5 ms·

Funny how HN is so willing to agree with the absurdity of security theater at airports, yet so resistant to calling out the pandemic theater we're living every

Funny how HN is so willing to agree with the absurdity of security theater at airports, yet so resistant to calling out the pandemic theater we're living every day.

duxup 5y ago
Probably because we can't see much evidence of airport security doing anything. And vaccines and etc are backed by science?
- biomcgary 5y ago
  Know of any randomized controlled trials on airport security?
  - duxup 5y ago
    It would be nice if they would do that.
  - EvanAnderson 5y ago
    There absolutely are red-team exercises against airport security. Sometimes the TSA has fared very poorly[0]. In the face of decreased air travel during this pandemic their "catch rate" has gotten better[1]. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-us-airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960872502/2020-firearm-catch-rate-at-airports-doubled-from-previous-year https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960872502/2020-firearm-catch-...
mrtksn 5y ago
The existence of the pandemic is a very observable and testable. The ways to combat the pandemic are also well known and tested. How a person can deny the existence of something that can test it personally?
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Yeah lockdowns were super well tested and worked wonders /s No, they cratered the middle class while making the rich richer. Now they know not to lock down to destroy the economy but instead push to destroy personal freedoms.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Talk to your local lockdown provider if you are not happy with the results. Done properly, of course a lockdown would be effective. Why? Because of the Germ theory. The viruses exist and they don't teleport. If anything, I would have much preferred if we had a month of global lockdown instead of years of slow burn battle. We wouldn't have had to convince people for vaccination too. It worked for Wuhan.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      No, locking down for an indoor virus is stupid. Vitamin D and open air works, not lock downs.
      - mrtksn 5y ago
        I am all in for spreading the population sparsely under the sun for a month(I'll take the Greece beaches or the French Riviera). We can make the immunes ones prepare the food and bring the beer.
        hunterb123 5y ago
        Well that's a large swing in the other direction, but I enjoy the hyperbole. You do realize lockdowns are the far other direction though? Do you see my point why lockdowns were bad? Allowing and encouraging people to go outside is the happy medium.
        mrtksn 5y ago
        The idea is to separate people from each other for long enough for the virus to die off. Could be done in many ways. Accommodating people in small separate groups for a month under the sun has it's practicality issues but if someone can pull it off the results would be exactly the same.
jjeaff 5y ago
I live in a pretty liberal area, so I assume we are taking stronger measures than your average area, and I have to say that nothing surrounding any covid precautions even approaches what it takes to get on a flight. Wear a mask indoors? Get the jab that most people wanted anyway? I'm just not seeing this Orwellian oppression that some people seem to be suffering under right now. NYC is the most strict, but they are also the most densely populated. Beyond that, I just don't feel like I've given up any rights. Can't say the same about a shoeless, invasive patdown where a stranger runs their hand down your butt crack after having waited in line for an hour and gone through a nude scanner.
- modzu 5y ago
  your comment sounds like what someone who doesnt fly might have said after 9/11. its not hard to think of some examples that apply to the covid security theatre. for example, there are fundamental freedoms, like the freedom of movement, that turn out not to be so fundamental after all. safety first.
- SergeAx 5y ago
  I live in Moscow, Russia, and there was a brief time when I was stripped of rights to enter a restaurant, cafe, gym, theater, concert or sports venue. There was talking about requirement of vaccination to use public transit and even a taxi. Fortunately, those restrictions were cancelled after 3 weeks, because you know, voting day is coming and we don't need angry citizens to vote against ruling party. But the infrastructure is there and it may be used again any time now.
aeternum 5y ago
It's not the same. Covid is clearly causing a significant increase in mortality. Even if you don't believe the covid-reporting numbers, you can simply look at excess deaths. It's very difficult to falsify death stats on a mass-scale especially in a country like the US.
- modzu 5y ago
  when the towers fell, nobody got hurt? the threats are legitimate, but its fair to be critical of the response.
  - aeternum 5y ago
    the threats are legitimate and every death counts but it also makes sense to prioritize and focus our limited attention to areas where it has the most impact. Terrorism kills something like 28k/year whereas Covid has killed 5 million.
    - umvi 5y ago
      The majority of the ~5 million that covid killed would have been dead of old age, heart disease, etc. in 5-10 years anyway. Covid just shaved off a few years of life expectancy; the same people would have shown up in CDC death counts as heart disease or natural causes statistics a few years later. With the 28k killed by terrorism, not so much. You have a lot more young and healthy dying with decades of life expectancy remaining. Same with comparing covid deaths to WWI deaths. On the one hand you have thousands of healthy 18-year-olds dying, and on the other you have thousands of elderly, obese, and sickly people dying. Not quite a fair comparison.
      - aeternum 5y ago
        We'll see, it's a falsifiable prediction, which is good, but we won't really know until we get the excess death numbers for the next 5-10 years. Even in the 25-44yr age range, we see a pretty significant increase in deaths: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F2_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F2_down
void_mint 5y ago
> Funny how HN is so willing to agree with the absurdity of security theater at airports, yet so resistant to calling out the pandemic theater we're living every day. Take a peek at a hospital if you have some time.
jfrankamp 5y ago
Both have theater aspects and let me propose something: that's good. When you approach airport security (theater) you wonder what their capabilities are _today_. Are they sniffing the air at large with their GCMS? Is there going to be a dog today? Its intimidating to think of it as a theoretical attacker because of its large and multifaceted apparatus, which is part of its deterrent power. Masks are somewhat similar, they have a vanishingly small chance of actually intercepting a virus particle/droplet that was going to infect you on a case by case basis BUT they make people approach you differently. They say "stand back".
- SergeAx 5y ago
  When you approaching airport or train station security theater, you slowing down due to limited throughput. And then bang! - a terrorist blows up in the crowd right in front of security gate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Volgograd_bombings#Train_station_bombing_on_29_December https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Volgograd_bomb...
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Actually they did a study on the masks and proved effective. It was done by picking a population of 350K, then separating them to test and control groups, encourage mask for the test group. The results are that at 39% mask use in the test group the covid cases were %12 lower than the control group. There was also a difference between surgical mask(%12) and cloth mask(%9) use. [0] https://twitter.com/Jabaluck/status/1433036933400305673/photo/1 https://twitter.com/Jabaluck/status/1433036933400305673/phot...
  - jfrankamp 5y ago
    No actually required :-). I didn't say masks were not effective, I said part of their effectiveness is the making-conscious of transmission vectors. E.g. when you wear a mask and see others do it you are more likely to wash your hands or stand back. When you wear a mask (as I do) in addition to blocking some particles you signal to others "lets play the not kill eachother game by limiting virus vectors!"

