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Forget terrorism. This is EXACTLY the same as God and Elevators. Think about it. Lets start easy: I see people every day come into an elevator and press the do

• timwiseman 15y ago
  After spending an entire semester in a course on the philosophy of religion and revieing things like the Scopes Monkey Trial during law school, I see arguments both for an against the existence of God. I think there is no proof either way. I personally believe in God and am in fact Christian, but that is a personal choice based on faith and I have great respect for people who have chosen other faiths or who believe that there is no God. This however is different. It can be shown that certain security measures actually are quite useful (sturdy, locked cockpit doors separating pilots and passengers for instance.) It can be shown that others are completely ineffective at their stated goals and seek only to avoid "donothingism" and fall into security theater
  • jpulgarin 15y ago
    Do you think atheists will go to hell?
  • burgerbrain 15y ago
    What evidence is there that supports the existence of a supernatural being? No, I think the TSA and religion are quite similar.
    • VladRussian 15y ago
      >No, I think the TSA and religion are quite similar. that's absolutely right. There is though a difference between a God and Organized Religion. For all we know Q is as God as any other and i do hope what he exists and enjoys the TNG on Netflix as much as i do :)
      • dlikhten 15y ago
        Remember that time that Q was forced to become human and was hunted down by that cloud entity for the horrors he inflicted on their culture? Yea... All hail Q.
  • brlewis 15y ago
    For purposes of keeping the discussion on topic, can we just assume dlikhten's comment is specifically about people whose belief in God is based on Pascal's wager, and not about believers in general?
    • dlikhten 15y ago
      Its a shame people down-voted this. This is exactly what I meant. I care not about existence vs non-existence but the way people treat it.
    • notahacker 15y ago
      To be fair, it could be said the analogy falls a little flat if Pascal's Wager is almost invariably considered only as an ad hoc rationalisation for things people genuinely believe to be true.
  • dlikhten 15y ago
    I am in no way claiming the existence or non existence of god. However I am claiming that security measures are exactly like the belief in god (probably a correction is exactly like religions). It makes no difference if it's true.
  • derleth 15y ago
    > arguments both for an against the existence of God. Arguments are one thing, evidence is something else. > believe there is no God That isn't what atheism is, or at least that isn't what most English-speaking people who describe themselves as atheist mean by it. Western atheists think the existence of any deities is unproven; it is not supported by the evidence.
    • Fargren 15y ago
      That isn't what atheism is, or at least that isn't what most English-speaking people who describe themselves as atheist mean by it. Western atheists think the existence of any deities is unproven; it is not supported by the evidence. That's not atheism, that's agnosticism.
      • derleth 15y ago
        Agnosticism is a faith claim: It's claiming that we can never know anything about a deity. I'm an atheist. I say the existence of a deity is both unproven and highly unlikely given the current evidence.
        • nodata 15y ago
          .. and until the time that it is otherwise proven, an atheist doesn't believe in a deity.
          • wnight 15y ago
            There is of course, a huge difference between not believing in something and believing that it must not be.
      • burgerbrain 15y ago
        Ponder the following: I'm agnostic in the same way I'm 'agnostic' about the existence of unicorns.
• jrosenblatt 15y ago
  Not so sure about the elevator part. Depends on the elevator. The elevator in my building in NY has functional open and close buttons. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/2010/12/the-great-elevator-button-debate-part-ii.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/2010/12/the-great-el...
  • dlikhten 15y ago
    Um there are working buttons in the elevators I describe, just on a timer. Most of the time its on a timer if active even.
  • Pyrodogg 15y ago
    For the most part, the open and close door buttons are there for use by firefighters. If you're a fire fighter using an elevator you don't want the doors to automatically open or close when you get to a questionable floor. When the fire key is turned the doors are manually controlled and only respond to those buttons. Otherwise, the Open door button is for people wanting to feel good and the Close door button might as well be controlled by Schrodinger cat.
    • darklajid 15y ago
      Not sure why you were downvoted, but this is false as others have pointed out here. Adding another data point: The close button on the elevator in this building here works as expected. Press it, door closes _right away_. Don't press it, wait for the doors to close in a couple of seconds.
• dantheman 15y ago
  Many elevators have functional close buttons, just as many street crossing buttons work too.
