5 ms·

Why would the airlines have incentive to provide good-quality security? Terrorism events are rare and it seems unlikely that a reasonable amount of security in

by nfoz 12y ago

Why would the airlines have incentive to provide good-quality security? Terrorism events are rare and it seems unlikely that a reasonable amount of security infrastructure that the airline could provide would result in a substantial decrease in the probability that a sufficiently-motivated terrorist would be successful with an attack against that airline. I just can't imagine we would get anything more than the airlines putting in a minumum amount of security theatre to meet appearances for the customers and appease the local regulations.

glenra 12y ago
What airlines are doing now amounts precisely to "a large amount of security theatre to meet appearances for the customers and appease the local regulations." I want to decentralize for two reasons: (1) it removes single points of failure. For instance, post-911, airlines needed to GET PERMISSION to make changes such as strengthening the cockpit door or changing the protocol for opening it. Being more flexible means being able to quickly adjust to changing security circumstances. (2) It gives customers the OPTION of purchasing LESS security. So far as I'm concerned, the airlines I fly are already far more "secure" than they need to be - I would pay extra to fly on a plane with NO security, one where people could just walk on openly carrying a rifle if they so desired. Were it left up to the airlines, they would have to make tradeoffs between security and every other value customers have including cost and convenience. We then wouldn't get somebody's idea of "the best possible security no matter the cost". Instead we'd get "the best possible security consistent with not spending too much money and not inconveniencing or annoying passengers very much." Which is what we really want.
- vacri 12y ago
  one where people could just walk on openly carrying a rifle if they so desired So you also want airlines to modify cabins to handle oversized carry-on luggage? Nevertheless, the amount of people who would pay more to do this would not be commercially viable - you yourself state that cost is a significant factor for users. Keep in mind also that your security-free airline would have to have its own terminals, as its customers wouldn't be able to mingle with existing airline customers. Also, why would you pay more for an item that's better off in checked luggage anyway? It's not like you can use the rifle between luggage drop-off and pick-up, and it's irritatingly large to carry around a cabin. It sounds like sacrificing pragmatics for pointless idealism, to me.
  - glenra 12y ago
    > So you also want airlines to modify cabins to handle oversized carry-on luggage? No more so than they already do. See, I routinely travel with an acoustic guitar in a gig bag as my "personal item"; it fits in the overhead compartment. And when I don't have the big guitar I often carry a smaller "travel" guitar in a triangular case that is almost exactly the size and shape of a rifle case; they often let me hang that one in the coat closet to get it out of the way. The problem here isn't that I want to carry a rifle on board, it's that I want other people to be free to carry a rifle on board. I want that because preventing them from doing so inflicts a cost on me. Preventing things like rifles means I need to get to the airport an hour before the flight and I need to stand in long security lines and let them grope and/or ogle me and search my baggage and confiscate my sunscreen and examine my guitar and send my electronics through a second time. Every. Single. Flight. If I could skip all that nonsense - just come to the airport and walk right to the gate WITHOUT the search, that would worth at least an extra 5 or 10 bucks to me because it substantially reduces the chance that I'll miss my flight. And it would SAVE the airline money not having to pay for search goons and their equipment, and it would even make me more likely to fly. I want other people to be able to carry a rifle because I'm not a hoplophobe. In fact, I personally would feel ever-so-slightly safer in a flight where I knew other people might be armed as a matter of default than in one