6 ms·

I don't want to make this political as I'm unaffiliated with any political party, but I notice a trend and have a theory. When Republicans are shaping policy,

I don't want to make this political as I'm unaffiliated with any political party, but I notice a trend and have a theory. When Republicans are shaping policy, they tend to target air travel. The article states that the system gets false denials as much as 1 out of 25 times... 4% is a very high error rate. For DIA alone that would average out to almost ~6,700 false denials a day. And that's not accounting for people who have been miscategorized in the system by the threat detection algorithm. It's another level of worry and potential headache associated with air travel. Before 9/11, you could arrive at an airport 20 minutes before your flight was supposed to take off and still make it. After 9/11, to get on a plane you had to let the government take a nude picture of you, get a dose of radiation, and expect security lines to take 2 hours or more. The hassle of flying made the comparative cost of driving places less because there was so much hassle associated with it. And that's the basis my theory, the government is trying to dissuade people from flying in favor of burning through oil by artificially increasing its cost. Not to mention, like always, lining the pockets of the contractors in what is likely another no-bid scenario. When 9/11 happened, public resources were poured into buying a bunch of nude body scanners that nobody wanted, were unvetted for long-term safety, and were literally useless for many types of weapons. But the measures were successful at making flying a nightmare. Now the goal is to pour public resources into broadening the scope of no-fly list and implement a broken computer vision system to figure out who to ground? And for what? Has there been an upswing in terrorists hijacking planes domestically lately that we're responding to? To my knowledge there have been 0 incidents of air travel terrorism in the US since 9/11. It seems like the Republicans just like to make air travel as miserable as possible to convince the average American to choose to road trip in the face of cheap and quick air travel to justify their oil interests. And with people as irresponsible as the ones who put in the Rapiscan machines in charge of evaluating threat levels it seem like a recipe for disaster (unless you are a private prison owner). Not to mention that with 2012's National Defense Authorization act, America was qualified as a war zone to justify its indefinite detention clause. I don't think anyone what's to live in an America where groups of politically active people could be hauled off as terrorist threats because they didn't want an oil pipeline polluting the waterways of the natives. Go to the airport for vacation and end up indefinitely detained as a terrorist? That would frighten many people out of flying I'd imagine. DHS is a bad joke that needs to go away.

stareatgoats 8y ago
Interesting theory, but I was about to say that oil burned per person mile is higher for airplanes than for cars. It seems that this is old info however; since 2005 airplanes have indeed been more efficient, in the US at least. [0] I should add that I agree that the hassle at checkout is becoming a impediment to flying, but I still don't believe your theory. I believe the most important driving force paradoxically may be the airlines (in addition to the surveillance state), in a drive to give passengers the sense of security they need to keep flying, it was always a sensitive issue. [0] http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/140715_JUI_AirplanePollutionChart.png.CROP.original-original.png http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the...
- makewavesnotwar 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm definitely not saying people should be flying or driving as much as they do (the time-convenience or price of air travel may cause people who wouldn't otherwise travel to go for it - I've definitely hopped a plane back to CA just because Frontier was offering flights for $20 each way). And the use of cost functions in terms of the dollar rather than thermal / fuel efficiency do result in a lot of poor decisions by airlines based on maximizing profit. But in terms of the financial impact on the 1% and their incentive to try to shape policy, there are a mountain of reasons for them to want people to use cars rather than planes. For one, there are some ultra rich people that own a bunch of gas stations and the attached convenience store. People flying over middle America hurt their bottom line, and they get to cry foul on the basis of it killing "small town business." Next, regarding thermal efficiency, planes operate at 35,000 ft (this may be less now as I notice low-cost airlines like Frontier tend to fly lower) but the thing is, the less atmosphere you have above you, the less insulation you have for the heat to be retained inside the atmosphere and the more cooling you have from the cold of space. Driving on the other hand generates enormous amounts of heat on the surface of the planet. Both with the gasoline burning, but also with the road network. If you've ever ridden a bike on a hot day and crossed from a concrete to black asphalt, you probably noticed a rather substantial temperature change. Black asphalt, in addition to being yet another way to sell a petroleum product to the masses, is more black than pretty much any naturally occurring substance on the planet and as such generates more heat. And unlike other black substances like volcanic rock, asphalt traps heat (I've definitely had my feet scorched while running across blacktop). This surface heat generation has a compounding effect for the 1% as America has an unhealthy obsession with climate control and by generating more surface heat, they are essentially selling more coal to power the air conditioning units (places like Arizona where heat is the worst are not even mildly interested in ecologically responsible power generation - the retirees living there by and large support Trump who's putting through legislation like PV tariffs). And any heat is good in the eyes of a coal tycoon because it creates a positive feedback loop - the hotter it gets the more coal they get to burn and the hotter it gets. Plus the hotter it gets, the more people can make an excuse to drive their air conditioned car to their local whatever rather than riding a bike or walking because "it's just too hot" or "it's unsafe to be out in this heat." So I guess I'm just saying that I think air vs car travel has a much bigger impact on the bottom-line of the 1%ers than most people account for. To your point of average BTUs, I think you also have to average out passive BTUs generated by all cross-country roadways against cross-country travelers to get an accurate number and a multiplier effect of coal & gasoline fueled climate control (I assume fuel efficiency with driving goes way down when high temperatures cause people to blast their AC), and also account for added thermal efficiency of air travel in terms of how much of that energy is actually captured by the atmosphere and how much is negated by space cooling. There's also the point of average environmental cost vs marginal environmental cost to the consumer. The average cost might be really high if my $20 flight was under-booked and there were only 40 passengers onboard. But if that flight were going to happen anyway because the airline had already passed the threshold to justify not cancelling it, then the marginal environmental cost of me flying is low. I'm essentially just a 200 pound weight on a 135,000 pound machine. Fuel efficiency-wise for the plane, I am equivalent to a ~3 lb weight in a 1 ton automobile. Interesting graph, though also curious that it would appear that the intersection point of the airlines incrementally improving efficiency trend line and the auto's relatively stable trend line appears to have happened around 2000/2001 right around the time of the 9/11 attack. (Not that I'm suggesting anything nefarious, but Ooooooo....) And agree to disagree on the airlines being the driving force for these measures (or any related measures like the travel ban).

