Stupidity rocks Boston
Jan. 31st, 2007 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prusikI was going to blog about the LED displays intended to plug Aqua Teen Hunger Force that have been in place in 10 cities for over two weeks now, but have caused a crisis only in Boston. However, Uncle Jim at Making Light has already done a good job of pointing out how stupid this is.
Ok, perhaps someone got overanxious and called it into the police. The police have to treat it seriously when they first get word. That's understandable. However, once the police determine that it's not a threat, I don't understand why they can't just stand down. As near as I can tell, what happened was they figured these things were not bombs and then proceeded to treat them as if they were and as if there were a viable terrorist threat anyways. I totally fail to see how this is helpful.
They determined the boxes had no explosives in them, and then blew them up anyways. Actually, I'm not sure that they determined the boxes had no explosives in them first. But that's screwy either way. If they knew there were no explosives, why blow them up? If they didn't know, wouldn't they have figured it out rather quickly?
If WBUR quoted the authorities correctly, they were reduced to saying that these boxes "had elements in common with improvised explosive devices." This is sort of like saying, "Terrorists breath air. Human beings breath air. Ohmigod! We have to treat all human beings as terrorists!" Actually, now that I've put it this way, I guess they're actually being consistent (even if the logic is faulty).
We seem terminally incapable of saying that this was a false alarm and there is nothing to worry about. Even after Turner made its press release, the police seemed unwilling to admit that there was no nefarious plot involved and Mayor Menino was still threatening jail time for those involved with this "hoax." This is an awful lot of tough talk for a bunch of signs which displayed cartoon characters with LEDs.
And that's the other thing that bugs me looking at the news coverage. It's now a meme that this incident was some sort of "hoax." This is not a hoax. A hoax requires deception. There was no deception here. If those who placed those boxes claimed they were bombs or if the boxes did bomb-like things, then this would be a hoax. As it is, the only people who thought these might be bombs were the people who found them and discovered they weren't. Just because they jumped to a wrong initial conclusion does not mean some outside agent deceived them. They deceived themselves. That's not a hoax. That's a somewhat embarrassing valuable life lesson which we should all learn from.
Update: OMG, they've arrested someone. At least Fox News is calling it a "marketing ploy" rather than a "hoax." The negative connotation is still there but at least they're no longer implying that anyone wanted anyone to think the LED displays were bombs. I'm still a bit sad that they're still calling those displays "suspicious devices." One would have thought they would have stopped being suspicious once everyone knew exactly what they did.
OTOH, we're talking about people who determined there was no threat and then shut down the transportation infrastructure anyways, just in case. It's sad to see our leader lead with the same reasoning that causes people to propagate chain letters and urban legends.
Ok, perhaps someone got overanxious and called it into the police. The police have to treat it seriously when they first get word. That's understandable. However, once the police determine that it's not a threat, I don't understand why they can't just stand down. As near as I can tell, what happened was they figured these things were not bombs and then proceeded to treat them as if they were and as if there were a viable terrorist threat anyways. I totally fail to see how this is helpful.
They determined the boxes had no explosives in them, and then blew them up anyways. Actually, I'm not sure that they determined the boxes had no explosives in them first. But that's screwy either way. If they knew there were no explosives, why blow them up? If they didn't know, wouldn't they have figured it out rather quickly?
If WBUR quoted the authorities correctly, they were reduced to saying that these boxes "had elements in common with improvised explosive devices." This is sort of like saying, "Terrorists breath air. Human beings breath air. Ohmigod! We have to treat all human beings as terrorists!" Actually, now that I've put it this way, I guess they're actually being consistent (even if the logic is faulty).
We seem terminally incapable of saying that this was a false alarm and there is nothing to worry about. Even after Turner made its press release, the police seemed unwilling to admit that there was no nefarious plot involved and Mayor Menino was still threatening jail time for those involved with this "hoax." This is an awful lot of tough talk for a bunch of signs which displayed cartoon characters with LEDs.
And that's the other thing that bugs me looking at the news coverage. It's now a meme that this incident was some sort of "hoax." This is not a hoax. A hoax requires deception. There was no deception here. If those who placed those boxes claimed they were bombs or if the boxes did bomb-like things, then this would be a hoax. As it is, the only people who thought these might be bombs were the people who found them and discovered they weren't. Just because they jumped to a wrong initial conclusion does not mean some outside agent deceived them. They deceived themselves. That's not a hoax. That's a somewhat embarrassing valuable life lesson which we should all learn from.
Update: OMG, they've arrested someone. At least Fox News is calling it a "marketing ploy" rather than a "hoax." The negative connotation is still there but at least they're no longer implying that anyone wanted anyone to think the LED displays were bombs. I'm still a bit sad that they're still calling those displays "suspicious devices." One would have thought they would have stopped being suspicious once everyone knew exactly what they did.
OTOH, we're talking about people who determined there was no threat and then shut down the transportation infrastructure anyways, just in case. It's sad to see our leader lead with the same reasoning that causes people to propagate chain letters and urban legends.
