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The worst part for me (and I really am feeling bad about this) is that I should be concerned about the victims right now, but I can't stop thinking about what f
by noonespecial 14y ago
The worst part for me (and I really am feeling bad about this) is that I should be concerned about the victims right now, but I can't stop thinking about what freedoms I'll be losing as a result of this.
- twoodfin 14y agoSeriously? Because you had so much more freedom in 1999?
- Zikes 14y agoYou haven't traveled much lately, have you?
- ConceitedCode 14y agoAt least I could take nail clippers on an airplane in 1999.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y agoYou still can today. That is a myth. http://www.seatguru.com/articles/tsa_prohibited_items.php http://www.seatguru.com/articles/tsa_prohibited_items.php
- mrtron 14y agoI have had nail clippers removed from my bag by the TSA recently.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y agoHere is TSA's own blog saying nail clippers are allowed: http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/01/lighters-nail-clippers-and-lithium.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/01/lighters-nail-clippers-and-lithi... http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/05/tsa-urban-legends-nail-clippers.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/05/tsa-urban-legends-nail-clippers.... http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-claim-that-nail.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-claim-that-nail.... http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/updated-tsa-response-to-claim-that-nail.html http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/updated-tsa-response-to-claim-th...
- moens 14y agowtf? The OP just (implicitly) agreed that this was the case, and that nail clippers had been taken anyway... who reads the TSA's blog?
- thedufer 14y agoIt is a myth that taking nailclippers is TSA policy. This has not stopped them from doing it anyway.
- pekk 14y agoPeople die and lose their limbs, and your first move is apparently crying about how the government takes away your nail clippers.
- moens 14y ago100's of people die and lose their limbs in an tragic, yet oddly sensational event, and your first move is to decry a person angry about how the government uses similarly sensational events to systematically impose restrictions of freedom on (more or less) the entire world. Once bit twice shy. Muzzle your fkng dog.
- jlarocco 14y agoHarsh as it may be, the people dying and losing their limbs will have no direct impact on my life, or on most other people's lives. It's a tragedy for their friends and loved ones, but I'm not in that group, so it's a very abstract thing - I feel bad, but it won't affect me personally. Losing freedom has the potential to affect me personally, so I'm more concerned about it. And I don't necessarily agree it's too early to discus the consequences of this. The authorities on the scene are handling the immediate situation, and there's very little to be done from 2K miles away.
- Zancarius 14y ago> And I don't necessarily agree it's too early to discus the consequences of this. The authorities on the scene are handling the immediate situation, and there's very little to be done from 2K miles away. I agree. Chance are, the friends and family who are directly affected by this aren't going to be trawling through comments on HN--there are more pressing concerns. The rest of us, and maybe this will sound equally harsh, need to divorce ourselves from the emotional impact if there's nothing we can do (or donate to the appropriate organizations if so inclined). Right now, there's little that can be done, and even less information still. That leaves the most objective option as what we're doing right now: That is to say the discussion of potential policy changes. I'm not sure this event is significant enough to affect anything on a large scale (e.g. TSA on every street corner), but you do have to wonder what changes might be made to future marathons as a consequence. I don't necessarily think that's harsh as much as it is objective.
- kanja 14y agoAre you kidding? We're demonstrably less free today than 1999. The TSA springs to mind, the patriot act..
- debt 14y agoah jesus. relax.
- pekk 14y agoIf you are feeling bad, why are you saying it? This feels like you are standing on a soapbox and it's hard to think you are actually sorry for it when you are doing it intentionally.
- benatkin 14y agoBecause guilt isn't an emotion that can always be trusted.
- noonespecial 14y agoI'm just a dude facing a big stab of mental dissonance right now. I'm not trying to push a political agenda. My brother ran in and finished the marathon last year. I didn't make it out to see him and I wish I had. So the first thing I feel is dread, it takes a moment to resolve that he wasn't there, and then I think will I ever be able to get close enough to reach out my hand to him as he comes down the final stretch again or did I miss that chance forever? Will it be all police cars, dogs and jersey walls from here on out? This sucks.