Funny how HN is so willing to agree with the absurdity of security theater at airports, yet so resistant to calling out the pandemic theater we're living every day.

duxup 5y ago

Probably because we can't see much evidence of airport security doing anything. And vaccines and etc are backed by science?

biomcgary 5y ago
Know of any randomized controlled trials on airport security?
- duxup 5y ago
  It would be nice if they would do that.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  There absolutely are red-team exercises against airport security. Sometimes the TSA has fared very poorly[0]. In the face of decreased air travel during this pandemic their "catch rate" has gotten better[1]. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-us-airports-allowed-weapons-through-n367851 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960872502/2020-firearm-catch-rate-at-airports-doubled-from-previous-year https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960872502/2020-firearm-catch-...

mrtksn 5y ago

The existence of the pandemic is a very observable and testable. The ways to combat the pandemic are also well known and tested. How a person can deny the existence of something that can test it personally?

hunterb123 5y ago
Yeah lockdowns were super well tested and worked wonders /s No, they cratered the middle class while making the rich richer. Now they know not to lock down to destroy the economy but instead push to destroy personal freedoms.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Talk to your local lockdown provider if you are not happy with the results. Done properly, of course a lockdown would be effective. Why? Because of the Germ theory. The viruses exist and they don't teleport. If anything, I would have much preferred if we had a month of global lockdown instead of years of slow burn battle. We wouldn't have had to convince people for vaccination too. It worked for Wuhan.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    No, locking down for an indoor virus is stupid. Vitamin D and open air works, not lock downs.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      I am all in for spreading the population sparsely under the sun for a month(I'll take the Greece beaches or the French Riviera). We can make the immunes ones prepare the food and bring the beer.
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Well that's a large swing in the other direction, but I enjoy the hyperbole. You do realize lockdowns are the far other direction though? Do you see my point why lockdowns were bad? Allowing and encouraging people to go outside is the happy medium.
        mrtksn 5y ago
        The idea is to separate people from each other for long enough for the virus to die off. Could be done in many ways. Accommodating people in small separate groups for a month under the sun has it's practicality issues but if someone can pull it off the results would be exactly the same.

