Africa is full of statist nations. If you are talking about Somalia, it's really only bad for outsiders, and when Ethiopia or the UN sends in strongmen to attempt to usurp local power.
I guess that's why its literacy rate, life expectancy, infant mortality rate, personal safety, and, well, pretty much every metric of success are benchmarks for the rest of the world to strive for, then ?
No they don't. They see an outline of your body. People at the beach would have a better idea of what you look like naked than anyone looking at those images.
And yes they have personally identified me.
How ? You don't show ID or any other identifying information like a boarding pass before or after being scanned, that happens further back up the queue as you enter the security area.
What you retarded statists don't understand is that a megaton of prevention is not always worth an ounce of cure. You guys want to start wearing electronic shock collars, and have government bureaucrats monitor your every move something that might be "dangerous"? It's the same principle, and the last 100 years of experience have shown that it is in fact a slippery slope, as we have gone from the freest society the world has ever known to the most enslaved (as we now pay only slightly less in taxes to our government masters than 18th century slaves did to theirs).
It's not even remotely close to the same principle. Get some better rhetoric, the stuff you have is worn out.
So if a stranger asked your for naked pics of your gf, with the face blurred out, you'd happily comply?
That's her decision, not mine. Though I imagine she'd have few problems with someone seeing anonymised pictures of an x-ray of her, which is basically what these images actually are.
If that's true, why don't they just photograph our shadows?
Er, maybe because that won't help seeing what might be underneath the clothes ?
My understanding is that they show more detail than that.
It's not hard to find examples of these images - they show a silhouette of the body, with no real detail about what you look like naked (like, say, skin tone, nipples, whether you're circumsised, whether you wax, if you have acne, etc, etc) other than overall body shape - which you could be just as easily revealing in tight clothing.
Now, to be clear, I think these machines are a waste of time and money and provide little additional security. However, the people trying to pretend that the images being generated are the equivalent in any way to actual photographs are not doing themselves any favours. Someone would have a better idea of what you look like naked after seeing you at the beach, especially if you're a woman.
In Massachusetts, a local photographer was convicted with child *abuse* because of photos she took of her own 4-year-old child and because someone at the processing lab considered the photos pornographic. Child nudity was taken to be the same as child pornography that was taken to be the same as child abuse. The photos were apparently as innocent as can be.
A Google search didn't turn anything up easily. Do you have a name ?
Have heard this really, really stupid argument just too often over the years. What the hell are your competitors to do with your code on their hardware?
Everything your product does without having to spend time and money figuring out how ?
Sure it would have. Do you think the hijacking would have been successful if there had been armed good guys (civilians or law enforcement, doesn't matter) on the plane? Even without the knowledge of what the hijackers intended to do?
I don't think the hijacking would have been successful if there had been _unarmed_ "good guys" prepared to retaliate. That was kind of my point - the fact they were armed or not was really relevant, the fact they didn't know what was going to happen was.
If some school kids visited the courthouse and the pictures were saved, remember that child pornography laws are so strict that it's nearly guilty until proven innocent. I'd hate to be an operator of one of those machines if there is even a single image of a minor. Even just one.
Except the images wouldn't be considered pornographic, ergo can't be child porn.
Humans are inherently altruistic. They engage in charity without coercion.
Average people do, sure.
The ones running countries and giant corporations, not so much.
This "fuck you I've got mine" attitude may be true in Africa (I don't know, it was your example) but it's not true in Western Civilizations.
Er, right. I guess that's why the people responsible for the last few years of recession, or that little oil spill, or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are all African, without any squeaky-clean, morally upstanding westerners involved at all.
Wow. It just blows my mind that anyone would even _think_ what you just wrote. Or were you simply trolling ?
I'd love to see CCW holders allowed to legally carry on airplanes. 9/11 would have ended differently if somebody on those planes had been armed. I doubt it will ever happen but I can dream.
9/11 would have ended differently if the passengers had only known what was going to happen. The presence of guns would not have meaningfully changed that.
If it doesn't happen you still don't need to go any further than metal and explosives detectors. Even a trained Special Forces operator isn't going to be able to defeat dozens of people before someone takes him down. It's absurd to attach all of this security to flying.
