especially in bombing incidents.
    • NhanH 11y ago
      If you truly assume that the world is a dangerous place that we really need to be that careful, then it's the opportunity cost of the police force of NOT preventing the actual problems (there has to be some bad things being done/ will be done that is not prevented, right? That's the basis of your argument). And if they truly believed it was a dangerous bomb, was the school evacuated? > Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because it doesn't happen in the US often, doesn't mean it won't. 14 years old are involved in violence all over the world, especially in bombing incidents. This is not even wrong, and it's terrifying if politicians would be thinking the same way as you does here. There is no guarantee EVER that anything will, or will not happen. But due to the limited resources and capability that we human have, we have to act and behave rationally based on the probability that something will happen. A scenario that comes from an unfounded basis and human imagination can not be treated with the same weight as a scenario that has some more reasonable chance to happen (based on past performance or what not). And note that P(something) indicate the probability that something can happen (or your belief of something to happen, in Bayesian interpretation), it has nothing to do with past performance/ events. The past changes your belief of P, but probability is predicting the future. People in certain area of the world are involved in violence all year round, having bombed dropped on their roof, their hometown decimated. Are you preparing for that scenario to happen to you in the US in the present? Why or why not?
• mikepavone 11y ago
  > Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. I don't. All sorts of electronic devices beep. A bomb requires some kind of explosive and that suitcase looks empty apart from some electronics. Giving people a pass on assuming random electronics they don't understand is a bomb does not make us safer. > It's a tragedy that we see bombings and shootings in schools - but we do see them, and far too often. School shootings are far more common in the US than I'd like, but still fairly uncommon. School bombings on the other hand are incredibly rare. I can find only two in my lifetime. One in 2009 had no casualties. The other was the Columbine shooting which was quite deadly, but as best I can tell the deaths were all the result of gunfire rather than the bombs.