It would be better if they just lett any/all passengers have guns on board. You know how hard it would be to take over a plane when any individual could have a gun on them? It would be impossible to do anything that didn’t involve a deadman trigger, and even then a taser causes you to tense all your muscles which gives nearby people time to sieze the device, then shoot you in the head.
There is always incentive for preventing crime to yourself, your company, etc. Insurance agencies would likely be in the market of crime prevention because it lowers cost. Just like you get lower insurance rates if your car has an alarm system or antilock breaks. I am just suggesting that there need not be any kind of institutionalize crime prevention or stopping criminals before they commit a crime.
You know, I was going to say the same thing in relation to my post. Yes, there is a possibility of the pilot being a terrorist, obviously the pilots will be checked but even then there are unknown factors that might influence the pilot to become a terrorist.
Bottom line, there are always unpredictable factors, the same thing could happen with those in charge of the TSA, they are potential future terrorist too. Terrorist can alos infiltrate in the TSA.
I suspect the market can find solutions when it comes to stopping crime so that business can go on, and if the market decides that the TSA is a better and less riskier business then giving the pilots a gun, then so it is.
I’d like to point out that if the pilots are terrorists(of the crazy genre), they don’t really need a gun to inflict chaos, they can just crash the airplane and suicide or jump out by parachute. After all, you have no idea on whether a maniac is in charge of your airplane, the only thing you have is “This is a good airline, I can’t wait to get to Hawaii”.
That’s actually a great idea. I’m still trying to find other ideas that can work well with others.
We should be allowed to carry guns on board, after all no one can protect me better then me. But you see, when you offer this idea to, let’s say your local college, you’ll be labeled as a whacko and no one will listen to you anymore. I think it’s sad that people ignore the reasoning behind ideas like ours. That’s why I was expecting a solution “less radical”.
Most people I know usually tell me how they feel about things instead of offering me arguments.
You don’t beleive me, go tell someone why the legalization of all drugs is the most logical solution to stopping most crime. After 20min of explanations you’ll most likely get a judging look backed by direct and/or indirect insults.
Hmm, I was thinking more along the lines of more efficient private security at airlines - security checks for guns and so forth. I think it would be hard for a terrorist to sabotage all the various checks at airports and so forth. As someone who has travelled a lot, it has always mystified me how on earth Al Qaeda were able to sabotage the airflight; I usually feel fairly secure. But clearly it is possible.
Ah yeah, true but I was thinking more along the lines of non-pilots (and potential terrorists) sent in to protect the plane. That said, on the subject of pilots, that is one of the reasons why a plane normally has three pilots; if one of them is a terrorist, he cannot coerce the other two, unless of course he has a gun :P. Assuming he doesn’t have a gun and he tries to coerce them, then other people on the plane, e.g. the cabin, would become suspect as they walk in and out of there regularly.
Having said that, it would be a fairly cool thing to see big men with guns in the cabin on airflights (provided they were security, not terrorists, haha).
Come to think of it, I have no idea how they got through the security in the first place,come to think of it, I’m going to to do some research on 9/11 while I’m at it.
I’m positive the terrorists had a gun onboard, I can’t imagine how they got past the security with it.
You said that it is not possible for one pilot to coerce the other two unless he has a gun, what if the other two pilots carry guns too?
If I am not mistaken the current theory is that they claimed to have a bomb on board and would detonate it if they didn’t get their way. It was largely based on a lie that people believed due to the assumption that the torrorists wouldn’t kill themselves if they didn’t have to (i.e.: take the flight somewhere and hold prisoners as hostages for ransom or something).
Hypothetically, I suppose he could shoot them both while their back is turned (then crash the plane)? Practically, though, I know my objections are getting ridiculous now
I personally would rather let them bomb the plane than crash it and kill more people. I find it hard to believe that they didn’t just shoot the pilots and fly the plane themselves.
No it’s not ridiculous, it can actually happen. This just proves my point, terrorism is unpredictable, I imagine the market will find the “best solution” because there is no such thing as a perfect answer due to the unpredictable circumstances of everyday life.
When I ride the plane, to let’s say, Mauritius, I know that security is an illusion because anything could happen. That said I’m not about to piss my pants I’d still enjoy the trip but seeing as things work nowdays anything could happen. But then again, why would terrorists attack Mauritius, they hate America. I doubt any of them are aware of the existence of that beautifull island.