I'd be amazed if "dozens of people" jumped up to assist after the first few were killed. Most people's immediate sense of self-preservation vastly outweighs any longer-term concerns.
Are virtual strip searches that reveal a man's ballsac and woman's breasts/nipples/vaginal lips a reasonable search?
Not in my book.
Why ? No physical contact is made. The images are not personally identifiable since they're basically just a silhouette that looks basically identical to 50% of the population. You might as well argue someone is making an unreasonable search because they photographed your shadow.
Why is it any less of an "unreasonable search" than having to remove a hat, jacket or shoes ?
Perhaps a better question: what *is* a "reasonable search" ?
As long as they are selling it at $5 there is no problem, the threat of competition is driving the price down.
Sure, for the 10% of the time that said threat actually exists. The other 90% of the time, they're gouging.
As soon as they start raising the price to unreasonable level it opens the door to competition.
The first couple of times, maybe. After that the potential competitors learn and lose interest in sinking time and money into a project so they can be bankrupted.
Not to mention that the product in question will not stay in demand forever, at this point company D is already working on something else that will make it irrelevant.
Firstly, your premise is broken. Groceries are still in demand despite having been sold for millenia - there's not always going to be a "new and improved" product. Secondly, the point at which a new and improved product can be done, and looks to be appearing is when Company AB uses all that money it's collected to buy up the company looking to sell the new and improved version, so they can sell it instead. So now they're company ABD, selling new and improved product X.
What a great opportunity for a company C to come into the market and sell it for $10 and take all the customers.
That's when Company AB sells at $5 for long enough to drive C out of business.
(Which, if it's an industry/product that has an even remotely non-trivial barrier to entry, probably won't take very long, since they'll be deep in the hole to start with.)
By staying in the cartel, company A is giving up $100K/year! How long do you think those "greedy" businessman will remain willing to subsidize their less efficient competition by staying in a cartel with them?
In reality, company A and B merge and then start selling their product for $20. Company B benefits from higher profit margins, and company A benefits from instantly doubling their customer base.
In reality, it's a system that works quite well. The US has a much lower rate of structure failure than other nations (see: Hati). In addition, we have a much lower incidence of other harm from faulty building (see: Accidental Electrocutions in Brazil).
Wow. Haiti and Brazil. Really striving for the high bar of excellence to meet there, I see.
Why should *I* be responsible to fence my property in order to try and (inadequately and inappropriately and indirectly) parent your children for you?
The same reason you should be responsible for making sure your house isn't a fire hazard. Or that your car doesn't leak oil all over the road. Or that your toilets aren't dumping raw sewage into your yard and creating a health hazard.
You're kidding, right? Permanent corporations, corporate personhood and direct interference with the money supply is a libertarian Utopia?
Indeed. People looking for the "Libertarian Utopia" should be casting their eyes towards Africa. There, you can watch the results of "I've got mine, fuck the rest of you" as they develop.
And everyone else in the highly competitive restaurant industry will be running around in fear of getting a report on the news about customers getting sick at THEIR restaurant.
Which isn't particularly helpful to the poor fuckers who are dead.
Because the public service is a building to is slowly crumbling to the ground, or ridden with drugs, and yet I still am expected to pay for that POS.
Yes. That's so that when you aren't rich enough to pay out of pocket for your health care, you can actually get treatment instead of being left in the street to die.
If you don't use a service, you should not have to pay for it.
Ah. You're one of those guys who thinks the police shouldn't investigate a crime unless the victim pays up front. I imagine you'd have an awesome time in Somalia.
Well it happens in the US, not just in healthcare but also schools. If I choose to attend a private hospital/school instead of the public variant, I must pay EXTRA money on top of the money I paid to the Uncle Sam monopoly.
That's because you are paying for something the public services do not provide (otherwise why would you be paying for it).
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Africa is full of statist nations. If you are talking about Somalia, it's really only bad for outsiders, and when Ethiopia or the UN sends in strongmen to attempt to usurp local power.
I guess that's why its literacy rate, life expectancy, infant mortality rate, personal safety, and, well, pretty much every metric of success are benchmarks for the rest of the world to strive for, then ?
The guards see me naked.