- Terretta 14y ago> Will it be all police cars, dogs and jersey walls from here on out? The video from the camera man on the ground at the finish line shows countless cops at the finish line. All that police presence did not prevent the detonation.
- chadillac83 14y agoFeeling bad about having a legitimate stance in the face of a tragedy isn't cause for self censorship. It might be social pariahism, but it's not cause enough for one to bite their tongue.
- smrtinsert 14y agobecause he desperately needs attention and right now boston has it.
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
- tomjen3 14y agoThousands die every day, but freedoms should persist. Besides with a little luck this is North Korea and we don't have to loose any more freedoms (do we even have more to lose?)
- w1ntermute 14y agoAre you really asking whether we have more freedoms to lose in the same sentence that you mention North Korea? Really?
- b-ryan 14y agoYou seem to be implying that because North Korea is less free than us, we are completely free with nothing to lose. That's pretty faulty logic. Better to be aware of the freedoms we are losing (even though we still have many) than to risk ending up like North Korea.
- w1ntermute 14y ago> You seem to be implying that because North Korea is less free than us, we are completely free with nothing to lose. That's pretty faulty logic. Better to be aware of the freedoms we are losing (even though we still have many) than to risk ending up like North Korea. Clearly my point completely flew over your head. I was only commenting on how ridiculous it was that tomjen3 claimed that we had already lost all our freedoms in the very same sentence that he mentioned a country that is far more oppressive than our own.
- b-ryan 14y agoGood point. I misread tomjen3's original comment.
- ConceitedCode 14y agoCouldn't agree more so. What "precautions" and new reforms are we gonna see in the name of security?
- w1ntermute 14y agoNo doubt some "reforms" will be implemented that will funnel even more money into the pockets of lobbyist-using companies and big-time campaign donors.
- larrys 14y ago"we gonna see in the name of security" Watershed events always create these emotional knee jerk reactions. As opposed to "well we can save lives by driving 50 mph instead of 70 mph but since that's legacy we aren't likely to not consider the impact on society as a whole by lowering the speed limit."
- numbsafari 14y agoWho knows. But after every crisis there should be a post mortem and we should learn from what went wrong. And why does every change in policy and approach have to be seen as a threat to anybody's freedoms? Not that many of the short-sighted response aren't just that, but this sort of knee jerk reaction seems just as unhealthy.
- Osiris 14y agoThere's no way to prevent every crisis. Just because something bad happens doesn't mean that there is something that you could have done to stop it. Sometimes people just need to realize that things happen and we don't have to pass new laws and regulations every time something bad happens.
- njittam 14y agoa security reseacher made a bomb from stuff he bought after going trough the costums at schiphol. so most of the security is just show off.
- 14y ago
- mathattack 14y agoWhen 9/11 hit my first thought was, "Travel is really going to suck now." When the Bali bombing hit, I thought, "I've been to that bar, holy sh*t!" This time around I'm thinking, "I know some people who were running." Reaction to issues is tied to how much you can personally relate to the victims. It's also why 2 people dying in a stream in your neighborhood seems so much more relevant than 100,000 people dying in an earthquake halfway around the world.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- diminoten 14y agoI'm not worried about me as much as I'm worried about the poor citizens of the country these people are from, if it's a foreign group.
- zobzu 14y agoSounds legit to me. Do you feel bad about the hundred of people murdered every day? I don't. Its just that they aren't on the news. I'd feel bad for the people i remotely know, or for the families if I were to meet them, but otherwise.. it's not any different. It's bad, but doesn't make one feel bad - and that's perfectly fine.
- joonix 14y agoSpeak for yourself.
- level09 14y agowhat he says actually makes perfect sense. thousands of syrians are dying everyday, and I don't see much mentions about them on HN for example. yes you will feel bad, but you will quickly move on and forget about it as long as it doesn't relate directly to you.