Yes you are right; anything could happen. The only real thing is that terrorist attacks on planes hardly ever happen in this day (and they are usually relatively small scale with a few survivors). Its hard to say what would happen if entrepeneurs were allowed (free from government regulations) to start ‘experimenting’ with new ideas - such as militarily trained, armed pilots on a flight with a hundred people or so flying over the pentagon :P.
To you, and anyone else willing to answer:
What is your position on animal rights?
Why is coffee in Starbucks so expensive? Lol - I bought a cappucino for £2.15 today (and that was a ‘small’ - I can’t get a smaller size than that and they don’t serve cheaper coffee brands, like Nescafe [which I can get for 60p from my college cafeteria], on the other hand you get refills…but one cup of coffee is all I want. This consumer is NOT happy, haha). There is certainly competition from other cafes so I can’t understand why its so highly priced puzzled. Actually, I think Starbucks is great on the whole (nice atmosphere, high quality coffee, etc.), and I am just moaning really, but I just can’t understand why you can’t buy cheaper brands of coffee, at smaller sizes and without having to pay that bit extra for potential refills.
My position isn’t objective, I have a dog and I obviously don’t want others to hurt dogs or any other animals. I’m a vegetarian, but that has nothing to do with my love for animals, I think humans are destined to eat meat. I’ve been reading various articles that prove that meat is important.
I think “rights” is a human concept, it can only exist in human societies because that’s where it originated from. Animals can’t have rights since they are not aware of them. Human beings are the ones who give animal’s rights, which makes the topic very relative. I don’t know how people are supposed to deal with stores that practice animal cruelty, the best thing to do is not buy from them and convince others to not eat meat from them. I don’t really understand PETA’s definition of animal cruelty, they want us to kill animals in a more gentle way, what???
I personally am againts animal cruelty, obviously who isn’t, I think someone who enjoys hurting animals is probably a psychopath and don’t want to have anything to do with them. I had to buy my little sister a guinea pig because she witnessed youtube videos of weirdos killing them, on porpuse.
I just viewed a John Stossel 20/20 where he offered some great ways to protect animal rights. By farming them.
Apparently we never lack chickens because we farm them. This experiment has been done somewhere in Africa where they let people own tigers. Now those people have a great incentive to protect the tigers from hunters.
Because there are probably laws that prevent people from just setting up a coffee stand on the street corner and selling coffee made in a traditional coffee pot. Has to pass health inspection standards, has to have a business license, can’t use public property, etc. Go to a country where anyone can sell anything on the street and you can buy most small goods/minor services for dirt cheap.
People buy into the atmosphere, there’s nothing you can do about it. Apparently they have consumers. The fact is many people buy products because they are cool, trendy etc. not because they have high quality or anything like that.
If you create a store that focuses on , let’s say trendy teenage girls, it doesn’t really matter what you sell. If it’s a “groovy atmosphere”, the clerc is good looking and idealistic, the clothes represent the feminine inner struggle or whatever they are into. I guarentee you , you will sell anything. Besides, most trendy teenage girls are middle class, which means they almost always have pocket money and they probably work “for fun” because their parents pay most of their necessary bills. So they have around 1000$ a month that they can spend without obligations. And if they ahppen to be spoiled you will probably make a fortune.
I’ve heard this before and, I must say, this confuses me; would you say that a severely autistic man or a new born child can’t have rights because they are not aware of them? Or would it be that those compassionate towards them give them rights.
Interesting. I will look into that. Its the concept of property rights emerging here again; you protect whatever you own.
Actually, I am not opposed to farming, since I believe farming chickens free range style and killing them quickly and painlessly is far more ‘humane’ than letting them get ravaged by a fox in the wild. I am opposed to experimentation, though. But my own personal objections to the very stance I adopt would be that (a) experimentation on animals appears to be necessary for the progress of science and (b) in a free market it would be impossible to prevent experimentation without government intervention; at best we would rely upon ethical consumerism (but how effective is this ever?).
That is damn true actually; in India (where I have been) goods and services are pretty damn cheap (and they sell them on the street). My only objection would be that I have heard stories of people (my father for instance) who got sick eating food they bought on the street stalls because when the cars go past, they blow up dust on to the stall, contaminating the food with bacteria (especially where the food is not being heated, hence it is cold and liable to infection).
