I could see some temporary ones in the future, kind of (in the form of "it's literally like 130 F outside, you will get heat stroke, do not leave your air-conditioned buildings in the afternoon today") but permanent???

@evergreenemily yeah, they have some wild theories, "15 minute cities are actually about not letting you leave your 15 minute by foot wide district without Soros' personal permission" style

@CodeandSolder Are they mentally stable?

@JohnSmithb9be I do not feel qualified to pass judgement, they do however seem to follow a vastly different set of epistemics from me and most other people

@JohnSmithb9be I'm not a psychologist, but conspiracy theorists do tend to exhibit basically every symptom associated with being delusional...

@CodeandSolder the weak form of this ("the rich and powerful see reduced travel by lower and middle class people as a result of giving up their cars because they're no longer essential to living as a good thing") seems plausible to me

@Adam that's a homeopathic version lol

Also, travelling long distances by car is already mostly a USA thing, in Europe we get on a $20 plane and not suffer for a day for no reason

@CodeandSolder I'd rather drive, personally, but to each their own!

@CodeandSolder I'd travel mostly by bus and train if I could. So much about Europe seems great from the perspective of this American who dislikes car dependency...

@evergreenemily the trains, yeah, no, don't believe NUMTOT too much lol, on long distances they often cost several times more than a booked early plane, are generally relatively inconvenient and in my country break way too often, I don't personally know anybody who uses them internationally as a first choice

Inter-city mass transit is good to amazing though and the art of filling Boeing 737s to the brim has been mastered thoroughly

@CodeandSolder I guess taking flights in Europe is less miserable since they don't have the TSA. I got a pat-down last time I tried taking a flight here and I've avoided planes since.

@evergreenemily I'm patted down every time I go through one of the CT scanners; they don't like my stomach.

@evergreenemily I mean, we do have a security theatre system but it's pretty painless, usually a 5-15min queue, metal detector and carry-on scanning, I haven't seen patdowns or any effort put into it really though

@evergreenemily as large luggage costs like $60 which is usually more than the ticket the norm is to fly with just the carry-on which means we can get to the airport 30min before departure and still make it, it's glorious

Also, on most airports you can pay ~$20 to skip the security line and pretty much walk straight to your gate

There is also an option to pay the boarding queue for some reason, I'm not sure if people are aware the plane departs at the same time for everybody on board

@Adam The one time it happened to me, it was because I was openly presenting as trans (i.e. had changed my gender on all my documents to F) and my body didn't match the "female" type according to their system. Those scanners are a massive invasion of privacy; I really wish they'd just stick to the metal detectors instead.

@CodeandSolder That's what it was always like for me when I was younger; just a metal detector, no big deal. I wish flying here was that easy - I actually like the experience and like being in airports, but airport security in the U.S. is just way too much for me at the moment. If I end up living in Washington long-term, maybe I'll start taking flights from Vancouver instead - takes longer, but might be worth it regardless, since crossing the border into Canada is very painless.

I wonder if those people just really want window seats or something? Or they're just really, really impatient, or think that they're better than everyone else and shouldn't have to wait in a queue like the Common Folk.

@evergreenemily

That does sound like a terrible experience, I guess it's not easy to stop all the zero terrorist attacks TSA ever stopped though.

We have numbered seats (picking one costs extra) so it does not matter there.

And I also don't wait in the queue, I just sit until it gets to the last few people lol

Also, the art of squeezing every last dollar to keep the tickets cheap is truly amazing, for example Ryanair sells scratch-off tickets onboard and the revenue from that exceeds net profit most quarters

There is this amazing interview with the CEO: https://youtu.be/xmGRGv2jEkg

@CodeandSolder The TSA is definitely not a waste of taxpayer money. Definitely. /s

The fact that it doesn't even matter definitely makes it confusing, then. What are they doing...?

Southwest kinda does that in the U.S. - my partner and I always flew Southwest since they don't charge extra fees for everything, have a bunch of different sections of their planes for Only Wealthy People to sit in, etc...you just buy your ticket and get on the plane, and that's all they charge you for unless you bring an absurd amount of luggage. You can pay extra to board earlier, but you can also check-in earlier to board earlier, so...it doesn't make much of a difference.

@evergreenemily my best model for TSA is as follows: TSA wants to expand for all the normal reasons organizations want that. Nobody wants to get in the way of that because if they do and an incident happens "senator X voted against rectal probes for the TSA and months later a terrorist smuggled 7 pounds of C4 up the rectum" makes for a good attack ad regardless of TSA's abysmal efficiency record. Additionally the company that charges enough money to provide housing to 1000 people for a year for said probe has lobbyists working hard to convince whoever approves the funding it's a good purchase. And maybe offering them kickbacks or at least the opportunity to buy $BUTT stock before the contract is signed.