jjeaff 5y ago

I live in a pretty liberal area, so I assume we are taking stronger measures than your average area, and I have to say that nothing surrounding any covid precautions even approaches what it takes to get on a flight. Wear a mask indoors? Get the jab that most people wanted anyway? I'm just not seeing this Orwellian oppression that some people seem to be suffering under right now. NYC is the most strict, but they are also the most densely populated. Beyond that, I just don't feel like I've given up any rights. Can't say the same about a shoeless, invasive patdown where a stranger runs their hand down your butt crack after having waited in line for an hour and gone through a nude scanner.

modzu 5y ago
your comment sounds like what someone who doesnt fly might have said after 9/11. its not hard to think of some examples that apply to the covid security theatre. for example, there are fundamental freedoms, like the freedom of movement, that turn out not to be so fundamental after all. safety first.
SergeAx 5y ago
I live in Moscow, Russia, and there was a brief time when I was stripped of rights to enter a restaurant, cafe, gym, theater, concert or sports venue. There was talking about requirement of vaccination to use public transit and even a taxi. Fortunately, those restrictions were cancelled after 3 weeks, because you know, voting day is coming and we don't need angry citizens to vote against ruling party. But the infrastructure is there and it may be used again any time now.

aeternum 5y ago

It's not the same. Covid is clearly causing a significant increase in mortality. Even if you don't believe the covid-reporting numbers, you can simply look at excess deaths. It's very difficult to falsify death stats on a mass-scale especially in a country like the US.

modzu 5y ago
when the towers fell, nobody got hurt? the threats are legitimate, but its fair to be critical of the response.
- aeternum 5y ago
  the threats are legitimate and every death counts but it also makes sense to prioritize and focus our limited attention to areas where it has the most impact. Terrorism kills something like 28k/year whereas Covid has killed 5 million.
  - umvi 5y ago
    The majority of the ~5 million that covid killed would have been dead of old age, heart disease, etc. in 5-10 years anyway. Covid just shaved off a few years of life expectancy; the same people would have shown up in CDC death counts as heart disease or natural causes statistics a few years later. With the 28k killed by terrorism, not so much. You have a lot more young and healthy dying with decades of life expectancy remaining. Same with comparing covid deaths to WWI deaths. On the one hand you have thousands of healthy 18-year-olds dying, and on the other you have thousands of elderly, obese, and sickly people dying. Not quite a fair comparison.
    - aeternum 5y ago
      We'll see, it's a falsifiable prediction, which is good, but we won't really know until we get the excess death numbers for the next 5-10 years. Even in the 25-44yr age range, we see a pretty significant increase in deaths: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F2_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F2_down

void_mint 5y ago

> Funny how HN is so willing to agree with the absurdity of security theater at airports, yet so resistant to calling out the pandemic theater we're living every day. Take a peek at a hospital if you have some time.

jfrankamp 5y ago

Both have theater aspects and let me propose something: that's good. When you approach airport security (theater) you wonder what their capabilities are _today_. Are they sniffing the air at large with their GCMS? Is there going to be a dog today? Its intimidating to think of it as a theoretical attacker because of its large and multifaceted apparatus, which is part of its deterrent power. Masks are somewhat similar, they have a vanishingly small chance of actually intercepting a virus particle/droplet that was going to infect you on a case by case basis BUT they make people approach you differently. They say "stand back".

SergeAx 5y ago
When you approaching airport or train station security theater, you slowing down due to limited throughput. And then bang! - a terrorist blows up in the crowd right in front of security gate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Volgograd_bombings#Train_station_bombing_on_29_December https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2013_Volgograd_bomb...
mrtksn 5y ago
Actually they did a study on the masks and proved effective. It was done by picking a population of 350K, then separating them to test and control groups, encourage mask for the test group. The results are that at 39% mask use in the test group the covid cases were %12 lower than the control group. There was also a difference between surgical mask(%12) and cloth mask(%9) use. [0] https://twitter.com/Jabaluck/status/1433036933400305673/photo/1 https://twitter.com/Jabaluck/status/1433036933400305673/phot...
- jfrankamp 5y ago
  No actually required :-). I didn't say masks were not effective, I said part of their effectiveness is the making-conscious of transmission vectors. E.g. when you wear a mask and see others do it you are more likely to wash your hands or stand back. When you wear a mask (as I do) in addition to blocking some particles you signal to others "lets play the not kill eachother game by limiting virus vectors!"