- narrator 14y agoThe first thought on my mind was what mysterious 1000 page bill is going to show up and get rushed through congress because of all this?
- MrBlue 14y agoProblem, reaction, solution.
- narrator 14y agoMy second thought is how weird it is that for the next couple of days the attention and focus of a 100s of millions of people's will be directed at the circumstances surrounding the deaths of perhaps 20 people of no particular notability. It's as if these are the only 20 people that died lately. The attention and focus of the public in this modern era of global communications is a strange thing.
- Maxious 14y agoWould you like Federal Information Security Amendments Act, Cybersecurity Enhancement Act or Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)?
- mbesto 14y agoNo worries, you're simply thinking pragmatically, when everyone else is emotional. The killings are nothing but a mode of transport for destruction of freedom.
- ne0codex 14y agoAnother thing to focus on is the infrastructure. Telephone lines and data networks must be clogged, it just goes to show how much we need reliable networks and data infrastructures for such vital occurrences!
- gyardley 14y agoThe most likely change to your freedoms is 'none whatsoever' -- tragedies on this scale don't threaten society as a whole and therefore are dealt with by existing laws.
- CamperBob2 14y ago9/11 didn't threaten society, either. Just a few nutcase cultists who got lucky with a single attack that they couldn't sustain.
- gyardley 14y agoPerhaps. That wasn't particularly evident at the time.
- jmgrosen 14y agoHow is the scale of this disaster any different than that of Newtown's? That has obviously had a large political impact.
- gyardley 14y agoI doubt Newtown will have much of a legal impact.
- jenius 14y agoI feel like everyone expects a reaction and increased security and such, but sometimes this type of reaction won't be fruitful. What could we learn from this -- check every trash can for a bomb at every big event? There are an unlimited number of places you could hide a bomb. If someone trying to blow people up saw the 'reaction' being checking every trash can, they would just learn not to hide their bomb in a trash can. There's just no chance we can prevent disasters like this with security increases alone. I feel like at this point that we should be examining who did it, and what caused them to do it rather than how it could have been prevented with security measures. Get to the root of the problem and solve it there, rather than a surface-level patch. Was it a mental health thing? Was it spurred by our culture of violence and/or attention to violence? Was the attacker after a specific person? Certainly not easy to find out these answers, but would probably be effort better spent than checking trash cans. I'm sure there will be some silly knee-jerk response that serves no good for the public and likely just inconveniences everyone. I'm also sure that people working in the government understand these short-term reactions are almost always useless. Why does it continue happening?
- rayiner 14y agoIs there some "silly knee-jerk" response to every such event? I don't remember the knee-jerk response to the Oklahoma City bombing. Or the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Or the first WTC bombing. Or the attempted 2010 Times Square bombing. The response to Sandy Hook is better described as "belabored" rather than "knee-jerk." As for 9/11, that involved 3,000 people dead and the collapse of a major American icon. It killed more people than the Pearl Harbor bombing and involved direct costs and losses approaching $100 billion.[1] Jury's still out on whether it was a "silly knee-jerk" response or a reasonable wake-up to the threat of global islamic terrorism. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57292565/cost-of-911-in-dollars/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57292565/cost-of-911-...
- wtallis 14y agoThe response to even the most serious disasters can qualify as a "silly knee-jerk" if the response does little or nothing to ameliorate the disaster or prevent another one. 9/11 was bad, but that still doesn't justify security theater.
- 6thSigma 14y agoThe fact that this is the top comment for this thread makes me sad.
- noonespecial 14y agoTo be quite honest, me too. I expected it to just be background radiation: I too feel badly, conflicted and confused. I didn't expect this. Sitting at the top like that it really does start to look like soap-boxing or attention whoring. Apologies all, I really didn't mean it that way.
- anigbrowl 14y agoWell stop agonizing about it and delete it then. I'm not saying that to be snarky, I'm pointing out that it's something useful you can do right now to get it off the top of the page.
- Zancarius 14y agoThat doesn't accomplish anything useful. A day or two from now, someone who hasn't yet seen the thread will wonder what the "deleted" part of the conversation was for. The best thing to do if you disagree with the position of the OP's comment is to upvote other siblings. Personally, I think this discussion is interesting because it addresses in real time the implications of what this attack might be (if any).
- noonespecial 14y agoGood news. Looks like someone upstairs noticed and knocked it to the bottom. Thank you, moderators.
- anigbrowl 14y agoAll's well that ends well,then. I understand you didn't expect it to become the top comment.
- Zancarius 14y ago
- doron 14y agoI think it largely depends on who will be found as the culprit. If it would be found that this is an Islamist terror attack the aftermath will be much more pronounced then a scenario where the blame will be on say some extreme right wing group. Much of the lose of freedom we all suffer from is due to entrenched xenophobia becoming political agenda, it seems much harder to enact changes when the criminals are white Americans ala Timothy McVeigh or some horrific mass shooting
- ctdonath 14y agoCulprit (Saudi national?) may have been found. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/authorities_under_suspect_guard_y2m8cJO29uC2PDGIjYBalO http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/authorities_under_susp...
- MrBlue 14y agoCulprit? I think Patsy is a better word.
- mbesto 14y agoYou do realize you just linked to a NY Post article right?
- tptacek 14y agoThis is a rumor BPD already shot down, after NY Post ran the story.
- danielweber 14y agoI remember when they found the 9/11 bombers in a Boston hotel, too. While figuring out who did this will be very very important, right now it's not something the public should worry about.
- youngerdryas 14y agoOf course, because you are spoiled, whining nerd, who has no idea about real suffering.
- 3pt14159 14y agoFuck off. How much blood has the western world lost to achieve freedom, privacy, and a government by the people for the people? We cannot continue to allow the enemy to terrorize us into giving up our liberties. Also, fuck off with the "whining nerd" shit.
- youngerdryas 14y agoTerrorists are exploiting our freedoms so security may make you wait for your latte...oh look those people died hope I don't have to wait.
- coldtea 14y agoIf you're not for the third world then you have no idea at all about REAL suffering. A bomb in a sports event? That's suffering people eat for breakfast around other parts of the world.
- bargl 14y agoWhy is this the top thread? I'm being serious here... I honestly don't understand how this got all the way up to the top where as others of much greater worth (IMHO) sit below...
- noonespecial 14y agoI agree totally. I'd delete it if it would take it from the top instead of leaving the discussion there behind a curious "deleted". I've scrolled down and up-voted as many of those more valuable comments as I could. I encourage everyone who reads this far to go and do the same. As I said, I thought this would be a "one voice among many" kind of post, not become the lightning-rod of this thread. Parent is right. Go read the better stuff.
- ctdonath 14y agoBecause most people think violent attacks on high-profile innocents is more meaningful than, say, the merits of blogging without an audience.
- mladenkovacevic 14y agoIt'll probably kick-start an invasive drone surveillance bill and some unrelated oil-rich country being turned into dust. I wish this was hyperbole but based on previous US reactions this makes the most sense.
- waffle_ss 14y agoIf anything a successful terrorist attack should be a condemnation of the freedom-sacrificing mechanisms that have been put in place like the PATRIOT Act. They just failed.
- losvedir 14y agoFor what it's worth, I upvoted this question despite so many comments bemoaning its existence. The facts will be fleshed out over time on the regular news, so I see less value in comments just parroting that. Rather, (if this is to be discussed on Hacker News at all), I'd prefer it to be about the ramifications of the event, and especially how it relates to technology, or laws/regulations that foster the development of technologies. I'm a Bostonian (at work about a mile from the explosions), and I wish everyone would just cool their jets a bit until more is known about what's going on.
- wavesounds 14y agoThey're going to be searching peoples bags on the subway tomorrow, no mention of the 4th amendment given.