stareatgoats 8y ago

Interesting theory, but I was about to say that oil burned per person mile is higher for airplanes than for cars. It seems that this is old info however; since 2005 airplanes have indeed been more efficient, in the US at least. [0] I should add that I agree that the hassle at checkout is becoming a impediment to flying, but I still don't believe your theory. I believe the most important driving force paradoxically may be the airlines (in addition to the surveillance state), in a drive to give passengers the sense of security they need to keep flying, it was always a sensitive issue. [0] http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/140715_JUI_AirplanePollutionChart.png.CROP.original-original.png http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/business/the...

makewavesnotwar 8y ago
Yeah, I'm definitely not saying people should be flying or driving as much as they do (the time-convenience or price of air travel may cause people who wouldn't otherwise travel to go for it - I've definitely hopped a plane back to CA just because Frontier was offering flights for $20 each way). And the use of cost functions in terms of the dollar rather than thermal / fuel efficiency do result in a lot of poor decisions by airlines based on maximizing profit. But in terms of the financial impact on the 1% and their incentive to try to shape policy, there are a mountain of reasons for them to want people to use cars rather than planes. For one, there are some ultra rich people that own a bunch of gas stations and the attached convenience store. People flying over middle America hurt their bottom line, and they get to cry foul on the basis of it killing "small town business." Next, regarding thermal efficiency, planes operate at 35,000 ft (this may be less now as I notice low-cost airlines like Frontier tend to fly lower) but the thing is, the less atmosphere you have above you, the less insulation you have for the heat to be retained inside the atmosphere and the more cooling you have from the cold of space. Driving on the other hand generates enormous amounts of heat on the surface of the planet. Both with the gasoline burning, but also with the road network. If you've ever ridden a bike on a hot day and crossed from a concrete to black asphalt, you probably noticed a rather substantial temperature change. Black asphalt, in addition to being yet another way to sell a petroleum product to the masses, is more black than pretty much any naturally occurring substance on the planet and as such generates more heat. And unlike other black substances like volcanic rock, asphalt traps heat (I've definitely had my feet scorched while running across blacktop). This surface heat generation has a compounding effect for the 1% as America has an unhealthy obsession with climate control and by generating more surface heat, they are essentially selling more coal to power the air conditioning units (places like Arizona where heat is the worst are not even mildly interested in ecologically responsible power generation - the retirees living there by and large support Trump who's putting through legislation like PV tariffs). And any heat is good in the eyes of a coal tycoon because it creates a positive feedback loop - the hotter it gets the more coal they get to burn and the hotter it gets. Plus the hotter it gets, the more people can make an excuse to drive their air conditioned car to their local whatever rather than riding a bike or walking because "it's just too hot" or "it's unsafe to be out in this heat." So I guess I'm just saying that I think air vs car travel has a much bigger impact on the bottom-line of the 1%ers than most people account for. To your point of average BTUs, I think you also have to average out passive BTUs generated by all cross-country roadways against cross-country travelers to get an accurate number and a multiplier effect of coal & gasoline fueled climate control (I assume fuel efficiency with driving goes way down when high temperatures cause people to blast their AC), and also account for added thermal efficiency of air travel in terms of how much of that energy is actually captured by the atmosphere and how much is negated by space cooling. There's also the point of average environmental cost vs marginal environmental cost to the consumer. The average cost might be really high if my $20 flight was under-booked and there were only 40 passengers onboard. But if that flight were going to happen anyway because the airline had already passed the threshold to justify not cancelling it, then the marginal environmental cost of me flying is low. I'm essentially just a 200 pound weight on a 135,000 pound machine. Fuel efficiency-wise for the plane, I am equivalent to a ~3 lb weight in a 1 ton automobile. Interesting graph, though also curious that it would appear that the intersection point of the airlines incrementally improving efficiency trend line and the auto's relatively stable trend line appears to have happened around 2000/2001 right around the time of the 9/11 attack. (Not that I'm suggesting anything nefarious, but Ooooooo....) And agree to disagree on the airlines being the driving force for these measures (or any related measures like the travel ban).