No they don't. They see an outline of your body. People at the beach would have a better idea of what you look like naked than anyone looking at those images.
And yes they have personally identified me.
How ? You don't show ID or any other identifying information like a boarding pass before or after being scanned, that happens further back up the queue as you enter the security area.
What you retarded statists don't understand is that a megaton of prevention is not always worth an ounce of cure. You guys want to start wearing electronic shock collars, and have government bureaucrats monitor your every move something that might be "dangerous"? It's the same principle, and the last 100 years of experience have shown that it is in fact a slippery slope, as we have gone from the freest society the world has ever known to the most enslaved (as we now pay only slightly less in taxes to our government masters than 18th century slaves did to theirs).
It's not even remotely close to the same principle. Get some better rhetoric, the stuff you have is worn out.
So if a stranger asked your for naked pics of your gf, with the face blurred out, you'd happily comply?
That's her decision, not mine. Though I imagine she'd have few problems with someone seeing anonymised pictures of an x-ray of her, which is basically what these images actually are.
If that's true, why don't they just photograph our shadows?
Er, maybe because that won't help seeing what might be underneath the clothes ?
My understanding is that they show more detail than that.
It's not hard to find examples of these images - they show a silhouette of the body, with no real detail about what you look like naked (like, say, skin tone, nipples, whether you're circumsised, whether you wax, if you have acne, etc, etc) other than overall body shape - which you could be just as easily revealing in tight clothing.
Now, to be clear, I think these machines are a waste of time and money and provide little additional security. However, the people trying to pretend that the images being generated are the equivalent in any way to actual photographs are not doing themselves any favours. Someone would have a better idea of what you look like naked after seeing you at the beach, especially if you're a woman.
In Massachusetts, a local photographer was convicted with child *abuse* because of photos she took of her own 4-year-old child and because someone at the processing lab considered the photos pornographic. Child nudity was taken to be the same as child pornography that was taken to be the same as child abuse. The photos were apparently as innocent as can be.
A Google search didn't turn anything up easily. Do you have a name ?
Get it now?
Since that bears about as much relevance to my comment as a picture of a duck, no, not really.
Have heard this really, really stupid argument just too often over the years. What the hell are your competitors to do with your code on their hardware?
Everything your product does without having to spend time and money figuring out how ?
This doesn't appear basically-nude to you?
Sure, just like this does.
Sure it would have. Do you think the hijacking would have been successful if there had been armed good guys (civilians or law enforcement, doesn't matter) on the plane? Even without the knowledge of what the hijackers intended to do?
I don't think the hijacking would have been successful if there had been _unarmed_ "good guys" prepared to retaliate. That was kind of my point - the fact they were armed or not was really relevant, the fact they didn't know what was going to happen was.
If some school kids visited the courthouse and the pictures were saved, remember that child pornography laws are so strict that it's nearly guilty until proven innocent. I'd hate to be an operator of one of those machines if there is even a single image of a minor. Even just one.
Except the images wouldn't be considered pornographic, ergo can't be child porn.
Humans are inherently altruistic. They engage in charity without coercion.
Average people do, sure.
The ones running countries and giant corporations, not so much.
This "fuck you I've got mine" attitude may be true in Africa (I don't know, it was your example) but it's not true in Western Civilizations.
Er, right. I guess that's why the people responsible for the last few years of recession, or that little oil spill, or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are all African, without any squeaky-clean, morally upstanding westerners involved at all.
Wow. It just blows my mind that anyone would even _think_ what you just wrote. Or were you simply trolling ?
I'd love to see CCW holders allowed to legally carry on airplanes. 9/11 would have ended differently if somebody on those planes had been armed. I doubt it will ever happen but I can dream.
9/11 would have ended differently if the passengers had only known what was going to happen. The presence of guns would not have meaningfully changed that.
If it doesn't happen you still don't need to go any further than metal and explosives detectors. Even a trained Special Forces operator isn't going to be able to defeat dozens of people before someone takes him down. It's absurd to attach all of this security to flying.
I'd be amazed if "dozens of people" jumped up to assist after the first few were killed. Most people's immediate sense of self-preservation vastly outweighs any longer-term concerns.