Good link. I have not watched all of that yet but just wanted to point out that it was ‘capillaries’ - wooly road systems of city streets and neighbourhood cities - that I was most concerned about in the OP (I have/had no doubt that ‘arteries’ - long stretches of road over undeveloped land - would be successful). I just didn’t know that there were two different terms existent
I think this largely depends on objective morality. If you believe in objective morality (there is a universal right/wrong) then your feelings toward these topics depend on what you believe is absolutely right/wrong. If you don’t believe in objective morality then “rights” are only what the popular majority defines them as and then forces on others. If these rights only apply to humans then, since we are the dominate force on the planet, we can force our definition of rights onto everything else on the planet.
Yeah, I happen to get stuck on that too. I don’t really have an answer.
Farming doesn’t necessary mean you have to kill them, you can make money and own them yourself in order to protect them, like my sister and her guinea pig. If we have to kill them, we do so because we have to sell them to consumers. I don’t know what to say, there are a lot of vegetarians out there.
People are also becoming more healthy today then let’s say in the 70’s when everone was fat and hairy. That’s just my limited knowledge of social norms lol, so I wouldn’t take it seriously. We’ve been hit by a lot of movements that made staying healthy look cool(metrosexuality), but if people don’t eat animals because it’s not cool then that also means they will eat them the day if it becomes cool. Trends aren’t something I put much faith into.
You obviously can’t make a law to ban meat, it will just create a black market, just let it be. I just do what I want, I associate with people whom I like and if someone asks me what I think of animal rights I’ll just fight for them, sometimes. I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals btw, I’m one because I ate too much meat when I went on a trip to Bulgaria and they had a all you can eat buffet, after that I never ate meat again and it’s been 5 years.
I would say that there is a universal underlying ethical principle (objective morality). But I would not say that that objective morality is necessarily what I believe in or what “the majority”’ believe in; it is just there so to speak (a universal truth - but one that cannot be found so easily).
I personally believe (though we are getting into subjectivity here) that incapicated humans should have rights, even if they don’t (for instance if the majority suddenly decide to discriminate against the mentally handicapped). But I don’t see how someone can logically argue that animals should not have the same rights as human because they are not intelligent/can’t defend themselves, etc. and not apply the same logic to, lets say, a severely brain damaged man with an IQ of less than, lets say 70, or an elderly woman who cannot physically defend herself. Neither have rights if they cannot protect their rights (I believe) but the question is whether they should have rights (I believe yes - but am struggling to reconcile this with animal rights).
I’d like to just point out that I am not a vegetarian either. My question really was not so much about farming (which I am not opposed to in general - even when it is to kill the animal and sell it for meat) but experimentation and battery farming
Thing is, I also know, really, that experimentation is necessary for scientific developments…but I question the ethics.
Actually, these were my thoughts, haha! But I wanted to see if there would be any other answers. Interesting, though.
I have also noted that in airports the restaraunts also sell food at much higher prices. Presumably this is because all the restaraunts are owned by the airport, hence there is no competition - a pizza once cost me £21 and it was about 0.5 cm in thickness - my own fault for buying it of course but I was hungry
It’s all run by the same incestuous group of elites. The Saudi king has much more say in US government policy than the US Secretary of State, all appearances aside. The State Secretary is just a bureaucrat… the Saudi king has friends in high places who can help him get what he wants, whether that takes 4, 8, 12 or 16 years. Presidents and State Secretaries come and go. The power elites are forever (kind of). You can read my blog post on this subject here:
I’ve been fascinated by royalty lately and I need to extend my “kingpin theory” to include not just family dynasties but dynastic bloodlines. The royal houses of Europe, for example, transcend any one country. The royal house doesn’t need any particular throne, it just needs a throne to be royal and hold power. And for this purpose, marriage is as good as conquest. The “eugenic” mindset of the royalty is not as crazy as it seems when you look at things from their point of view. Clearly, there’s some “magic genetic recipe” that makes those who hold power suitable for the pressures of holding power… in fact, my current theory is that you have to actually be psychotic in just the right way in order to be able to stand the pressures of ruling. In my current theory, it is this psychological brew in the royal genes that is so valuable and cannot be diluted with the blood of those who have not demonstrated they have these genes by having ancestors who have ruled. The strictest form of royal eugenics is “morganatic marriage” whereby members of a royal house are prohibited from marrying down, they must marry a peer (royal blood) or abdicate their place in line to the throne. This leads to genetic problems since there aren’t exactly a lot of royals out there and they’re all already blood related.
(provided they were security, not terrorists, haha).
and (b) in a free market it would be impossible to prevent experimentation without government intervention; at best we would rely upon ethical consumerism (but how effective is this ever?).