What Are the Odds?

This is kind of funny in a non-kind of funny way. It does look kind of fun. But only kind of.

I think it says a great message and is funny as hell. I'd do the same thing. I've had it with over seriousness and loss of dignity in the airport by the security.

It's been done before, and much better, by Ashley Klinger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv1va9Jdt7g

link broken -> new link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHdEy_3PaKk

it's not the two guys sending out the wrong message Betty, it's your sh*tty security. If it's a problem for you then just don't allow it to happen!

"it gives the perception the airport is sitting out there unguarded"

The airport is sitting out there unguarded. TSA seems to only hire people from the Barney Fife school of nonsense. Anyone with a IQ higher then a cow pie can outsmart the TSA. Luckily there hasn't been any terrorist actions to stop - otherwise the security theater would need to get a new venue.

I would sit quietly and read a book. Then I would read another book. If I ran out of books, I'd buy one from the airport bookstore.

With dignity you also have indignity. I'd rather do without either. I'll do what is required and no more. If people cannot have respect for necessity and guard against excess, I can vacate. If mistreatment of the human is a requirement for air travel. I'll stay home.

Guards generally, are only to keep so-called "honest" people honest. The average person, and that means you and I, have a tendency to go off the rails when there is nothing keeping us on track. Make us the guards and we fly right off. I know of, and have practiced techniques (in my earlier years) of deception which render pretty much all security measures useless. They play right into basic human cognition and completely deceive their victims. I'll give you an example I got from a cop: An officer is patrolling late at night when he observes 3 or 4 men moving electronics into a van from a nearby retail store. He drives his cruiser into the parking lot and gets out. The men moving the electronics don't scatter and they don't stop moving product. They wait for the officer to ask them questions and they casually answer. It went something like this:

Officer: What are you doing?
Thief: Moving Electronics.
Officer: It's kind of late to be doing this.
Thief: I know, orders came in at the last minute, I wish it were otherwise, but that's business. We are struggling to get them out the door as it is.
Officer: Well, maybe I can give you a hand with them and get you home a bit earlier.

Apparently the officer was pretty humiliated when he told his precinct what happened and they turned him onto the truth of the matter. But he shouldn't have been, these techniques are pretty safe. Mind you, it takes some skill to not lose it, and once you have the skill its easy to get obsessed with the power.

I was going to give you a whole run-down of deceptive techniques that, when combined, are pretty solid cons. I was also going to suggest ways to detect cons and even elaborate on the condition of humans that makes us ripe for deception. But I think I'll leave it as is. Unless there is high demand for such description, which presumably there isn't.