But Glen....
Your model still assumes there is a tangible benefit to
the technology. That is how people in your Quadrant 1 can think "no matter what
the cost, the benefit is worth it." But, again, if you had a few million
dollars and a few years to plan, it would be really, really, ridiculously easy
to get around all this. So, there is no benefit, or at least no benefit of the
type used to justify the expense - it simply does not protect us against a
professional terrorist threat, which is supposed to be its purpose. Instead, we
are spending billions of dollars to protects us against people who forget to
put their toothpaste in their checked luggage.
Eric
P.S. Some
brilliant guy has started selling undergarments with radiation shielding in
them so that the scanners show a fig leaf where your privates would otherwise
be... I wonder if this gets you into the strip-search line? --
http://www.rockyflatsgear.com/
On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 02:26 PM,
"glen
e. p. ropella" <[hidden email]> wrote:
Owen Densmore wrote circa 10-11-24 10:01 AM:
> Sez Bruce: Exactly two things have made airplane travel safer since
> 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers they
> need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money.
I'll pick _that_ nit! ;-) Anything that provides a foil for coming to
terms with how modern technology invades our privacy is _not_ a waste of
money. I often come down on the side of "Screw it. Our privacy is gone
anyway; so why worry about it." (Otherwise, why would I have a
Facebook
page?) But there are many who don't feel that way ... and some days I
don't feel that way either.
More importantly, I think the backscatter machines and pat downs present
us with an opportunity to examine how we feel about the risk taking and
benefit/cost spectra. If you pretend they're spaces and cross them, you
can think about the 2D space:
b/c high
^
II | I
|
risk averse <--------> risk prone
|
III | IV
v
c/b high
People in the I quadrant are action oriented and either don't perceive,
don't care, or ignore the costs ... or they're rational and the benefits
actually do outweigh the costs. I'd place Bush II in that category
because he didn't seem to place much weight on the costs of his admin's
actions. I also place sky divers, bungee jumpers, and entrepreneurs,
including morons like myself who try to bootstrap companies, in that
quadrant. ;-)
People in quadrant II are probably inherently good natured and
stereotypically liberal in their thoughts, but conservative in their
actions. Someone like Einstein or Spinoza probably fits that bill. You
can come up with your own examples of where you or others might fit.
The point is that the backscatter machines and pat-down methods (as well
as profiling and whatnot) can all provide context for where one _wants_
to be in that 2D space versus where one _is_ in that 2D space. They are
a concrete situation we can use to orient ourselves ethically. And I
always appreciate tools like that to help me think. Without the actual
implementation bearing down on you, it's easy to chalk it off as
"philosophical" or, at best, a thought experiment. I.e. people who
aren't forced to think, usually don't.
So, it's definitely not a waste of money. Consider it practical
philosophy ... bringing the abstract, obscure, musings of those weirdos
at the EFF and ACLU down to the people, in terms they can understand.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com
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Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant
Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA
16601
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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