  • TeHCrAzY 15y ago
    I would say most,in both cases (at least in Australia). My experiences have never bought me across non-functional versions of either.
• tzs 15y ago
  > I see people every day come into an elevator and press the door close button like it is the only way to get air. Nobody realizes that the button does nothing. Furthermore many do, but they do it any ways on the off chance that it saves them an extra millisecond here or there of waiting. It never gives any benefit. However "may as well do it just in case it works". Trivial to disprove but still The close door button on the elevators in my work building work as follows: 1. After summoning the elevator, if I enter and press the door close button, the door immediately starts to close--even if I have not selected a destination. If I do not press the door close button, the door closes automatically after several seconds. 2. If I press the door open button to interrupt a door closing, as soon as the door finishes opening the door close button makes it close. If the door close is not pressed, the door closed on its own after approximately five seconds. 3. When the elevator arrives at a destination floor, if I press the door close as soon as the door finishes opening, it immediately starts closing. If I do not press the button, the door opens, waits several seconds, then closes. Conclusion: your theories on elevator operation are inconsistent with experiment.
  • brettvallis 15y ago
    In my experience - admittedly, I haven't been keeping detailed notes - 99.9% of the elevator close buttons that I have pushed have done absolutely nothing: the doors just wait the default interval before closing. The open buttons always stop the doors closing, but the close buttons: no response. Perhaps it's country specific, or company specific. But most people know this, and don't press them. The button is irrelevant and ignored. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about airport security: irrelevant but unfortunately cannot be ignored.
    • danssig 15y ago
      It depends on where. In Switzerland they absolutely do something.
• wazoox 15y ago
  Small hack: in many elevators, pushing and holding the close button then hitting your destination prevents it from stopping at any intermediate level. IIRC it always works in Otis elevators, for the other YMMV. It's a sure way to annoy your fellow passengers when ascending, and a sure way to annoy people waiting for the elevator at descent :)
  • nodata 15y ago
    I've heard this a lot, and tried it a lot. It's never worked for me. Which elevators does it work with?
• Arjuna 15y ago
  dlikhten quote: Nobody realizes that the button does nothing. I wanted to point out that the door open/close buttons definitely have a function when the elevator is operating in emergency mode. Allow me to expand further with an example scenario: First off, an elevator's emergency operation mode is engaged by using a key. You may have noticed the keyhole before in an elevator car; it is typically located near the floor selection panel. It is primarily used by firefighter's or emergency personnel, in order to take control of the elevators. Next, imagine a hypothetical elevator situation. The elevator is in normal operation mode. You step into an empty elevator car at floor 1, and you select floor 14 as your destination. Someone else enters the elevator car with you, and selects floor 3 as the destination. Now, floor 3 and floor 14 have been selected and are illuminated on the floor selection panel. Assuming no other factors, the elevator car stops at floor 3, the doors automatically open, and the person that selected floor 3 steps out. But wait... you decide to step out too, because you need to hit the restroom. As it turns out, no one is entering the elevator car that you and the passenger just exited at floor 3. The elevator car is now empty. What happens now? The doors automatically close. No one is on board the elevator car that you just exited, and floor 14 is still selected. This is immutable; assuming no other factors, the elevator car will eventually make it to floor 14, or be stopped by other passengers that are waiting for that elevator car before it gets there. In either case, the elevator car is out of your control. Now, think of it from a firefighter's perspective. A firefighter does not want to be in a scenario where the elevator car is capable of leaving a floor, without his or her express command, regardless of whether the elevator car is being called by someone else, or if a floor has been selected and no one is in the elevator car. This is what the door close button is for when an elevator is in emergency operation mode. In this mode, the desired floor is selected, then the door close button must be fully engaged and held until the elevator car begins to move. If the door close button is released before the elevator car begins to move, the doors will automatically open, and the elevator car will remain on the current floor. In emergency operation mode, when an elevator car arrives at the selected floor, the doors will not automatically open. The open door button must be fully engaged and held in order for the doors to fully open. If the open door button is released before the doors are fully opened, the doors will automatically close. This functionality is designed to allow a firefighter to partially open the doors in order to assess a situation (e.g., fire, smoke, etc.), again, at his or her express command. Otherwise, the doors would automatically open fully, potentially exposing the firefighter to flames, or quickly filling the elevator car with smoke.