4 ms·

Can anyone imagine that happening here, in the country where flag burning is constitutionally protected? Well, that feels sort of disingenuous. From the POV of

by gngeal 13y ago

Can anyone imagine that happening here, in the country where flag burning is constitutionally protected? Well, that feels sort of disingenuous. From the POV of a scheming politician in power, harmless gestures would certainly seem much less important than agents of your potential downfall communicating in ways that you can't penetrate. In most cases, those loudmouths are the devils you know. I think a lot of this is ignorance about how modern counter terrorism works. The most effective tool we have is social network analysis. Find a terrorist and see who calls them, then see who calls those people and out and out. Look at the vertices and edges and dependencies networks and we can learn a lot about complex organizations without risking any lives. I believe that's exactly happened half a year before 9/11. Then, someone thought, "what an interesting scenario, let's file it into our record system". If you want to know why government agency's are engaging in this wildly unpopular behavior, here's the answer: On 9/11 a lot of people swore to god that it would never happen again. OK, I'll bite: Didn't lousy healthcare kill more people in the US in the last decade (certainly, possibly even in a year) than 9/11 ever did? Do people swear to god that this must never happen again? I don't think so. It's the salami slicing effect, only with people. As long as it's not visible, nobody cares (or extremely few are actually bothered by it to any extent). Ditto for people killed by burning all that coal.

anigbrowl 13y ago
Didn't lousy healthcare kill more people in the US in the last decade (certainly, possibly even in a year) than 9/11 ever did? Do people swear to god that this must never happen again? We're getting very far off-topic, but don't you remember the huge political battle over Obamacare?
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  How about cars? Cars kill many-a-WTC every year. Where is the War on Careless Driving?
  - refurb 13y ago
    Wait a second. You see no distinction between a death from a random vehicle accident and a death at the hands of an organization that is trying to kill as many citizens as possible? Those are equivalent in your mind?
    - darkarmani 13y ago
      Now who is missing the point. If we completely ignored 9-11 and spent all of that money on traffic fatality prevention, we'd have saved thousands and thousands of more lives without molesting everyone that gets onto a plane.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      Deaths are deaths. And if the former kills thousand of times more people than the latter, I'd say the former is much worse. And the response to the terrorism threat so far was hugely irrational and mostly achieved exactly what they planned to. Remember, for terrorists bombing and killing are only means to the end. The goal is political/social change; deaths are only collateral damage. Basically, in this case one should shut up and multiply [0]. And [1], since we like Schneier around here. [0] - http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply [1] - http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparative.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparativ...
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Don't be obtuse. States wage regular campaigns to promote road safety and punish careless driving, within the limits of the resources available to them - besides which, traffic accidents are distributed among a large population of road users, rather than orchestrated through a chain of command.
    - darkarmani 13y ago
      Do they spend billions of dollars, spy on American citizens, molest them before getting in their cars, and erode other rights? If we spent the same amount of effort reducing car fatalities, we'd have so many more saved lives.
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        Lots of people would say yes to that question. Add up the cost of traffic enforcement and rule promulgation; consider the role of red light cameras, radar guns, in-car breathalysers, and various other tools, and the economic imposition of both fines and things like license suspensions and mandatory declarations. I think the majority of traffic laws are pretty reasonable, but they do impose a significant and measurable burden on auto users at both the individual and collective level. Why? Because the potential dangers of driving heavy vehicles at high speed are significant enough that a majority of people demand regulation. It's an uncomfortable but unavoidable fact that most people expect the government to protect them from things like terrorist attacks too, which is why government oaths office include a clause about protecting the United States from enemies 'both foreign and domestic.'
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        > Do they spend billions of dollars, spy on American citizens, molest them before getting in their cars, and erode other rights? Moreover, this is completely wrong reaction to the terrorism threat. The right reaction is to ignore it completely. Terrorism is not about blowing stuff up, it's about scaring people into changing their society and politics. By overreacting like this, America (and others) pretty much did exactly what the attacks were supposed to achieve.
- gngeal 13y ago
  but don't you remember the huge political battle over Obamacare? Well, I do, but only very vaguely; after all, it took place thousands of kilometers from where I happen to live and it's not like we don't have enough of our local issues to take care of.

by gngeal 13y ago

anigbrowl 13y ago

Didn't lousy healthcare kill more people in the US in the last decade (certainly, possibly even in a year) than 9/11 ever did? Do people swear to god that this must never happen again? We're getting very far off-topic, but don't you remember the huge political battle over Obamacare?

TeMPOraL 13y ago
How about cars? Cars kill many-a-WTC every year. Where is the War on Careless Driving?
- refurb 13y ago
  Wait a second. You see no distinction between a death from a random vehicle accident and a death at the hands of an organization that is trying to kill as many citizens as possible? Those are equivalent in your mind?
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    Now who is missing the point. If we completely ignored 9-11 and spent all of that money on traffic fatality prevention, we'd have saved thousands and thousands of more lives without molesting everyone that gets onto a plane.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    Deaths are deaths. And if the former kills thousand of times more people than the latter, I'd say the former is much worse. And the response to the terrorism threat so far was hugely irrational and mostly achieved exactly what they planned to. Remember, for terrorists bombing and killing are only means to the end. The goal is political/social change; deaths are only collateral damage. Basically, in this case one should shut up and multiply [0]. And [1], since we like Schneier around here. [0] - http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply [1] - http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparative.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_comparativ...
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Don't be obtuse. States wage regular campaigns to promote road safety and punish careless driving, within the limits of the resources available to them - besides which, traffic accidents are distributed among a large population of road users, rather than orchestrated through a chain of command.
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    Do they spend billions of dollars, spy on American citizens, molest them before getting in their cars, and erode other rights? If we spent the same amount of effort reducing car fatalities, we'd have so many more saved lives.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      Lots of people would say yes to that question. Add up the cost of traffic enforcement and rule promulgation; consider the role of red light cameras, radar guns, in-car breathalysers, and various other tools, and the economic imposition of both fines and things like license suspensions and mandatory declarations. I think the majority of traffic laws are pretty reasonable, but they do impose a significant and measurable burden on auto users at both the individual and collective level. Why? Because the potential dangers of driving heavy vehicles at high speed are significant enough that a majority of people demand regulation. It's an uncomfortable but unavoidable fact that most people expect the government to protect them from things like terrorist attacks too, which is why government oaths office include a clause about protecting the United States from enemies 'both foreign and domestic.'
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      > Do they spend billions of dollars, spy on American citizens, molest them before getting in their cars, and erode other rights? Moreover, this is completely wrong reaction to the terrorism threat. The right reaction is to ignore it completely. Terrorism is not about blowing stuff up, it's about scaring people into changing their society and politics. By overreacting like this, America (and others) pretty much did exactly what the attacks were supposed to achieve.
gngeal 13y ago
but don't you remember the huge political battle over Obamacare? Well, I do, but only very vaguely; after all, it took place thousands of kilometers from where I happen to live and it's not like we don't have enough of our local issues to take care of.