> designing a human process around pathological cases leads to processes that are themselves pathological.
I really, really wish this writer had been the guy in charge of the TSA back when the “shoe bomber” incident had gone down.
I really, really wish this writer had been the guy in charge of the TSA back when the “shoe bomber” incident had gone down.
Part of why the answer for hiring fakes is 'do nothing' is because the downside there just isn't that bad, it's several orders of magnitude less destructive than "plane with dozens of people on board explodes".
Is it because someone tried in an airplane once? Tried and failed? Would you change your mind about Starbucks if someone tried and succeeded?
The whole point of that article is that you can’t design around extreme edge cases. If we used shoe bomb security theater logic around all aspects of flying, there would be no airline industry.
Likewise the "no liquids" thing because of a risk of "binary explosives".
Now weight the potential impact of the downside by the cost to society/taxpayers.