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The minutes of flight are there because they're a fundamental part of travel and are unavoidable if you choose to travel by air. An x-ray machine is there only

The minutes of flight are there because they're a fundamental part of travel and are unavoidable if you choose to travel by air. An x-ray machine is there only for the purpose of additional security. If the risk undergone for the machine outweighs the security benefit then the machine can and should be removed. In my mind, there is no equivalence between the unavoidable risk and the completely avoidable risk.

krschultz 14y ago
A lot of flight time is unnecessary. The technology to more efficiently route airplanes exists, we just have not yet allocated the money to do it. If it turns out that the X-rays really are no worse than 2 extra minutes of flights, I'd rather put the money towards improving the air traffic control infrastructure. Then we save time, reduce radiation exposure, and likely reduce the risk of an airplane crash. Seems like a better use of money to me.
- pdonis 14y ago
  Great point -- this is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.
- digikata 14y ago
  Airlines are already optimizing for flight times - time in the air is fuel burn which is a major cost input for the business. If your purpose is to save lives, and have some amount of money you're intent on spending to do so, there are many better opportunities to get better bang for your buck than either airport x-ray machines, or shortening flight times. What really bothers me is that I think that politicians and TSA bureaucrats have placed an outsized symbolic value on air security via X-ray machine, and setting in place a policy which causes real harm in sicknesses that are essentially unlinkable to the machines. Without a detailed and critical look at the effects, there will be no obvious red flags that people are literally dying for symbolism.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    Airlines are already optimizing for flight times - time in the air is fuel burn which is a major cost input for the business. Airlines certainly try to do this, but they don't control either the weather or the air traffic control system. That said, I don't disagree that further optimization for flight times is likely to have a low payoff compared to lots of other things. My only point is that any flight time optimization that's worth more than two minutes per flight, on average, must, of necessity, have a higher payoff than changing the type of scanners at the checkpoint. politicians and TSA bureaucrats have placed an outsized symbolic value on air security via X-ray machine This argument applies to any type of scanner, not just an X-ray one. It applies equally well to the millimeter wave scanners that the article mentions as the chief alternative to X-ray scanners. And it in no way affects the point that the additional risk due to the X-ray scanner, given that you have already accepted the risk of a flight, is negligible.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > The technology to more efficiently route airplanes exists, we just have not yet allocated the money to do it. This is actually well on its way to being implemented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillanc...
pdonis 14y ago
The minutes of flight are there because they're a fundamental part of travel and are unavoidable if you choose to travel by air. You're missing my point. My point is that if you think the radiation risk posed by the scanners is significant, you should not be flying in the first place, because the radiation risk posed by the flight is much more significant. If you've already decided to accept the radiation risk posed by the flight, the additional risk posed by the scanner is negligible; you would be better off spending the time and effort you are spending protesting about the scanners on something that would have more impact. (For example, see the post just downthread by krschultz.) An x-ray machine is there only for the purpose of additional security. If the risk undergone for the machine outweighs the security benefit then the machine can and should be removed. But that's not the question under discussion. The question is which type of scanner TSA should use, not whether TSA should scan, period.
- digikata 14y ago
  The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. In 2011, there were 640 million domestic air passengers in the US. If as a policy we're going to perform 640 million scans, what level of harm should be considered safe? If we take for example, win-the-lottery type odds of one-in-a-million, that's pretty small individually. Now perform the independent random draw 640 million times per year - that would be 640 cases of premature deaths per year give or take a little variation. If no scans are performed that outcome of additional deaths would be zero. Small numbers are not negligible when you repeat the trials millions of times.
  - pdonis 14y ago
    The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. And exactly the same logic applies to flying in general. If we don't consider the harm due to the scanners to be safe, then we shouldn't consider the harm due to flying itself to be safe, since the latter is several hundred times as large (at least) as the former. Both are being aggregated over exactly the same population of people. And before you say that "I choose to fly, but I don't choose to be scanned", you don't choose what the attendant risks of flying are either. You just have to decide whether or not to fly based on the risks as they are. Basically, with the scanners, when you choose to fly, you are choosing to fly for a couple more minutes than you would in the absence of the scanners. Do you routinely make flight choices based on differences of minutes in flight time? I thought not.