Are virtual strip searches that reveal a man's ballsac and woman's breasts/nipples/vaginal lips a reasonable search?
Not in my book.
Why ? No physical contact is made. The images are not personally identifiable since they're basically just a silhouette that looks basically identical to 50% of the population. You might as well argue someone is making an unreasonable search because they photographed your shadow.
Why is it any less of an "unreasonable search" than having to remove a hat, jacket or shoes ?
Perhaps a better question: what *is* a "reasonable search" ?
You seem to be erroneously conflating society and government. They're different, and behave independently unless violence is used to force the issue.
Er, what ?
As long as they are selling it at $5 there is no problem, the threat of competition is driving the price down.
Sure, for the 10% of the time that said threat actually exists. The other 90% of the time, they're gouging.
As soon as they start raising the price to unreasonable level it opens the door to competition.
The first couple of times, maybe. After that the potential competitors learn and lose interest in sinking time and money into a project so they can be bankrupted.
Not to mention that the product in question will not stay in demand forever, at this point company D is already working on something else that will make it irrelevant.
Firstly, your premise is broken. Groceries are still in demand despite having been sold for millenia - there's not always going to be a "new and improved" product. Secondly, the point at which a new and improved product can be done, and looks to be appearing is when Company AB uses all that money it's collected to buy up the company looking to sell the new and improved version, so they can sell it instead. So now they're company ABD, selling new and improved product X.
What a great opportunity for a company C to come into the market and sell it for $10 and take all the customers.
That's when Company AB sells at $5 for long enough to drive C out of business.
(Which, if it's an industry/product that has an even remotely non-trivial barrier to entry, probably won't take very long, since they'll be deep in the hole to start with.)
By staying in the cartel, company A is giving up $100K/year! How long do you think those "greedy" businessman will remain willing to subsidize their less efficient competition by staying in a cartel with them?
In reality, company A and B merge and then start selling their product for $20. Company B benefits from higher profit margins, and company A benefits from instantly doubling their customer base.
In reality, it's a system that works quite well. The US has a much lower rate of structure failure than other nations (see: Hati). In addition, we have a much lower incidence of other harm from faulty building (see: Accidental Electrocutions in Brazil).
Wow. Haiti and Brazil. Really striving for the high bar of excellence to meet there, I see.
Ok, genius: Under exactly what acceptable parenting circumstances would your two year olds be trespassing on my property, unsupervised by you?
An intruder breaks in and knocks me unconscious, and my two year old children go looking for an adult to help.
Why should *I* be responsible to fence my property in order to try and (inadequately and inappropriately and indirectly) parent your children for you?
The same reason you should be responsible for making sure your house isn't a fire hazard. Or that your car doesn't leak oil all over the road. Or that your toilets aren't dumping raw sewage into your yard and creating a health hazard.
He who would trade a little liberty to gain a little safety deserves neither, and loses both. Think about that, you statist toad.
Here's another bit of Ben Franklin's wisdom you crazy Libertarians never seem to consider:
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
You're kidding, right? Permanent corporations, corporate personhood and direct interference with the money supply is a libertarian Utopia?
Indeed. People looking for the "Libertarian Utopia" should be casting their eyes towards Africa. There, you can watch the results of "I've got mine, fuck the rest of you" as they develop.
And everyone else in the highly competitive restaurant industry will be running around in fear of getting a report on the news about customers getting sick at THEIR restaurant.
Which isn't particularly helpful to the poor fuckers who are dead.
Because the public service is a building to is slowly crumbling to the ground, or ridden with drugs, and yet I still am expected to pay for that POS.
Yes. That's so that when you aren't rich enough to pay out of pocket for your health care, you can actually get treatment instead of being left in the street to die.
If you don't use a service, you should not have to pay for it.
Ah. You're one of those guys who thinks the police shouldn't investigate a crime unless the victim pays up front. I imagine you'd have an awesome time in Somalia.
Well it happens in the US, not just in healthcare but also schools. If I choose to attend a private hospital/school instead of the public variant, I must pay EXTRA money on top of the money I paid to the Uncle Sam monopoly.
That's because you are paying for something the public services do not provide (otherwise why would you be paying for it).