2 ms·

I have a genuine question -- how do these "non-paranoid" countries incentivize their staff to let people through while still catching true threats? That's ulti

I have a genuine question -- how do these "non-paranoid" countries incentivize their staff to let people through while still catching true threats? That's ultimately the problem we're trying to solve. The 3 main models I've seen thus far are following 1) US model, guards only rewarded for catching criminals or deporting. Lots of false negatives at no cost to guards so they fuck with you a lot for no apparent reason. Canada somewhat similar. 2) LatAm model, bribes/theft to incentivize the to not burn up time with false negatives, but they sonetimes are rewarded enough for true positives to not just let them go. 3) "Swedish" model. Straight salary and then not give a fuck. Seems everyone gets through with not much thought. LatAm model seems most practical of what I've seen but I haven't spent much time in Europe or Asia, mostly middle east, the Americas, and southeast asia.

cindyllm 1y ago
[dead]
notahacker 1y ago
I mean, "Swedish" model works pretty well for the majority of travellers, especially since the US and Mexico famously don't succeed in stopping drug trafficking across their borders anyway. If you want border staff to be more thorough in vetting threats, you hire for competence rather than corruption. LatAm model where they're too busy robbing people to care about actual threats (who are generally particularly happy to pay them off, including offers of recurring payments) seems like obviously the worst of both worlds. Though frankly my own LatAM border highlights were watching Ecuadorian airport staff meticulously searching the multiple suitcases every local family brought with them from Colombia and then not even bothering with a token gesture at my bag, and having no real issues at land borders despite crossing them with a strikingly different-looking temporary passport. Apparently the Bolivian border guard was enthusiastic enough about his job to give US Americans a lecture on why they had to pay to arrange a visa-on-arrival everyone else got for free

cindyllm 1y ago

[dead]

notahacker 1y ago

I mean, "Swedish" model works pretty well for the majority of travellers, especially since the US and Mexico famously don't succeed in stopping drug trafficking across their borders anyway. If you want border staff to be more thorough in vetting threats, you hire for competence rather than corruption. LatAm model where they're too busy robbing people to care about actual threats (who are generally particularly happy to pay them off, including offers of recurring payments) seems like obviously the worst of both worlds. Though frankly my own LatAM border highlights were watching Ecuadorian airport staff meticulously searching the multiple suitcases every local family brought with them from Colombia and then not even bothering with a token gesture at my bag, and having no real issues at land borders despite crossing them with a strikingly different-looking temporary passport. Apparently the Bolivian border guard was enthusiastic enough about his job to give US Americans a lecture on why they had to pay to arrange a visa-on-arrival everyone else got for free