krschultz 14y ago

A lot of flight time is unnecessary. The technology to more efficiently route airplanes exists, we just have not yet allocated the money to do it. If it turns out that the X-rays really are no worse than 2 extra minutes of flights, I'd rather put the money towards improving the air traffic control infrastructure. Then we save time, reduce radiation exposure, and likely reduce the risk of an airplane crash. Seems like a better use of money to me.

pdonis 14y ago
Great point -- this is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.
digikata 14y ago
Airlines are already optimizing for flight times - time in the air is fuel burn which is a major cost input for the business. If your purpose is to save lives, and have some amount of money you're intent on spending to do so, there are many better opportunities to get better bang for your buck than either airport x-ray machines, or shortening flight times. What really bothers me is that I think that politicians and TSA bureaucrats have placed an outsized symbolic value on air security via X-ray machine, and setting in place a policy which causes real harm in sicknesses that are essentially unlinkable to the machines. Without a detailed and critical look at the effects, there will be no obvious red flags that people are literally dying for symbolism.
- pdonis 14y ago
  Airlines are already optimizing for flight times - time in the air is fuel burn which is a major cost input for the business. Airlines certainly try to do this, but they don't control either the weather or the air traffic control system. That said, I don't disagree that further optimization for flight times is likely to have a low payoff compared to lots of other things. My only point is that any flight time optimization that's worth more than two minutes per flight, on average, must, of necessity, have a higher payoff than changing the type of scanners at the checkpoint. politicians and TSA bureaucrats have placed an outsized symbolic value on air security via X-ray machine This argument applies to any type of scanner, not just an X-ray one. It applies equally well to the millimeter wave scanners that the article mentions as the chief alternative to X-ray scanners. And it in no way affects the point that the additional risk due to the X-ray scanner, given that you have already accepted the risk of a flight, is negligible.
ceejayoz 14y ago
> The technology to more efficiently route airplanes exists, we just have not yet allocated the money to do it. This is actually well on its way to being implemented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillanc...

pdonis 14y ago

The minutes of flight are there because they're a fundamental part of travel and are unavoidable if you choose to travel by air. You're missing my point. My point is that if you think the radiation risk posed by the scanners is significant, you should not be flying in the first place, because the radiation risk posed by the flight is much more significant. If you've already decided to accept the radiation risk posed by the flight, the additional risk posed by the scanner is negligible; you would be better off spending the time and effort you are spending protesting about the scanners on something that would have more impact. (For example, see the post just downthread by krschultz.) An x-ray machine is there only for the purpose of additional security. If the risk undergone for the machine outweighs the security benefit then the machine can and should be removed. But that's not the question under discussion. The question is which type of scanner TSA should use, not whether TSA should scan, period.

digikata 14y ago
The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. In 2011, there were 640 million domestic air passengers in the US. If as a policy we're going to perform 640 million scans, what level of harm should be considered safe? If we take for example, win-the-lottery type odds of one-in-a-million, that's pretty small individually. Now perform the independent random draw 640 million times per year - that would be 640 cases of premature deaths per year give or take a little variation. If no scans are performed that outcome of additional deaths would be zero. Small numbers are not negligible when you repeat the trials millions of times.
- pdonis 14y ago
  The risk probability is small for an individual trip. That doesn't mean we get to avoid looking at the collective risk numbers for scanners. And exactly the same logic applies to flying in general. If we don't consider the harm due to the scanners to be safe, then we shouldn't consider the harm due to flying itself to be safe, since the latter is several hundred times as large (at least) as the former. Both are being aggregated over exactly the same population of people. And before you say that "I choose to fly, but I don't choose to be scanned", you don't choose what the attendant risks of flying are either. You just have to decide whether or not to fly based on the risks as they are. Basically, with the scanners, when you choose to fly, you are choosing to fly for a couple more minutes than you would in the absence of the scanners. Do you routinely make flight choices based on differences of minutes in flight time? I thought not.