where the ONLY armed people are likely to be bad guys or Official Security. Because I trust that on average, by and large, my fellow passengers are competent and well-meaning people. They're not ALL potential terrorists; any potential terrorists are seriously outnumbered and (in my world) outgunned. I just want to get on the damn plane without the time-wasting rigamarole. Have you ever gone skydiving? If so, did you notice that there's no airport security there - you don't have to take off your shoes and helmets and put the parachute through a metal detector? You just put on all your crap, get on the plane with it and the plane takes off. Right then and there. You can do this at small airports all over the country, using decent sized planes. And somehow nobody has ever used this as an opportunity to kick everyone out, hijack the plane and crash it into a building. The specific threat that modern "airport security" is designed to stop is essentially nonexistent. We are fighting an imaginary hobgoblin, an empty set. The money we spend doing so is entirely wasted other than that it makes a few people feel more confident to think that we're "doing something". We should address the same fear some other way. Maybe if we put up billboards and ran ads explaining why all the security theater makes us less safe, people would stop demanding it.
- nfoz 12y ago
  I agreed with you more before this post. Let's consider the advantages of centralization: (1) A single agency can have within its mandate, expertise, and budget the security apparatus, which requires full-stack authority: airport design and administration, customs officials, airlines, planes, luggage, etc. The airlines can focus on the task they actually want to perform and are qualified to perform, whereas the one agency responsible for security can be audited and held accountable for that task as a unit. (2) Customers cannot purchase less security. This is an advantage. It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I think "airport security" has much less to do with passenger security than the risks inherent with allowing planes to fly through our skies. 9/11 is a clear example that many more people than the passengers of the flight can be affected via air-terrorism. This is why planes are controlled. I'm not opposed to that control; I just marvel at how awful a job the U.S. government does at determing the cost/convenience/effectiveness tradeoffs. In my experience in the United States, this seems to be a systemic problem with governmentally-administered services that does not seem to exist so much in other governments. There aren't many airlines, and I expect the overwhelming majority of consumers would consistently purchase the cheapest option. If airlines are the agency entrusted with safe flight, this makes everyone less safe. Rather, airport and flight security seems better serviced as an airport-surcharge or tax. What's missing is effective, accountable security provided by experts that we trust. I don't know why that isn't something we can solve.
  - msandford 12y ago
    > It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you had argued it in some way. For point 1 you gave reasoning. For point 2 you just said "this is true" and stopped. If you had said something like "air is necessary for life" yeah sure, I won't belabor that point. It's scientifically verifiable at least for humans. But when the parent was posting "I wish people could just carry rifles and it not be a big deal" it's clear that your position is more of an opinion than a fact. You might consider it a fact, but you're replying to glenra who quite obviously doesn't agree.
jo_ 12y ago
I think there are several factors to consider. Terrorism is an infinitesimally small threat, but many on the political side chose to treat it with heavy gloves despite the diminishing returns because (1) the Zero-risk cognitive bias makes people want to force than small risk to zero [1] and (2) the federal government views the TSA as a jobs program. Even though they're largely ineffective, no politician would dare to propose the dismantling thereof because the opposing side could use this as ammunition in the form of 'X is allowing the terrorists in' or 'X has cost us 10,000 jobs.' [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias

by nfoz 12y ago

glenra 12y ago

What airlines are doing now amounts precisely to "a large amount of security theatre to meet appearances for the customers and appease the local regulations." I want to decentralize for two reasons: (1) it removes single points of failure. For instance, post-911, airlines needed to GET PERMISSION to make changes such as strengthening the cockpit door or changing the protocol for opening it. Being more flexible means being able to quickly adjust to changing security circumstances. (2) It gives customers the OPTION of purchasing LESS security. So far as I'm concerned, the airlines I fly are already far more "secure" than they need to be - I would pay extra to fly on a plane with NO security, one where people could just walk on openly carrying a rifle if they so desired. Were it left up to the airlines, they would have to make tradeoffs between security and every other value customers have including cost and convenience. We then wouldn't get somebody's idea of "the best possible security no matter the cost". Instead we'd get "the best possible security consistent with not spending too much money and not inconveniencing or annoying passengers very much." Which is what we really want.

vacri 12y ago
one where people could just walk on openly carrying a rifle if they so desired So you also want airlines to modify cabins to handle oversized carry-on luggage? Nevertheless, the amount of people who would pay more to do this would not be commercially viable - you yourself state that cost is a significant factor for users. Keep in mind also that your security-free airline would have to have its own terminals, as its customers wouldn't be able to mingle with existing airline customers. Also, why would you pay more for an item that's better off in checked luggage anyway? It's not like you can use the rifle between luggage drop-off and pick-up, and it's irritatingly large to carry around a cabin. It sounds like sacrificing pragmatics for pointless idealism, to me.
- glenra 12y ago
  > So you also want airlines to modify cabins to handle oversized carry-on luggage? No more so than they already do. See, I routinely travel with an acoustic guitar in a gig bag as my "personal item"; it fits in the overhead compartment. And when I don't have the big guitar I often carry a smaller "travel" guitar in a triangular case that is almost exactly the size and shape of a rifle case; they often let me hang that one in the coat closet to get it out of the way. The problem here isn't that I want to carry a rifle on board, it's that I want other people to be free to carry a rifle on board. I want that because preventing them from doing so inflicts a cost on me. Preventing things like rifles means I need to get to the airport an hour before the flight and I need to stand in long security lines and let them grope and/or ogle me and search my baggage and confiscate my sunscreen and examine my guitar and send my electronics through a second time. Every. Single. Flight. If I could skip all that nonsense - just come to the airport and walk right to the gate WITHOUT the search, that would worth at least an extra 5 or 10 bucks to me because it substantially reduces the chance that I'll miss my flight. And it would SAVE the airline money not having to pay for search goons and their equipment, and it would even make me more likely to fly. I want other people to be able to carry a rifle because I'm not a hoplophobe. In fact, I personally would feel ever-so-slightly safer in a flight where I knew other people might be armed as a matter of default than in one where the ONLY armed people are likely to be bad guys or Official Security. Because I trust that on average, by and large, my fellow passengers are competent and well-meaning people. They're not ALL potential terrorists; any potential terrorists are seriously outnumbered and (in my world) outgunned. I just want to get on the damn plane without the time-wasting rigamarole. Have you ever gone skydiving? If so, did you notice that there's no airport security there - you don't have to take off your shoes and helmets and put the parachute through a metal detector? You just put on all your crap, get on the plane with it and the plane takes off. Right then and there. You can do this at small airports all over the country, using decent sized planes. And somehow nobody has ever used this as an opportunity to kick everyone out, hijack the plane and crash it into a building. The specific threat that modern "airport security" is designed to stop is essentially nonexistent. We are fighting an imaginary hobgoblin, an empty set. The money we spend doing so is entirely wasted other than that it makes a few people feel more confident to think that we're "doing something". We should address the same fear some other way. Maybe if we put up billboards and ran ads explaining why all the security theater makes us less safe, people would stop demanding it.
nfoz 12y ago
I agreed with you more before this post. Let's consider the advantages of centralization: (1) A single agency can have within its mandate, expertise, and budget the security apparatus, which requires full-stack authority: airport design and administration, customs officials, airlines, planes, luggage, etc. The airlines can focus on the task they actually want to perform and are qualified to perform, whereas the one agency responsible for security can be audited and held accountable for that task as a unit. (2) Customers cannot purchase less security. This is an advantage. It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I think "airport security" has much less to do with passenger security than the risks inherent with allowing planes to fly through our skies. 9/11 is a clear example that many more people than the passengers of the flight can be affected via air-terrorism. This is why planes are controlled. I'm not opposed to that control; I just marvel at how awful a job the U.S. government does at determing the cost/convenience/effectiveness tradeoffs. In my experience in the United States, this seems to be a systemic problem with governmentally-administered services that does not seem to exist so much in other governments. There aren't many airlines, and I expect the overwhelming majority of consumers would consistently purchase the cheapest option. If airlines are the agency entrusted with safe flight, this makes everyone less safe. Rather, airport and flight security seems better serviced as an airport-surcharge or tax. What's missing is effective, accountable security provided by experts that we trust. I don't know why that isn't something we can solve.
- msandford 12y ago
  > It is nonsense for a customer to walk openly onto an aircraft carrying a rifle. I'm not sure that I agree. Prior to metal detectors and airport security here in the US plenty of guns were carried on planes and very few bad outcomes were the result. I've heard of planes getting hijacked and going to Cuba but nothing in the way of mass murders on airplanes. I wish that instead of just stating this as a fact that you had argued it in some way. For point 1 you gave reasoning. For point 2 you just said "this is true" and stopped. If you had said something like "air is necessary for life" yeah sure, I won't belabor that point. It's scientifically verifiable at least for humans. But when the parent was posting "I wish people could just carry rifles and it not be a big deal" it's clear that your position is more of an opinion than a fact. You might consider it a fact, but you're replying to glenra who quite obviously doesn't agree.

jo_ 12y ago

I think there are several factors to consider. Terrorism is an infinitesimally small threat, but many on the political side chose to treat it with heavy gloves despite the diminishing returns because (1) the Zero-risk cognitive bias makes people want to force than small risk to zero [1] and (2) the federal government views the TSA as a jobs program. Even though they're largely ineffective, no politician would dare to propose the dismantling thereof because the opposing side could use this as ammunition in the form of 'X is allowing the terrorists in' or 'X has cost us 10,000 jobs.' [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias